If you’re a one-console-future believer, avert your eyes for a few seconds. At a Luminaries Lunch during GDC, Blizzard’s vice president of game design, Rob Pardo, admitted to gamesindustry.biz that Blizzard are talking with Microsoft about a new console. More than likely, this new console is the successor to the Xbox 360.
Acclaim’s chief creative officer, David Perry, hasn’t had a discussion with Microsoft or Sony about another console, but he did have something to say on the matter. He’s worried game development won’t be the highlight of future talks.
“How many designers in the games industry do you think they are rounding up to [talk to], because this is going to make or break them this time around,” Perry said. “I’m not aware that they are putting a big amount of effort into finding out how to make the games. The people who are actually physically going to make the games are all going to get a surprise.”
Ease of development should always be a concern, but I think this goes into a larger point: game consoles should be game consoles. I didn’t buy a PlayStation 3 to watch Blu-rays. I didn’t buy an Xbox 360 to watch streaming video, HD DVD, or to view pretty little slideshows by hosting them on a network. I bought the consoles to play games. I hope these two companies can keep that in mind moving forward.
What do you guys think?
Published: Mar 26, 2009 02:20 pm