Former Sony Boss Says Consoles Need To Be More Like PCs, But Exclusives Aren’t Going Anywhere
Rhiannon (she/her) is the Deputy News Lead and Chief Reporter at TheGamer. You may have heard her on the BBC or read her words at TechRadar Gaming and TechRaptor. She won MCV’s Journalism Impact for Women in Games in 2025.
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Increasingly, we have seen more and more console exclusives go multi-platform. With PlayStation porting many of its games to PC (and sometimes even Xbox), and Xbox making games that would have typically been exclusives available on PS5 from launch, it’s understandable why some believe that exclusive games are a thing of the past.
However, former Sony Interactive Entertainment America president and CEO Shawn Layden says we shouldn’t get our hopes up just yet. Even though the future of consoles will be much more like the PC ecosystem, he still believes that console exclusives will persist, citing Uncharted as one series that we shouldn’t expect to see available anywhere other than PlayStation at launch.
Console Exclusives Aren t Dead, Says Former PlayStation Boss
This comes from Pause for Thought’s interview with Shawn Layden, touching on how he feels about the current state of the gaming industry.
“I don’t think every game has to be console exclusive. I don’t think every game should be console-exclusive,” says Layden. “But I do accept the fact that if you’re going to have platform companies, like Sony and PlayStation […] there is huge value to the brand in having strong exclusives.
“If Mario starts appearing on PlayStation, that’s the apocalypse”, he continues. “And the same goes for Nathan Drake and Uncharted. They make the platforms sing”.
However, he does concede that massively multiplayer games ought to be multiplatform, since they need to grow and maintain a playerbase. That mentality is likely why we saw Helldivers 2 eventually launch on Xbox Series X/S.
Despite this, Layden does feel that we will see some change. In fact, he feels that PlayStation will have to take a bold leap to increase sales now – let other companies make its consoles.
“How much longer do we live in the world of dedicated consoles?” says Layden. “If you had to by a Sony CD player to listen to Sony music, that would be crazy. But you do need to buy a PlayStation to buy a Sony game.”
He likens this to how Sony lost against VHS with Betamax. He says this is because other companies were manufacturing VHS players, getting them into more households, whereas Betamax stayed exclusive for most of its lifecycle. Right now, all consoles are in the Betamax camp, but Layden doesn’t think it will remain this way forever.
“I think we need to get into a world where we have a gaming format, and maybe it just comes from PC,” he argues. “Then, we have a consortium around that, we have licensing programs which allow other manufacturers to build into that space, and then you can talk about real numbers moving. That’s how you get to the ubiquity of the toaster.”
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We already know that the next Xbox will be more like a PC, and with the Steam Machine entering the ring, some big players are going all in on giving consumers the freedom that comes with that. However, with Sony watching Microsoft crash and burn, it’s unlikely that they would suddenly start licensing out manufacturing rights for the PlayStation.
In any case, the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S console generation isn’t quite over. We’ll have to wait and see which company announces its next console first.
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I’m sorry, but exclusives are what sell consoles. Look at Nintendo. If you dont have exclusives, what’s the incentive to buy YOUR system over any other? Look at microCRAP. They went all platform, and the xbox sells are next to nothing, and they’ve ADMITTED it. Yes, I get that your games on all platforms make more money, but if you want to have a reason for me to buy your system, I need games that are only on that system.
2025-12-27 13:05:37
