Shawn Layden spent more than 30 years at Sonynotably becoming president of Sony Computer Entertainment Americathen president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studiosmanaging the developers first-party of the firm until 2019. He now has a position as strategic advisor at Tencenthe therefore follows the world of video games with as much attention as ever.
Present at the Gamescom AsiaShawn Layden answered a few questions, including those from VGC, in order to address the race for the most powerful console and ever more realistic graphics. His speech almost goes against the grain of the market, but it makes sense for many players:
We’ve done things this way for 30 years, with each generation these costs have increased and we’ve pivoted accordingly. We have reached the precipice now, where the center can no longer hold, we cannot continue to do the things we have done before.
It is time for a real reset of the economic model, to a complete reset of what it means to be a video game. It’s not 80 hours, it’s not 90 hours, but if it is, that’s a whole different category.
We have reached a plateau. We are in the development stage of what I call “only dogs can hear the difference” equipment.
If you’re playing your game and sunlight shines through your window onto your TV, you won’t see 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 are fighting for teraflops and this is not the time to be here. We have to compete on content. By increasing the box specifications, I think we’ve reached the ceiling.
This race is almost over, and you know who won? AMD.
The race for power is over and it is the manufacturer of processors and graphics cards embedded in home consoles who has won, this is Shawn Layden’s speech. As a reminder, the former head of SHE had already advocated for a return to shorter video games, then worried about the cost of development of these ever more ambitious, ever longer and ever more beautiful titles.
Will the video game market listen to this advice? Mystery. In any case, Sony will launch its PlayStation 5 Pro next monthShawn Layden obviously doesn’t love it, but you can pre-order it for €799.99 on Amazon, Cdiscount and Fnac.
Also read: PREVIEW PS5 Pro: we played it, here are our first impressions
| Clint008 Editor – Tester |
