14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent interview, Alain Corre, the managing director of the European branch of Ubisoft, declared that PlayStation Move and Kinect will not extend the life of current generation consoles. They will however attract parts of the casual gaming audience that can be then turned into potential customers for the next generation.
When asked by GamesIndustry.biz whether the new motion controller peripherals would extend the lifespan of the current generation, Corre replied that, “I don't think so, no.”
“Yes, it's a good extension of the lifecycle for a certain length of time and it's also a good way to capture some consumers they didn't have on the casual side, because Microsoft's 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 do not have the casual customers.
“So it will bring in a new category of customer for them. Now, will it prevent them from releasing brand new technology in the next five years? I don't think so,” he added.
It did not seem realistic to the Ubisoft exect that the big platform holders would be able to keep from launching new hardware for five more years, though both Microsoft and Sony have been quite open about these plans.
While the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 will receive continued support, new consoles are likely to be announced or even launched in the next two years.
The real disruptive product, in Corre's opinion, is the Nintendo 3DS. “We're very confident that the machine will lift the handheld market, which is what we need,” he said.
“They surprised us even in the end, even though we had a lot of information and were able to get ahead in the development of our games, they still surprised us each time they bring a new feature that we didn't know about.”
Ubisoft is working on no less than six games for Nintendo's upcoming handheld console, including titles from major franchises like Assassin's Cree, Splinter Cell, Driver and Ghost Recon.