Former PlayStation bigwig Shawn Layden has touched base on Sony’s decision to scrap PlayStation game discs in January 2028, acknowledging that while the majority of gamers opt for digital purchases nowadays, those that prefer physical goods are hardcore collectors. Furthermore, he argued that if you can’t sell something, then you don’t technically own it.
Layden had previously reacted to the news in early July and mentioned that he doesn’t “necessarily agree” with the decision, although suggested that it may simply be too “prohibitively expensive to stamp out discs.”
Now, speaking on The Expansion Podcast, Layden, who served as Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios Chairman prior to his 2019 departure, spoke at length about the company’s decision to scrap physical media. Firstly, he made it clear he wasn’t aware of any financial circumstances that may have resulted in Sony making the choice, but overall doesn’t seem too convinced it’s the right decision.
Not having been in the room, I don’t know what the what the stressors were around that, and what the spreadsheet said – because I’m sure this is heavily spreadsheeted decision, where the costs are being contained and where the profit is being extracted. I don’t know any of that. I do think that gamers are… yeah, we like the digital download. People said ‘oh, downloading a game is easier than going to the store’. No, no. Downloading a game is easier than going across my living room to put a disc in the machine. I don’t even have to do that. I just press a button on my controller and I don’t have to move. And the convenience of that is is unquestioned.
But I do think, particularly in in the gaming realm, maybe 80% of the people download and 20% don’t, or whatever that breakdown is going to be. But that’s a super important 20%. I mean, that is largely the most faithful of the faithful. That is, many times, the people who buy two copies of every game, right? One never gets out of the shrink wrap, right? And you play the other one. It’s just like comic book collectors. you always buy two comic books.
I think this is probably the more insidious aspect to it, is that it changes the conversation [to] ‘do you own a game or do you have access to a digital asset’, right? If you can’t sell a thing, that means you don’t own a thing. And if you don’t own it, then what are you buying? If you’re buying access, that doesn’t quite sound as sexy, to be honest. And people, as people tend to do, in their mind they’ll game out the worst case scenario.
And that’s a whole lot of brand hit and reputation bite that – as I said, I don’t have any visibility on the financials around it – but that’s a significant brand hit, and I hope it made sense to them.
Last month, Layden revealed in a chat with HipHopGamer that he would have given the green light to new Resistance and Jak & Daxter games by now if he remained at Sony. Layden, who served as chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios prior to leaving the format holder, recently touched base on rumours about a PS6 handheld during a chat with KiwiTalkz, noting Sony has traditionally struggled handling two pieces of hardware.
[Source – The Expansion Pass via VGC]