Shawn Layden has been out of PlayStation for four years now, but retirement hasn’t stopped him from weighing in on larger trends in gaming. Long worried about ballooning blockbuster development budgets, the former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America has added studio consolidation and the state of game preservation to his warnings for the video game industry. Last month, Layden shared some of these concerns during his keynote speech at the GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit.
” He said that in specific instances, acquisitions can save studios from shutting down and he’s glad to see that, but he remains worried about the lasting impact of the larger trend. “I’m just concerned about what it does to the creativity urge inside of the studios, and can they keep that sort of independent creativity alive or do they just get absorbed into the larger whole? Time will tell, but it’s a bit concerning.