Next-Gen Consoles Seen as ‘Starting Point’ for Network of Devices
Videogame consoles in the next cycle will offer “new opportunities” for developers and function as the “starting point” for a network of devices that also include smartphones and tablets, David Grijns, general manager of developer Avalanche Studios, said Wednesday at the NY Games Conference. He predicted that gamers will be able to play a console game no matter where they are via the use of other devices, vastly expanding on the capabilities now offered by current-generation consoles.
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The Nintendo Wii U will be the first console to ship in the next console cycle when it arrives late this year. Its tablet-like GamePad controller offers some of the same functionality as a tablet, but how much it interacts with any specific game will be left up to each developer, Nintendo has said. Microsoft and Sony haven’t said when they will ship their next consoles and haven’t provided any details on them yet.
Grijns said that despite claims by “prognosticators” that videogame hardware will disappear altogether, it was much too early for that to happen. Cloud gaming is a “hot-button subject,” but he predicted that it will be 10 years before the U.S. Internet infrastructure is in place to allow for cloud gaming distribution on a major scale. The U.S. is far behind South Korea, he said.
Smartphones and tablets also can’t run the games that Avalanche is developing now because they lack the processing power, said Grijns. The “tenfold jump in processing power” that the industry will see with the next videogame consoles is “enormous,” far outstripping what current mobile devices can handle, he said.
The console business model is “really bad,” but despite being “challenged,” many gamers remain more passionate about console games than mobile games, said Steve Youngwood, Nickelodeon executive vice president and general manager-digital.
While what’s going on in the game industry now is “very chaotic” and “very confusing” for many people, Frank Gibeau, Electronic Arts president of EA Labels, said much of the concern over the future of console gaming is overblown. The industry is “seeing a lot of change” in the current console transition -- more than in prior console transitions, he said. The current seven-year cycle is also “the longest life cycle” seen in the industry, he said. “Of course there’s going to be fatigue” after seven years, he said. But he said it was wrong to read that as meaning console gaming is dead. There’s still a lot of console game demand, he said. EA is also very prepared for the growing digital game business and sees mobile devices as complementary devices for consoles, he said. Gibeau declined to comment on what EA knows about the next Microsoft and Sony consoles. He reiterated only what EA CEO John Riccitiello said in an earnings call in May that EA will invest $80 million in “Gen4” console development in fiscal 2013 that started April 1, referring to the coming new console cycle.
NY Games Conference Notebook
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan that was designed to improve broadband access throughout the U.S. has been a “crushing failure” so far, said Christopher Weaver, founder of developer Bethesda Softworks. “Partisan politics” and other issues have prevented it from working thus far, he said. Americans “need to build another Hoover Dam” and “it’s going to be expensive,” he said. But he said there’s no alternative if the U.S. wants to be truly compete in the digital economy.