Ken Levine: Zero Desire as a Gamer for a New Console Generation

The three big hardware developers in the gaming business, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, have not announced plans for a new generation of home consoles, but a pair of veteran developers say that they are not even needed at the moment and that the current generation has the power to deliver meaningful gaming experience for years.

In an Irrational Podcast interview, Ken Levine, who is the leader of Irrational Games and the original creator of BioShock, has said, “At this point I have no desire as a developer and zero desire as a gamer to see the next generation come out where I’m sitting right now.”

Randy Pitchford, who is the leader of developer Gearbox, invited on the podcast, added, “I would expect that within four years from now, we will be in a new cycle of some kind, and there’s more certainty than there was two or three years ago about what that next cycle should look like.”

Both developers seemed interested in development that could give a gamer the possibility to be completely portable, able to get access to his games wherever he is as long as he has his identification data, in a way similar to how Steam and other digital distribution services are working on the PC.

The rumor mill says that Nintendo is the most likely company to unveil a new home console, an upgrade for the Wii that can offer bigger hard drive space and the computing power that can deliver High Definition gaming experiences.

In 2010 both Sony and Microsoft updated their platform with motion tracking systems, in the form of the PlayStation Move and the Kinect, matching the capabilities that the Wii has had since launch.

Microsoft and Sony have said that they have plans for their home consoles for at least 10 years, probably thinking about the sums that the research and development needed for a new home console to gobble up.