For as long as gaming has existed, there have been two forms of console war. The first, and generally referred to as the console war, is the internal struggle between different brands. Right now, that would be Sony and Microsoft with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, while Nintendo is off doing its own thing with the Switch (and soon, the Switch 2).

But there is another form of console war as well, one where the consoles fight collectively against the all-knowing entity of PC gaming. Console play, while highly competitive when played between friends, sure, is typically the domain of more casual players seeking a more casual time, while PC gaming is where graphics are cranked up to the max and things get extremely sweaty - whether you have those cooling fans engaged or not.

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However, former executive Shawn Layden, speaking to podcast PlayerDriven (and spotted by PC Gamer) thinks the gap is much closer than we think. Only something players with an extreme eye for miniscle settings (say, a PC player) would notice. And its through this link that he feels gaming finds its next evolution.

Consoles And Gaming PCs Are "All Quite Similar"

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Obviously, this casual/hardcore divide is not entirely representative. Many PC players play idle sim games to relax, and many console players are engaged in difficult, fine-margin competitive games. But typically, what PC offers you is the chance to fine-tune everything to your exact specifications, perhaps even building your rig from scratch, while consoles can be plugged in and played. And Layden thinks that in order for consoles to become even bigger than they are, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the industry.

"Ultimately, I would like the games industry to have the same penetration rate as television sets do," he says. "So how do you get there? One thing, I don't think you get there by having only three manufacturers."

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What Layden proposes is removing the idea of a 'PlayStation game' or an 'Xbox game' and instead simply making 'a game', that could be played on any machine that supported it, like a DVD or Blu-ray disc. "We'd get a pretty good game format OS—if the players could agree to come together—and then licence that out. Just like we do with Blu-ray, just like we do with the compact disk—and let people compete on content."

PC, he claims, inspired this line of thought. "The architecture in the current version of [consoles] and of high-end PCs are quite close now, they're all quite similar," he says. "And any changes or any enhancements to that—like we like to say in the studios, 'only the dog can hear that'. Like, 'we're gonna have 20 percent more ray tracing'. Okay?"

While many PC gamers will quickly tell you that the difference is far more noticeable than Layden suggests, there's also the issue that many of the biggest games around are exclusives, funded by console manufacturers for the express purpose of selling consoles. And while Xbox may be leaning away from this model, PlayStation and Nintendo are not. Still, an end to all versions of the console war seems like an idyllic future, if not quite a realistic one.

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