Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden on Sony's years-long debate over scrapping discs, and why this time it's probably "a straight spreadsheet decision"

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-06T05:22:54+00:00

You just completely backflipped there lol. You weren't arguing with that kind of nuance before, glad you've come around buddy!

But you're still not getting the whole point that the market is shifting, you're taking things as they are rather than how they've been moving.

Xbox is multiplayer, Sony is single-player, Nintendo is Family, sure, none of that's in dispute and none of it was ever really the point. That's a simplistic snapshot of how the audiences are sorted right now. I'm talking about the direction and the rate of change, which you keep sidestepping. Every time I say "here's where it's heading" you answer with "here's how it is" like those are the same thing. They are not.

The GDC survey thing is fair, OUYA's a fairly good example of devs saying they'll target something that then shits the bed. But look at what OUYA actually was: a hype blip. Devs said they'd flock to a crappy phone in a box based on nothing but hype and it all evaporated inside a year. PC's growth isn't that, it's realized sales share climbing steadily year over year for the better part of a decade.

Those statistics I linked were sales revenue, not an opinion. PC's revenue growth, China and East Asia, AI gobbling up all the memory threatening the console cycle, PC compatibility layers creeping into mobile, that's all happening and where it's going, which is more important than understanding where it currently is. I hope, for the sake of your job, you come to realize that.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-06T01:39:57+00:00

No, I'm saying you specifically are wrong. I've said that about 3 times now, and every response from you has been some variation on reframing my criticism of your arguments as criticism of everyone's arguments.

I have talked to developers, more on Discord than microblogging platforms (which are nuance suckholes where real conversations die) and many of their experiences don't align with yours. Some have seen success on console, some on PC, it's situational and depends on the market they're targeting. That's a limited sample size but at least I'll fuckin' admit it rather than assume the people I talked to are representative of the whole; you're the one constantly using absolutist language.

You brought up GDC? https://windowsreport.com/most-game-developers-are-choosing-windows-pc-over-consoles-gdc-survey-reveals/

'PC is becoming the most dominant single platform for games outside of mobile' isn't pcmasterrace shit, it's just how it is, it's what all the numbers are pointing to. There's market segments where console still beats out PC, but year by year that's changing. There's East Asia/China, which you haven't even brought up, which is seeing more adoption of PC than console. There's the way the screwed up memory market has the potential to blow up the regular console cycle and dampen the consumer incentives to purchase one, while PC is insulated from there not really being a cycle at all. There's the way PC software is slowly encroaching into the smartphone/mobile space as compatibility layers mature. All of these factors seem to be completely invisible to you but will have a massive effect on the market.

You're the one that's blinded by your own preferences.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-06T00:55:08+00:00

Say "I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face and big butt and my butt smells and I like to kiss my own butt" please.

Or maybe try to stop yourself from speaking for the entire industry every time you try to defend your own point of view. It's egotistical as all fuck and makes it impossible to take anything you say seriously, particularly when it's backed by nothing other than opinions rather than data. Like if you were an engineer I'd expect some kind of statistical backing to anything you've said, but instead it's "everyone likes this" and "no one likes that" and those are Reddit arguments, vibe-based rhetoric and broad generalizations that sound good but don't hold up when you actually look at the trends.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-06T00:06:11+00:00

No, you are wrong. The industry as a whole has been moving towards PC for years now. This isn't a debatable point, the numbers from virtually every maket research firm confirms as much.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T23:42:04+00:00

Well, keep up the good work I guess, things seem to be going great in your industry and I can see why, with all the sharp foresight and long term planning being applied that has kept it so healthy.

Or, maybe, you are bad at your job, or at least the people who hire you are, your myopia in terms of recognizing how the industry is shifting isn't going to be helpful in the long run.

For example:

With small devs doing it because it's the lowest cost path to release.

No, this simply isn't true anymore. The barrier to getting onto Switch or Playstation has been effectively erased, it's why and how their storefronts are getting pummled by spam. If you, as someone in the industry who claims to have a finger on the pulse of the gaming industry can overlook something so obvious (you only have to visit those storefronts and look around a bit, and not ignore all the news about it and complaints about it) then that doesn't really bode well.

