News

New consoles "would be horrible"
Posted: 19.01.2011 13:08 by Simon Priest Comments: 10
THQ's Danny Bilson declares that any announcement of a new home console from Microsoft or Sony "would be horrible" right now: it's the cost.

Studios still spend "a fortune to make games" on Xbox 360 and PS3 - a new console would skyrocket dev and retail costs - it would be "bad for everybody."

"It would be horrible," said THQ core games VP Danny Bilson, "but I think they all know our model's broken anyway." It takes time to 'master' a platform and refine budgets.

"It still costs us a fortune to make games on this platform. If they're going to up the scale, up the art, up the content, I don't know how to make that and sell it to anybody for under $100 a game," he warned. "Who wants to do that? It's bad for everybody."

Now studios are past just the technological milestones and have moved more onto being creative - he uses World of Warcraft as an example where graphics yield to content. "Stability of technology allows for the fruition and the growth of creative," he said.

"We're not having to invest all of our focus, and, oh my god, how are we going to deal with that new technology? We understand it. We still have guys trying to squeeze it to do cooler stuff, but it puts the weight of the mission under creative, which ultimately should get us more interesting and more creative stuff."

"That's the trick. We're not going to get beat by another hardware upgrade like every five years like it was before. There will be little things. It's up to us to compete in graphics and creativity. Sometimes I hope good creativity and style will be able to be more important. It is more important."

"As long as we're creatively satisfied as gamers by what we're getting, I'm really satisfied," he added. "I still see cooler stuff, better stuff. So much is in the software engineering and working with the technology. I look at games and I go, wow, how did they get such great characters?" Homefront releases in March and they want it among the big boys.

Publisher THQ has other major releases coming with Red Faction: Armageddon, UFC: Undisputed, the WWE franchise, Saints Row 3, Guillermo del Toro's inSane, Devil's Third, Dawn of War II: Retribution, Space Marine and Darksiders 2.
Source: Eurogamer

Comments

By noobst3R (SI Core) on Jan 19, 2011
noobst3R
Good point. :)
By hellweed (SI Core Member) on Jan 19, 2011
hellweed
If they make new consoles Move/Kinect compatible I dont see why we need to stay on the spot. PS3/Xbox360 hardware is today terrible old. Only CPU is stll excellent(modern).
By Eversor (SI Elite) on Jan 20, 2011
Eversor
Microsoft has said that the Xbox 360 should be good for at least another five years.
By hellweed (SI Core Member) on Jan 20, 2011
hellweed
@Eversor:
Have faith in microsoft words and you will walk naked (without money).
By PowerJack (SI Elite) on Jan 20, 2011
PowerJack
the only thing that new consoles would give us would be new game packs of old titles
By noobst3R (SI Core) on Jan 20, 2011
noobst3R
Prices of games are now already too big, if they upgrade to totally new hardware, it will cost even more to develop.
By djole381 (SI Elite) on Jan 20, 2011
djole381
Meh, I don't care. I'm a PC gamer so I don't give a c*** what happens to consoles :D
By Eversor (SI Elite) on Jan 21, 2011
Eversor
I'll have to agree with djole381, I am dffinitely a PC gamer.
By Wowerine (SI Elite) on Jan 21, 2011
Wowerine
At least an other 5 years. Keep it coming with the jailbreaks :)
By VHugoSama (SI Core) on Jan 22, 2011
VHugoSama
Well I don't really care if they put new consoles on the market, I will only buy them 2 years later when there is price reduction, or when they launch the slim model, tire of buy them when they are release, a totally waste of money.