Former PlayStation boss claims Google, Amazon and Apple are the greatest threats to gaming

nme.com:

Sony Interactive Entertainment America, said that companies like Google, Amazon and Apple threaten the stability of the gaming industry.At the GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit in Seattle, Layden – now a strategic advisor at Tencent Games – relayed what he considers to be the three most significant concerns to developers and publishers.

He started by specifying that acquisitions have the potential to be “the enemy of creativity”.“I also think rising costs in gaming are an existential threat to all of us.

And the entry of non-endemics into the sector – otherwise known as the ‘barbarians at the gate,'” Layden continued.“Right now we see all the big players going, ‘Oh, gaming?

It’s bringing in billions of dollars a year? I want a piece of that.’ And so we have Google, Netflix, Apple and Amazon wanting to get piece and trying to disrupt our industry.”He explicated that Apple’s choice to “[convince] everyone that 99 cents per song was a good idea” caused a ripple effect in the music industry.