Shawn Layden, who formerly headed up PlayStation's first-party studios, reckons game consoles as we know them will eventually become "irrelevant".

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, the ex-Sony suit talked at length about where consoles are heading, pointing to the plateauing power curve and commoditised hardware found in current machines.

"Frankly, we have to start interrogating what the purpose is of a proprietary console, and whether that can continue to be true," Layden says. He discusses the huge leap in hardware from PS1 to PS2, and PS2 to PS3. Comparably, more modern transitions are becoming less and less impactful.

"PS3 to PS4 was just, like, getting the network thing [online gaming and features] done right. Then to PS5, which is a fantastic piece of kit, but the actual difference in performance... we're getting to the realm, frankly, where only dogs can hear the difference now," He says.

A PS1 to PS2 style jump in performance isn't going to happen, as we've "sort of maxed out there", he continues. "If we're talking about teraflops and ray-tracing, we're already off the sheet that most people begin to understand."

As well as diminishing returns with new hardware, Layden brings up how modern consoles are, under the hood, "pretty much the same chipset". While each console will have "their own OS and proprietary secret sauce", he thinks we're "pretty much close to final spec for what a console could be".

It all feeds into a broader point, which is that at some stage, the console under your TV won't matter at all. He thinks the real competition will come instead from what content they offer. "And content should be the competition for publishers, not which hardware you get behind," Says Layden. "I think we're at a point where the console becomes irrelevant in the next... if not the next generation then the next next generation definitely."

What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you think consoles will remain relevant for the foreseeable, or are we heading for a more homogenised hardware landscape going forward? Let us know in the comments section below.

Posted: Dec 09, 2024 10:21 am
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/12/ex-playstation-boss-thinks-the-days-of-consoles-are-numbered