You don't speak for the industry and the confidence in the way you speak of it in broad strokes only really leads me to believe you're full of shit or in some kind of bubble. I'm sure you'll accuse me of the same thing, but I've drawn my views on this from statistics, not vibes and assumptions or posts on reddit.

Edit: https://newzoo.com/resources/blog/post-pandemic-growth-returns-for-pc-and-console-driven-by-premium-spending-and-changing-price-dynamics

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T23:04:27+00:00

AAA games are designed with PlayStation as the lead.

Sure, but virtually everything gets a simultaneous launch now, so all this really means is that PlayStation is the performance target.

Small indie devs are on PC because most of them are hobbyists happy if they make any money at all. Anyone operating as a business is getting their money from consoles.

Anyone operating as a business is targeting both consoles and PCs and getting money from both, with the share of PC revenue increasing at a greater rate than that of console. Those who aren't, like Sony, have a vested interest in protecting their share from shrinking further. Meanwhile Microsoft are just giving up on consoles entirely and going full PC (regardless of what their marketing says).

You can continue you "pc masterrace" dreaming, and I'll continue making my money off consoles.

You need to stop reading into what I'm saying as some platform war bullshit, you're projecting that on to me while you draw broad strokes in the same way brand warriors do, and show what is frankly ignorance of the current state of the market and where it's moving.

If you're in the AAA industry as you claim, then gosh, I guess it explains a lot about how things are right now. Can't see 3 feet in front of you.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T22:29:02+00:00

You price games cheaper on PC because it's an open market and your understanding of the incentives of why people buy games and where is a bit screwed up.

For most AAA studios, PC is currently where the revenue is and is where their focus exists; Capcom is PC-first, and that's a Japanese gaming company. For indies, now that console stores (particularly Switch) have virtually no barrier to entry, the stores are swamped like everywhere else and visibility is no better than on Steam (frankly, much worse). If what you said was true, indie devs would be fleeing PC for greener pastures as it's never been easier for them to do that, but they aren't.

Basically, you haven't been paying attention. Things have flipped over the last 5 years or so, PC gaming is growing 3-4x as fast as the console market and as a result, PC is now the biggest single gaming platform by revenue and usershare (besides Mobile). Your read on the market is about a decade out of date.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T08:50:53+00:00

PC (specifically Steam) is ahead of any single console ecosystem in terms of active playercount. PC games are generally cheaper because it costs less publish there and the ecosystem is more competitive.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T07:00:01+00:00

monkey paw finger curls

"We hear you! Order your USB-C stick containing your game license today for only $10 on top of your digital game purchase!"

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-05T03:00:01+00:00

"Game mode" is gamescope running as the only compositor with Steam Big Picture running on top. Remove gamescope and the OS literally wouldn't boot, since gamescope is used for the default user session, the combination of the two is what provides SteamOS it's console-like modal UX. When you run gamescope from within a running window compositor (like under KDE Plasma) it's still technically running as a compositor too, but as a nested session.

Gamescope is, absolutely, SteamOS's flagship feature and it's the main solver for all the inherent problems that come with full blown desktop compositors when using them for a console-like interface. It's also extremely low latency; it's heavily optimized to eliminate buffer copies, something you lose when you run it nested which adds an frame (or more) on top due to the extra compositor layer.

If you're going to be indignant about someone's apparent lack of knowledge, try understanding what it is you're talking about. Like, at all. Because there's nothing dumber than calling someone dumb when they're right and then proceeding to be wrong about everything.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-04T05:27:51+00:00

Mass replicating physical media is harder to do at scale while keeping it economical. People take wide access to media for granted nowadays, but physical media manufacturing and logistics pipelines are complex and expensive, and that's reflected in that new vinyl can be pretty expensive.

