Shawn Layden, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, shared his opinion on the future of the console industry in an interview.
He acknowledged that consoles are increasingly resembling PCs, as PlayStation games are appearing more frequently on PCs, and Xbox is releasing games that would have previously been exclusives. But Layden is confident that exclusives will not disappear.
Not every game has to be a console exclusive, but for Sony and PlayStation, exclusives still play an important role.
He cited the Uncharted series as an example, emphasizing that such games make the platform unique.
If Mario starts appearing on PlayStation, that's the end.
Layden also expressed the opinion that multiplayer games should be cross-platform to support an active community. This, in his opinion, could be the reason for the release of Helldivers 2 on Xbox.
He compared it to how Sony lost VHS to Betamax (a consumer analog video cassette format). According to him, this happened because other companies produced VHS players, distributing them among a larger number of households, while Betamax remained exclusive for most of its life cycle. Now all consoles are in the Betamax camp, but Layden doesn't think it will always be that way.
