Shawn Layden E3 2015
Image: AP/Shutterstock

Shawn Layden served as chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment World Studios, now known as PlayStation Studios, for years and was hugely influential in shaping the current PlayStation landscape. He's also a digital soothsayer of sorts who foresaw the industry's dark future with remarkable clarity. He tried to warn us of the rising cost of AAA games and the dangers of consolidation, topics that have only become more prescient with the passing of time.

Layden's latest bugbear is video game preservation, a topic he spoke to recently on the Lan Parties podcast (thanks, Kotaku), and said:

"Preservation is important. I’m hoping that more people in the industry, certainly the big players, begin to realize that there’s an obligation and responsibility. This isn’t throw-away stuff we’re making. This is stuff that should be around for a long time because future generations will enjoy it in the same way that we have, and it’s criminal that we’re not doing more to protect it.”

Video game preservation will only become a bigger issue moving forward, as AAA releases like Alan Wake 2 (out today, we loved it) opt to ditch physical releases and only launch digitally instead. It's great to hear industry voices calling attention to the issue, but we'd need the powers that be at PlayStation to listen to arrest the situation meaningfully. Sony's Preservation team ended up being smaller in scope than some expected, but perhaps Layden's words will move the needle; stranger things have happened.

[source kotaku.com, via videogameschronicle.com]