Halo 4 developer 343 Industries has revealed that the current consoles still have a lot of life left in them and are powerful. At a time when everyone is looking forward to the next-gen consoles, with Wii U set to release this year, it doesn’t look like this generation will last very long.
Frank O’Connor from 343 praised the Xbox 360 (as expected) and revealed some things that should put next-gen enthusiasts back in their places.
“The funny thing is I’ve been asked that question a lot, I think it’s natural as we start looking forward to the next generation of hardware,” when asked about Xbox 360’s viability graphics-wise by GI.Biz.
“But I would actually strongly contest the fact that the Xbox 360 is at the end of its life cycle, this has already been one of the longest generations and there’s a really good reason for it, which is that current consoles are incredibly flexible and still really powerful.
“The reason that Halo 4 looks good is that that machine has an awful lot of untapped power still and it’s going to continue to. I think that looking forward into the future I can see years from now, even after next-gen platforms are out, that you’ll have lower priced versions of the existing consoles happily living side by side and serving really valuable functions.
“Not just becoming the little brothers like cast offs, but still being your Netflix player, still being you DVD player, your Blu-ray player in the case of the PS3, and still doing really vital things around your house. And that means if people are still using it they’re still going to want gaming experiences on it.
“I would say that I expect this generation will last a lot more years. Now you’ve got your hardcore fans who are going to look at that statement and say ‘but I want new hardware.’ We know new hardware is going to come, it always does, but I think the utility of the older consoles is going to last longer than ever before.”
I sort of agree with him when games like Halo 4 and The Last of Us look so good, I wonder if we really need next gen consoles or not.
Yeah… yeah I am kidding.