Industry veteran, David Jaffe’s, response to the next-generation of consoles is a resounding “myeh.”
“I couldn’t care less about next-gen,” the notoriously outspoken developer told Edge. “I started at Sony Imagesoft doing Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games, and I went through that to PS1, then PS2, PS3, Vita… You go through the cycle enough and you realize today’s ‘Oh my fucking God’ is tomorrow’s ‘Ehh, whatever’.”
“Ultimately, this is all going to be yesterday’s news and it’s about the experience, the game,” he continued. “Unless we’re talking about holodecks, or AI that’s so amazing it can actually write a compelling story around you procedurally based on your choices, I’m not interested.”
The Twisted Metal creator later clarified his position further with a short essay. In it, he questioned whether the increased costs of producing games for more capable hardware are worth it.
“I was referring to the fact that UNLESS the next-gen of consoles are unique and fresh and bring something substantially more to the table,” he wrote, “I could not care less about next-gen from a sense of WHAT the new boxes will let us- as game makers- create.”
Jaffe’s views make an interesting counterpoint to those of Epic Games VP, Mark Rein, who recently claimed that next-gen consoles will have to feature “bleeding edge” technology in order to compete with Apple’s growing gaming presence.
Source: Edge
