- Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says Sony’s decision to scrap physical discs is “fairly dramatic”
- Layden recalls a time when digital sales “were zero percent” because Sony didn’t have a market
- He believes the move will also mean the PS6 won’t have a disc drive
Former PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden has shared his opinion on Sony’s decision to stop producing physical discs and its plan to move all-digital, calling it “a fairly dramatic decision.”
Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer following the bombshell news, the PlayStation veteran of 32 years confirmed that he had “no idea it was going to happen and “don’t necessarily agree with it.”
As for why he thinks Sony has made the decision, he suggested, “Maybe it’s just too prohibitively expensive to stamp out discs,” but believes that any big move to discontinue a product, feature, or model is “largely” a “straight spreadsheet [decision].”
“What are disc sales compared to digital sales? And I’m old enough to remember when digital sales were like 10 percent – I’m old enough to remember when digital sales were zero percent because we didn’t have a digital market! And that number just grew over time,” Layden said.
The ex-PlayStation leader suggested the COVID pandemic played a role in accelerating the purchase and consumption of digital games over physical, and believes that Sony’s decision could mean the PS6 won’t have a disc drive.
Analysts have also determined that the next-gen PS6 console will launch in late 2028 and won’t have a disc drive, or at the very least, one will be sold separately “to play older PS4 and PS5 games on disc.”
In fact, Layden revealed that ditching the PlayStation’s disc drive was something the company considered for a year while he worked there.
“I’ve been asked this question every year for the last 20 years. ‘When are you guys going to just give up on the disc drive?’ My feeling with that was always: well, when I get to a place where I’m comfortable enough to believe that worldwide, broadband throughput is good enough to support that download experience, good enough to reach the majority of customers,” Layden said.
He clarified, “Majority does not mean entirety, so there is a point, a tipping point, where if I have 80 percent of the opportunity, which represents 95 percent of the revenue source, what’s my incentive to keep the lights on for the other 20 percent if it’s effectively only 5 percent of the business? See what I’m saying? At some point, it just becomes obvious that we can’t keep this whole thing running just for this very small slice of opportunity.”
While Layden admits that Sony had always been “pretty good” at determining the risk of overestimating regional internet infrastructure, “because unlike Xbox, PlayStation had a wider global fanbase, and not just in the numbers, but in the reach, because Sony Corp had reach all over the world,” there are also players who do not have access to the internet, such as people in military bases.
“The idea that they could still buy a PlayStation 4 game, throw it in a machine, and play was important. You don’t want to leave those people behind,” Layden said.
“I don’t know what went on in those conversations, but it’s a fairly dramatic decision.”
As Sony plans to scrap physical discs, there are also concerns about the inability to resell games or buy them second-hand in the future, which Layden said “used to be a huge factor” in the business, but the rise of digital games “kind of quashed that used-game business, and made it hard for folks who were making a nickel in the secondary market by selling them.”
However, he doesn’t necessarily believe this drove Sony’s decision because it’s been happening over time, but thinks “we’ve reached some kind of homeostasis where it’s in a weird sort of balance.”
“Second-hand gaming still occurs, obviously, but it’s not material anymore to the business to worry about, I think,” Layden added.
Following Sony’s announcement, new reports claimed that the company is testing a disc-to-digital feature for existing consoles and could also release a next-gen Project Helix console without a disc drive.
While there’s no telling whether Microsoft plans to follow Sony’s all-digital business practice later on, Layden believes the huge decision could influence other companies, including Microsoft and Nintendo, to follow suit.
“Certainly, this is an industry where if one company, particularly the leader of the industry, makes a decision of this magnitude, that’s going to heavily influence what the other ones do,” he said.
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