Shawn Layden at PSX in 2015.
Shawn Layden at PSX in 2015.
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Shawn Layden interview: The man with the Crash Bandicoot T-shirt

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 21 min

Shawn Layden was once so influential that his choice of a T-shirt determined the fate of a franchise. Back in 2015 during Sony’s PlayStation Experience event, Layden took the stage wearing a Crash Bandicoot shirt. Before thousands of fans, he talked about a long list of Sony games, but he didn’t say anything about a Crash Bandicoot game.

Fans were disappointed. Soon enough, Activision realized that there was pent-up demand for the little mascot, and it launched the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy remake in 2017. It followed that up with another remake, Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled, in 2019, and this week it unveiled Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time. Millions of games were sold, all because of that T-shirt.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.