If there’s one thing Ubisoft likes, it’s a new console for it to port a load of old shit to. With so few machines to exploit, the publisher is getting antsy, and has criticized the platform holders for making this generation drag on so long.
“We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market,” said CEO Yves Guillemot. “I understand the manufacturers don’t want them too often because it’s expensive, but it’s important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity.
“It’s a lot less risky for us to create new IPs and new products when we’re in the beginning of a new generation. Our customers are very open to new things. Our customers are reopening their minds — and they are really going after what’s best … At the end of a console generation, they want new stuff, but they don’t buy new stuff as much. They know their friends will play Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed so they go for that. So the end of a cycle is very difficult.”
On the day Gamasutra published this interview, we heard that Vatra may close down, news that followed the recent destruction of Radical Entertainment, in a year that Eat Sleep Play downsized and Team Bondi went bankrupt. I am gonna go out on a limb and say that the lack of a new console had no hand in any of that — in fact, introducing newer, more demanding consoles will do exactly the opposite of helping the growing number of struggling studios.
