// PC GAMER — GAMING
Fresh off of dumping on Xbox's flailing, former Sony exec says PlayStation's pullback from PC releases doesn't make any sense either
Shawn Layden is a man with opinions, and now that he's out of the game he doesn't mind sharing them.
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Earlier this month, former SIE Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said the still-ongoing flailing at Xbox "evince a basic misunderstanding of how the interactive entertainment world moves." Harsh words indeed—but lest you think he's just a partisan hater, he's now taken aim at his former company, Sony, and its pullback from the PC market.
It's been quite a turnaround from Sony. After years of dogged exclusivity, Sony began releasing its games on PC to significant success—to the point that Shuhei Yoshida, also a former SIE Worldwide Studios boss, said it was "almost like printing money."
But earlier this year, Sony began backing away from the strategy, and while no formal announcement was ever made, it soon became clear that a PC pullback is happening.
Layden, who also previously served as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and executive vice president and COO of Sony Network Entertainment International, addressed the shift in a new interview with PSI, beginning by noting that in his mind, at least, bringing Sony games to PC was never about making money—it was about getting Sony properties in front of people who otherwise wouldn't see it.
"Not necessarily because they're going to buy a PlayStation," Layden said. "I wasn't that crazy. I didn't think that was going to happen.
"But as we take our intellectual property across other media, whether it's into films or whether it's in television or in comic books or into merchandise, whatever, you need to have as many eyeballs that are aware of this character, of this story, and just concentrating on the PlayStation population and only telling them these stories, and then try to bring it off of that platform into different media, that's going to be a hell of a jump."
While some have suggested that releasing PlayStation games on PC could "devalue" the brand, Layden says the strategy of holding them back for a year or so effectively addresses that concern: "I think if someone's waiting 18 months for something to come on PC, we didn't lose a sale to them. They weren't going to buy the hardware anyway."
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