14 DAY TRIAL // Chris Roberts, the developer who created the Wing Commander series and who is currently working on Star Citizen, believes that the increasing power of the PC means that the next generation of home consoles from Sony and Microsoft will be smaller than the one comprising the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
The game creator tells NowGamer that, “I think consoles will be there and they’ll do decent business but I don’t think that the next generation of consoles will be as big as the last generation. Essentially, I can build a high-end PC now that’s much more powerful than the new consoles that will be announced this year.”
According to Roberts, the manufacturing costs for console-bound hardware are on the increase, while the price of components for gaming PCs is always falling.
This means that it will no longer be profitable for players to pick up the next device from Sony and Microsoft in order to use it for five or six years.
The other major difference is between a closed environment, which has one company controlling all content, and an open one, which allows different companies to deliver their own vision and ideas.
Roberts adds, “Is it a closed platform, which is controlled and curated like Microsoft, Apple and Sony, or is it an open platform that isn’t controlled? There are good and bad things about both sides but that’s basically the PC platform?”
Home consoles might also face problems with development teams, who are growing increasingly frustrated with the time and the resources required to introduce updates and smaller content packages.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft has announced their plans for the next console generation, but the PlayStation 4 might be revealed towards the end of February.
The rumored Orbis and Durango will also face strong competition from set-top box devices like the rumored Steam Box.