John-ShepardWhat to expect from the next generation of consoles? Well, Gears of War producer Epic Games says we need a "dramatic leap in quality."
During a recent VentureBeat interview , Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said we shouldn't get new hardware until we can see a pronounced jump in terms of technical capability. "It has to be huge and fundamentally new," Sweeney said.
He also spoke about the extended console cycle this generation. On the one hand, he says it's great for business because they can ship three Gears titles on the same piece of hardware. And with each new installment, more people own 360s, so the games can sell more. But on the other hand:
"…it gets harder to generate the same excitement from the same hardware. That is when the new hardware is justified. But then you reset the installed base to zero and it’s a lot harder to sell a lot of games again."
Obviously, Sweeney is talking from a Microsoft point of view as his company exclusively supports the Xbox platform, but these are general comments that can apply to any new piece of gaming hardware. On Sony's side, it's difficult to imagine a "dramatic leap" in quality but then again, we said the same thing about the PS2 when it first arrived. Heck, we've been saying that for decades…it's tough to see the future, you know?