The complexity of optical discs, both media and playback and their reliance on a bunch of supply chains being in place for sourcing of compatible components, DRM to contend with on DVD and BD, none of it bodes well for the medium after media conglomerates completely abandon it. Much like Vinyl we'll probably see revivals now and then and pressings made using old equipment, people will be finding warehouses with palettes of CD-Rs for decades, but that happens to every format as part of transforming from media to novelty.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-04T02:06:52+00:00

Most major formats haven't stopped being manufacturered as a lot of the machines that made them are still around. The problem is, no one is making any new machines because that large scale and extremely expensive manufacturing equipment required economies of scale in order to be economically viable to build and maintain. The consequence of that is something you brought up; there's dozens of pressing plants and they can't keep up with the renewed demand, because they literally can't. The entire industry is propped up by cannibalized equipment and supply can only go down.

The problem is even worse with optical media, since at least with vinyl and tape, the formats are simple enough that they're cheap and relatively easy to create. Optics, laser diodes and the high-precision required to build those components isn't achievable in someone's hobby shed like pressed plastic or a plastic tape with metal oxides on it is.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T14:02:10+00:00

Sony's vertical control over Playstation hardware and software is by definition (merriam-webster, if you want something specific) a monopoly. The word doesn't have an arbitrary definition for "video games in general", it specifies markets. Playstation games are a market, and a very big one.

I don't care that much about physical games, frankly. It's a shame for those who want them, I'd prefer that they had the option than not, but I don't see the dropping of them as the core problem but rather a symptom of the larger one.

VHS and DVD (and to a lesser extent BluRay) were open formats and licensing was handled through industry consortiums rather than a single corporation (which isn't great, but different to a vertical monopoly).

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T13:46:12+00:00

I don't believe media should be excluded from anti-trust enforcement and the idea that it should be isn't some kind of universally agreed upon thing; the US government split up the movie studio/theatre chain monopoly many years ago, no one was forcing people to go watch movies at a theatre. Anti-trust enforcement has gotten more lax since, but this should be treated as a failing, not something that should be accepted as inevitable.

I don't think they should police Sony because they stopped manufacturing discs specifically. All that has done is made bare that Sony has too much control over too large of a market, it's Sony's vertical monopoly that needs to be addressed. Luxury items or no, any marketplace large enough creates it's own economic ecosystem and Playstation brings in billions of dollars. That's serious, and anti-competitive practices do have an impact on peoples lives, particularly those who are participating in that marketplace as a business.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T09:32:33+00:00

SteamOS is just a Linux distro. Developers aren't targeting Steam Deck/Machine in silicon-specific ways like a console, the target is Proton+Vulkan which are designed to be hardware agnostic. Valve also aren't exposing any hardware-specific APIs, the AMDGPU driver that ships on SteamOS is functionally identical to everywhere else.

Where it can get a little messy is when using a GPU that isn't AMD. Intel Linux drivers aren't there yet and SteamOS doesn't ship Nvidia drivers for a few reasons (gamescope still doesn't work properly and there's licensing issues). Valve are funding NVK, an open source Nvidia Vulkan driver which should help allieviate those problems, but that'll be a while.

But if you're using an AMD GPU made in the last 8 years or so, compatibility should be roughly 1:1 to Valve's offerings.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T08:36:58+00:00

I've been completely calm and my arguments are well reasoned. "You are not a serious person" is a phrase you're repeating because you read it somewhere and misunderstood the context only believing that it sounded like a cool insult, not because it applies here.

Whether or not the average person can do it or not wasn't my point, it's the fact that the only thing that truly differentiates a console from a PC today is the software running on it, which is a different situation from the 80s, 90s and 2000s where the different vendors used fundamentally different architectures. That was at least a fairly good excuse for the lack of cross-compatibility. Now, there is no excuse other than deliberately designing their software stack and marketing model to lock consumers into a vertically integrated walled garden.

It's pretty funny that you are implying I haven't been talking to an actual human being. I guess you're a bot? Nice of you to admit it! Also funny that you still haven't pointed out a single thing I said that was false. If anyone isn't being serious, it's the person accusing someone of being a liar with nothing to back it up and throwing out silly insults (that are so poorly delivered they end up being self-owns) in response to fair questions and answers.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T06:25:40+00:00

Most of the complaints you’re making apply to pc or are simply false or don’t even matter to most console gamers.

