Although he stepped down from his position as Chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2019, Shawn Layden hasn’t been shy about sharing his views about the future of the gaming industry. And the former PlayStation boss believes that that the ongoing conflict of rival consoles between Sony and Microsoft should come to a close.
During an interview with Eurogamer, Layden likens the PlayStation and Xbox competition to the format wars between VHS and Sony’s Betamax decades earlier, which was won by the former before both formats became obsolete.
“With Xbox versus PlayStation, the Ali versus Frazier fight… Frankly, we have to start interrogating what the purpose is of a proprietary console, and whether that can continue to be true,” said Layden. “When you have competing formats, competing platforms, competing technologies, there comes a time when we all declare the war is over… But the real competition will be on its content. And content should be the competition for publishers, not which hardware you get behind. 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.”
Source: Gamespot Former PlayStation Boss Questions Whether Proprietary Consoles Make Sense Anymore