With the next generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft surely around the corner, questions about what the two new systems might have in store for us have become increasingly more common. From expectations surrounding cross platform play, to hopes for neural networks, to improved physics, various developers have told us about what they expect to see from the PS5 and the Xbox Scarlett- or whatever Microsoft ends up calling it.
Recently, we conducted an interview with Søren B. Jepsen, concept artist and writer for the upcoming Fimbul, and presented the same question. Though Jepsen obviously expects both Microsoft and Sony to put out more powerful hardware with their upcoming consoles, on the Microsoft side of things, according to Jepsen, an increased focus on game streaming and subscription models might also be likely.
“Everyone expects even more powerful hardware,” said Jepsen. “But I’m much more excited about whether Microsoft followed a different path with the focus on game steaming and subscribing model.”
On the topic of cross-play, Jepsen briefly brought up Fortnite, mentioning that while that spells good things for the future, a large scale decision for cross-play is something that is to be made on more than just a technical level.
“Epic did it with Fortnite,” Jepsen said. “Why shouldn’t it work with other games? But this decision doesn’t have to be made just on a technical level.”
Looking at the growth cross-platform play has seen in recent months, and at the way Microsoft seems to be focusing on things such as Game Pass and xCloud, Jepsen seems to be quite spot on on both fronts. How it pans out isn’t something that anyone can definitively say for sure at this point, of course, but things do look pretty good on both fronts.
Our full interview with Jepsen about Fimbul will be going live soon, so stay tuned.