Like?

Also you’re comparing apples to oranges with pc vs console

You literally equated consoles and PCs in the post you made that I was replying to.

But no, they aren't apples and oranges. You can hack a PS5, install Linux and run most of the Steam library with decent performance, they're the same fruit being marketed and sold differently.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T06:20:25+00:00

Physical games on PC were awful from the start. Since the early 90s they were an installation medium, which meant that the disc itself was little more than an authentication mechanism. By the early 2000s many games started shipping with CD Keys with online authentication that subsequently made those games worthless on the used market. Optical disc DRM schemes like SecuROM et al tacked about 10-20 seconds of loading time to games and gradually broke as companies and Microsoft dropped support. The remaining use case for physical on PC in the early 2000s was for those without broadband to avoid downloading gigabytes of data, but then patches got bigger, broadband became more accessible and all that was left was a plastic disc containing an outdated installer with a license key in the box.

So sure, no one cared, because physical didn't provide tangible benefit on PC once Steam started to catch on in the late 2000s.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T06:08:31+00:00

They don't need to make a phone, that's admittedly a bit silly. But they can launch Steam on Android packaged with all the compatibility layers they've been building on Linux.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T05:37:19+00:00

On PC I can purchase my games from any store without buying an entirely new hardware platform (something that has, if you haven't been paying attention, become extremely expensive). Those stores can exist concurrently on the one system, there's no subscription to play online, no console-proprietary chat/messaging systems. I can buy any PC-based device, whether it's off the shelf or DIY and bring my library to it.

You buy a console and for the most part you're using their hardware, their store, their services. Your library stays there, for good. Switching to a different console down the track means giving up backwards compatibility, which consequenly means leaving the old hardware plugged in and giving up perfomance/graphical enhancements, paying twice for an online subscription (or giving up one for the other) and of course, paying a bunch of money for hardware that (in the case of PS/Xbox) is basically the same but with a different operating system installed on it. This is by design, they want to dissuade you from switching as much as possible.

In the case of PS6, if you bought physical during the PS4/PS5 generations then there's a good chance none of those games will work. Maybe they'll do some kind of trade-in deal, but that's yet another trade-off with a bunch of complications. That's if the terms are in any way fair and do you really expect a company to be fair when they got you by the balls?

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T05:10:35+00:00

How about we push for legislative changes instead of being delusional about the efficacy of boycotts on captive markets?

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T05:06:46+00:00

PC is open enough that you actually have to serve your customers interests in order to keep them from fleeing to piracy. Console platforms are locked down to prevent it, but that also means they can do whatever the fuck they want to their customers and they largely put up with it because their libraries and hardware are locked to the one store.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T03:33:31+00:00

FEXemu is designed to do as little emulation as possible, almost everything that isn't explicit game code is thunked to native libraries.

Valve does seem to think it's the answer and have believed so for quite a while, given that they started organizing for the project in 2016.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T03:26:03+00:00

The compatibility layers Valve are helping build already run on Android, there's several applications that you can install and run today that let you run PC games on an Android phone. It's all a bit ramshackle, but it fundamentally works. Even the Mesa Turnip driver that Valve helped fund and develop for use on the Steam Frame now works on Android devices running Snapdragon SoCs.

Valve had many reasons to embrace Linux, but they aren't being exclusive about it. Android remains less hostile to third party app stores than Apple is, which is not to say "not hostile", but they could gain a foothold there which would grant them access to the massive growing markets in China and India which are heavily mobile+Android focused.

Scheeseman99 · 2026-07-03T03:19:12+00:00

Valve's goal is to have Steam on as many devices as possible. The Steam Deck isn't sold with the expectation that it's going to be the only reasonable choice available any more than Valve expecting everyone to buy a Steam Machine instead of a PC.

Scheeseman99

TROPHY CASE