Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden, who led Sony's gaming division throughout most of its famed PS4 generation, reckons the industry has kind of hit a ceiling tech-wise and thinks most people can't even tell the difference between 90fps or 120fps anyway. (I'm the most people he's talking about.)
Layden's comments come at a time when console generations in particular are becoming less and less dramatic. The shift from 2D gaming to 3D gaming was, ahem, game-changing. The Xbox to Xbox 360 jump ushered in HD graphics and beefed up online play. The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S generation, by comparison, is only an incremental upgrade.
"I think we've plateaued on the tech, frankly," he said in an interview with gamesindusry.biz. "How many of us can really tell the difference between 90 frames per second and 120 frames per second?"
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So, where do hardware makers and console manufacturers go from here? Layden suggests the focus should be more on affordability and a diversity of manufacturers, rather than pushing upgrades that the human eye would struggle to even notice.
"Make it cheaper and simpler," he said. "Let's do that instead. And let's find a way to have more hardware companies participate."
The ex-exec has been quite chatty recently. Layden also took the time to give props to AA games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for creating more variety in an era where developers are tired of "doing the same thing for so long" and big companies have unsustainably ballooned.
Former PlayStation boss is convinced more console generations will come, but doesn't know if Microsoft will be part of them: "Watching what Xbox has been doing recently, I do get Dreamcast flashbacks"
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