Ex-PlayStation boss Shawn Layden doesn’t think the PlayStation 6 having home console and handheld models is a good idea.
If you haven’t been keeping up with PlayStation 6 rumours, the most popular one is that Sony plans on offering two different consoles: a traditional home console and a handheld version.
The jury’s still out on whether the handheld would function exactly like a Nintendo Switch, but comments by Sony Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino, about experiences ‘beyond the living room’, do lend credence to the handheld’s existence.
As a handheld it’s speculated it will only be compatible with PlayStation 5 games, but former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden feels that Sony will be unable to juggle two very different consoles.
The prospect of the rumoured handheld was brought up in an interview with Reiss ‘Kiwi Talkz’ Reilly on YouTube, where Layden bluntly says, ‘the company really struggles to sell two different pieces of hardware at the same time.’
Layden is basing this on his own experiences trying to sell the PlayStation Portable (PSP), which was available around the same time as the PlayStation 3.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
While the PSP was very successful for Sony, at least in Japan, the PlayStation 3 saw a much rougher launch and isn’t as fondly remembered, being almost outsold by the Xbox 360.
‘‘But what about PlayStation Portable? That was a real success.’ Yes, and while we were doing that, I was struggling selling PlayStation 3,’ acknowledges Layden.
This is not an entirely apt comparison as the PSP and PlayStation 3 offered bespoke games you couldn’t get on either console, whereas the two hypothetical next gen consoles will share the same library (assuming the PlayStation 6 is backwards compatible).
However, Layden also argues that Sony would be hampered by needing to split time and resources between the two consoles.
‘It’s not just development resources; it’s also marketing resources. You almost have to set up two different companies to do it, where neither one is worried about what the other one is doing, they’re just trying to be successful in their own right,’ explains Layden.
‘Because when you have one company managing both, inevitably there’s stealing from Peter to pay Paul for something else, and ‘Well, we’ll move that marketing program over to this other game which is going to be more successful than that game was.’
‘All the trade-offs just sort of… you lose your focus on what you’re really trying to get done here.’
While the PlayStation Portal handheld device can run PlayStation 5 games, it does so by streaming them from a nearby PlayStation 5 console, which is very different to running games natively.
Although Layden is right in what he says in terms of a separate handheld, that would play its own games, the only scenario that makes any real sense, given current technology and prices, is a portable PlayStation 5, with many speculating that the PlayStation 5’s new power saver graphic mode is primarily designed with the new portable in mind.
It’s less obvious what’s going on with the PlayStation 6 home console but if that was a more modest upgrade, akin to the PS5 Pro, with no exclusive games, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.