A new generation of consoles from Microsoft or Sony would be “horrible,” in the words of THQ Vice President Danny Bilson, who said that any new hardware launch within the next few years would just put the screws to everyone.
The launch of a new console is always exciting stuff. Sexier graphics, better performance, hugely improved capabilities all the way around – what’s not to like? The expense and hassle of shifting development to a new platform is one thing, Bilson told Eurogamer, and the resulting higher cost of new releases is another.
“It would be horrible,” he said when asked about a hypothetical new generation of consoles. “It still costs us a fortune to make games on this platform. If they’re going to up the scale, up the art, up the content, I don’t know how to make that and sell it to anybody for under $100 a game. Who wants to do that? It’s bad for everybody.”
Bilson pointed at the recently-released World of Warcraft: Cataclysm as a prime example of a game that continues to impress despite its obvious age. He started playing the game again after a year away and said that his initial reaction to the dated visuals were quickly pushed aside by the great content. “It’s so polished, it’s fantastic,” he said. “That’s the great thing about Blizzard.”
“Stability of technology allows for the fruition and the growth of creative. We’re not having to invest all of our focus, and, oh my god, how are we going to deal with that new technology? We understand it,” he explained. “We still have guys trying to squeeze it to do cooler stuff, but it puts the weight of the mission under creative, which ultimately should get us more interesting and more creative stuff.”
Fortunately for Bilson, both Sony and Microsoft seem determined to squeeze more life out of their current platforms. Sony has often touted the planned ten-year lifespan of the PlayStation 3, while Microsoft said in June 2010 that the launch of Kinect will keep the Xbox 360 around for at least five more years.
