Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden believes console gaming has run into a stubborn ceiling, and he says the industry may need a bold, old-school solution to break through it: a universal game format that works across manufacturers, much like VHS tapes or DVDs once did.
Layden, who spent roughly three decades at Sony and stepped down as chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios in 2019, recently argued that while gaming as a whole keeps expanding, the traditional console business isn’t growing the same way. Yes, the games industry is now often described as a roughly $250 billion market with hundreds of millions of players worldwide. But Layden points out that those numbers include huge audiences on mobile and casual titles—so if you play Wordle or Candy Crush, you’re counted as a “gamer” in those totals.
When you focus only on dedicated home consoles, Layden says the story looks very different. According to him, console sales per generation tend to top out at around 250 million units, and that number has barely budged despite decades of technological leaps and major shifts in how games are made and sold.
To illustrate his point, Layden referenced past console eras featuring systems like the original PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64. Even with different winners and cult favorites in the mix, he argues that the overall market total still hovered around that same limit. The major exception, he says, was the Nintendo Wii era, when the market temporarily spiked closer to 300 million—driven in part by people who didn’t usually buy game consoles but jumped in because of mass-appeal experiences like Wii Fit.
In Layden’s view, that surge was more of an anomaly than a new trend. And that’s why he describes the console space as “trapped” by a cap the industry hasn’t been able to crack.
So what’s the escape route? Layden suggests the only real way to break that ceiling is for gaming to embrace a shared format—one that could be licensed and supported across multiple manufacturers. He compares the idea to the famous battle between Betamax and VHS, where Betamax lost despite its strengths largely because VHS was licensed widely, making it easier for more companies to adopt and consumers to access.
At the same time, Layden isn’t calling for consoles to lose their identity or for platform holders to abandon what makes them special. He also emphasized that not every game needs to be exclusive, but exclusives still matter. In his eyes, strong first-party titles and standout exclusives carry huge value for platform brands like Sony and Nintendo, helping define what each ecosystem stands for and giving players a reason to choose one over another.
Layden’s universal-format idea is the kind of proposal that tends to spark debate—especially in an era where platform ecosystems, subscription libraries, and digital storefronts are more entrenched than ever. Still, his core argument is clear: gaming may be booming, but consoles aren’t expanding their audience at the same pace, and breaking past that long-standing sales ceiling may require a dramatic shift in how console games are distributed and supported industry-wide.
