Former PlayStation exec says console arms race has plateaued

Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has said he believes that the games console power arms race has plateaued, and that a majority of consumers are not interested in marginally more powerful machines.

Layden, who during a 30-year career at Sony served as CEO of SIE America and chairman of Worldwide Studios, was asked by VGC at Gamescom Asia if the pursuit of incrementally more powerful consoles can continue sustainably in the future, considering increasing development costs.

“We’ve done these things this way for 30 years, every generation those costs went up and we realigned with it,” he replied. “We’ve reached the precipice now, where the center can’t hold, we cannot continue to do things that we have done before.”

Layden added that he believes that in order for the console market to remain healthy, they must also appeal to a broad audience and consumers who weren’t previously players.

“It’s time for a real hard reset on the business model, a hard reset on what it is to be a video game,” he said. “It’s not 80 hours, it’s not 90 hours, but if it is that’s a whole different category.”

When asked about future console hardware, Layden said he believed that a power boost on its own would not appeal to the majority of players.

“It has plateaued. We’re at the stage of hardware development that I call ‘only dogs can hear the difference’,” he said.

“If you’re playing your game and sunlight is coming through your window onto your TV, you’re not seeing any ray tracing. It has to be super optimal… you have to have an 8K monitor in a dark room to see these things.

“We’re fighting over teraflops and that’s no place to be. We need to compete on content. Jacking up the specs of the box, I think we’ve reached the ceiling.”

Sony will introduce its PlayStation 5 Pro next month. Sporting a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI-driven upscaling for new and existing titles, the mid-generation upgrade will cost  $700 / £700 / €800.

While a special 30th-anniversary edition of the machine sold out instantly, the console itself is currently readily available at most retailers at the time of writing.

Layden concluded: “That race is nearly over, and you know who won? AMD.”