Many have been predicting that the next generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft is not too far away, and that 2020 is most likely when we will see their releases. Based on several recent reports, that certainly seems to be the case. Some developers are already working on next gen games, while it seems Sony has shifted its internal focus for software development to the PS5 as well.
With the PS5 and the Xbox Scarlett surely not too far away now, questions about what they will bring to the table have become more pertinent than ever. But what do game developers themselves hope to see from the next generation of consoles? Recently, we conducted an interview with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, CEO of Nine Dots Studio – who’re working on the upcoming open world action RPG Outward (on which Boucher-Vidal also serves as the creative lead) – and posed the question to him.
Boucher-Vidal’s response was quite simple- more power. But more powerful hardware isn’t something that he wants to enable better visuals and improved resolutions and frame rates – which he calls a nice bonus – but instead to be able to make advancements in gameplay itself.
“I honestly just want more power, as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were already relatively weak when they launched 5 years ago, and the X and Pro are still attached to those weaker consoles, since game behaviour must stay the same,” he said. “Higher resolution and higher frame rates are a nice bonus, but they do very little to the game experience for most players. If the base console is more powerful, then we can use that power for gameplay instead of only low impact visual adjustments.”
That said, Boucher-Vidal is wary of the possibility of the industry shifting to cloud gaming and as such having to rely more on fast internet connections instead of powerful hardware. According to him, such a scenario could end up being quite disruptive. “This might be irrelevant, however, if we move toward playing games on the cloud and relying on a fast internet connection instead of powerful hardware,” he said. “This could be much more disruptive than anything else the gaming industry has faced during the last 5 years.”
While there has clearly been a much greater push for improved cloud technology and game streaming in recent times, there are many who believe that that is more about laying down groundwork for the future, and that traditional consoles won’t be replaced by cloud streaming any time soon. Given the intensive large scale infrastructure stability requirements needed for cloud-streaming to be able to do that, it seems unlikely that Boucher-Vidal’s fears will come true any time soon.
Stay tuned to GamingBolt for our full interview with Guillaume Boucher-Vidal.