For PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, ex-PlayStation America CEO Shawn Layden has candidly talked about his experiences working at Sony.
While he may have left Sony back in 2019, Shawn Layden, the former head of PlayStation America, remains an important figure in the brand’s history, having been a part of it since the original PlayStation.
Given how outspoken he’s been in the following years, rightfully criticising the games industry’s obsession with expensive blockbusters and realistic graphics, it’s almost a shame he’s not part of Sony anymore and thus has no influence on its current trajectory.
He certainly seems to have a better understanding of what the likes of Sony and Microsoft need to be doing to address the industry’s current problems, as he reflects on how the PlayStation 4 beat the Xbox One last generation.
For PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, Layden sat down with Eurogamer for an interview about his time at Sony. When the subject of the PlayStation 3 was brought up – the one home console Sony struggled with – Layden described it as the company’s ‘Icarus moment.’
‘We flew too close to the sun, and we were lucky and happy to have survived the experience, but it taught us a lot,’ explained Layden. This is what ultimately led to Sony’s games first mentality for the PlayStation 4 which, given its financial success, proved to be the right course of action.
‘It’s not about whether I can stream movies or play music. Can I order a pizza while I’m watching TV and play? No, just make it a game machine. Just make it the best game machine of all time,’ continued Layden.
He’s clearly taking a bit of a crack at how Microsoft seemed to push everything but gaming for the Xbox One, adding, ‘[They wanted to] build more of a multimedia experience, and we just wanted to build a kick ass game machine.’
Combined with the brouhaha around Microsoft restricting how Xbox One owners could share games with friends, this led to the iconic Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video, which Layden accurately described as ‘devastating in its simplicity.’
He also revealed how the video was very much made on the fly: ‘We said, ‘what’s our answer to the sharing question?’ And in a moment of inspiration, they came up with that.’
While the PlayStation 5 has also been an unambiguous success, perhaps Sony needs to remember these lessons. At the moment, the company’s efforts to chase the live service games trend haven’t been working and there’s been a noticeable dearth of exciting first party exclusives this past year and on Sony’s current release schedule.
Elsewhere in the interview, Layden discussed his favourite PlayStation 1 games, which includes little known sports title ESPN Extreme Games. Although his reasons for liking it are mostly sentimental, since it was the first game he ever worked on.
He also picked MediEvil as his choice for a retro franchise he’d love to see Sony revisit. That seems less understandable, as the games were never very popular and the 2019 remake was a flop.
The games also weren’t particularly good and, to be honest, if any PlayStation 1 IP needs a revival our vote goes to future racing series WipEout, which hasn’t had a proper entry since the Omega Collection remasters in 2017.
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