PlayStation Praises Nintendo and Microsoft As Xbox Team Calls for Unification

PlayStation's own Shawn Layden has been very talkative lately about the Sony brand and among his comments about cross-platform play and where the PlayStation 3 went wrong, he took a moment during the DICE festivities to speak highly of Nintendo amidst a significant shift in the gaming industry as a whole.

"Sure, we all compete for attention to further this industry but we do so to keep the video gaming landscape vibrant and essential," Layden mentioned during his presentation about both Nintendo and Microsoft. "We have the power to bring people joy, inspiration, respite, we have the ability to transport them to new worlds and provide them with superpowers. As developers, we do not compete against one another. We all craft art, and art is founded on the creative, not the competitive."

This is certainly a nice sentiment, especially given that the console wars seem to be more combative than ever.

He added, "The gaming industry is at an inflection point – a moment when we're shedding our youth and becoming a cultural lodestone. The community has grown because gamers don't grow out of gaming any longer. We've got a lot more folks with grey hair now than we used to. Myself included. And we do not see games as childish things to be put away.

"We embrace gaming as the art form of our generation – as the most powerful form of expression."

Layden also talked a bit about influencers and their impact, such as Ninja with Fortnite and how both PlayStation and their competitors need to keep that in mind during game development. "New heroes, new perspectives" as he called it, shifting the future of gamers into more equal footing with those that play them.

He also praised Nintendo for being the "best selling console of 2018" while also mentioning how they are looking to "broaden the tent for gaming" with their own team and with Microsoft and the big N.

Microsoft themselves have been pushing for accessibility a lot more since Phil Spencer took over, with the Xbox team fighting hard alongside Nintendo and Valve to bridge the gap between consoles. It seems that Sony - along with major shifts in leadership - is also experiencing some major shifts of heart.