Former PlayStation boss says that video game acquisitions “can be an enemy of creativity”
Shawn Layden also says we’re threatened by “rising costs in gaming”
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The former president and CEO ofSonyInteractive Entertainment America, Shawn Layden, has shared his concerns about what he believes to be threats to the games industry, and warned that acquisitions can serve as “an enemy of creativity”.
As GamesIndustry.bizreports, during the GI Investment Summit last week, Layden spoke about acquisitions, growing costs, and the impact that non-endemic brands could have on the industry as a whole.
“First, consolidation can be an enemy of creativity," he stated. “I also think rising costs in gaming are an existential threat to all of us. And the entry of non-endemics into the sector – otherwise known as the ‘barbarians at the gate.'”
He continued, suggesting that non-endemic companies such asAppleand Netflix could “disrupt our industry” by “wanting to get a piece” of it. However, it was pointed out by the head of GamesIndustry.biz, Christopher Dring, that PlayStation itself was first introduced to the games industry by a non-endemic brand, Sony.
“PlayStation knew that we couldn’t do what Sega and Nintendo did and [provide the bulk of the software], we didn’t know enough how to make it,” Layden stated. “We had to be the third-party platform, so we had to get Namco, Square, EA, Activision. Those Sony Music guys are the ones that got Square to moveFinal Fantasy7off of Nintendo and onto PlayStation, probably the biggest sea change move.
“So yeah, we weren’t endemic, but I think we brought the entertainment piece in, which really helped accelerate the success of PlayStation.”
On the topic of video game acquisitions,Microsoftis still in the process of trying to push through its buyout of ActivisionBlizzard. Last month, Microsoft announced itsplans to sell the streaming rights for Activision Blizzard gamesto Ubisoft, assuming that the buyout goes ahead. Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, confirmed that this was to “address the UK CMA’s concerns regarding cloud streaming”.
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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.
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