Second Shawn LaydenFormer CEO of Sony PlayStation, in his current form Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google and other multinational companies not specific to the gaming industry, The biggest threat to the market.
In his interview with GamesIndustry, Layden explained that these companies were very interested in the growing turnover of this industry and started investing to get a share of the profits. According to him, the risk is that these interventions from outside will profoundly change the gaming market and not necessarily for the better.
“Right now, all the big players in the market are saying, ‘Oh, the game?’ “We see him thinking. ‘Is it bringing in billions of dollars a year? I want a piece of it too.’ And so Google, Netflix, Apple and Amazon want to join the industry and They’re trying to take him down” said Layden.
The former PlayStation boss gave the example of how Apple disrupted the music industry with songs sold for $0.99 on iTunes, or how Netflix and its streaming platform had an irreversible impact on the film industry.
“I hope the gaming industry will be the first industry to self-destruct,” he continued. “Where you don’t need Google or Amazon to completely turn the situation around. We have to be smart enough to do that.” anticipate these changes and prepare ourselves for this possibility.”
Speaking of “self-destruction”, according to Layden, the other main threats to the current gaming market are consolidation of the industry, which, in his opinion, “can be the enemy of creativity” andincrease in game development costshe called it an “existential threat.”
Sony’s entry into the gaming market
Layden also spoke How did Sony enter the gaming market? The difficulties of competing with Nintendo and Sega, the industry’s established and branched companies, with the PlayStation brand, born thanks to the joint venture of Sony Electronics and Sony Music Japan, and finally finding the ideal solution to make PS1 “third-party consoles”.
“PlayStation knew we couldn’t do what Sega and Nintendo did, and [fornire la maggior parte del software]We didn’t know enough how to produce. we were supposed to be third party platformSo we had to acquire Namco, Square, EA and Activision,” Layden said.
“It was the guys at Sony Music who convinced Square to move Final Fantasy 7 from Nintendo to PlayStation, which was probably the biggest change in direction. So yeah, we weren’t endemic, but I think we brought in some fun things that really helped speed up the game.” The success of PlayStation.”