The next generation of consoles draws near, and it’s hard to find people who’re not looking forward to it and what it will bring with it. But there are some who’re not quite so excited about it. For instance, there’s PlatinumGames head Atsushi Inaba.
Speaking with VGC, Inaba got to talking about the upcoming next generation of consoles, and the Platinum man doesn’t think the PS5 or the Xbox Scarlett will bring about any major changes to the industry. Inaba says that consoles are now no longer about using their own, proprietary chips as they once were, and now end up being more of the same as a result, thanks to the fact that they use stuff that already exists rather than carving out their own hardware identity. As such, Inaba says it’s “hard to get excited” for whatever it is the PS5 and the next Xbox will bring to the table.
When asked about his thoughts on Sony and Microsoft’s plans for next gen, Inaba said, “It’s OK. And by that I mean, I’m sure that things will move faster, graphics will be better and maybe it will be easier with less wait times… that’s good for the consumer.
“But it’s more of the same, quite frankly, compared to previous generations. It’s nothing that’s disruptive or super innovative, if you ask me.”
“Game hardware used to be about custom chips that you couldn’t do on PCs,” he added. “Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists. The Switch, for example, is a Tegra which already existed and the other consoles are using very similar chips and graphics cards to what you see on PCs, but maybe slightly updated. None of it seems unique to that hardware anymore.”
As a result, Inaba is much more excited about something like Stadia, which brings new ideas and technologies.
“It’s hard to get excited about stuff that kind of already exists, but has been repurposed to a certain degree,” he said. “That’s why for me, things like cloud platforms represent innovation and something very, very different – they’re platforms that excite me and where I feel there is a lot more innovation happening.”
There’s still over a year to go before the next Xbox (and presumably the PS5) launches, so there’s always the chance that the platform holders could reveal new hardware designs and ideas that help set their systems apart- judging by recent industry trends, though, it seems unlikely.
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