Shawn Layden: 9 takeaways from Sony’s worldwide game studios chief

Shawn Layden is the guy at Sony who goes on stage at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) or the PlayStation Experience event, wearing a T-shirt. That T-shirt communicates something to fans, like when Layden triggered a revival of Crash Bandicoot by wearing that T-shirt at an event, leading fans to speculate and then forcing Activision to remake the game.

But Layden never gets much time on stage, and we rarely get to see him answer questions. This week, it was interesting to see him answer some key questions from game developer and PlayStation 4 architect Mark Cerny at the Gamelab event in Barcelona. Layden, who has worked at Sony for more than 30 years, answered questions from Cerny for an hour and entertained audience questions. In the wake of E3, he was able to answer more questions than usual, and the result was a fascinating discussion of Sony’s game business.