Next-gen sales to trump current systems: Riccitiello

With the next-generation of consoles on the horizon, the former CEO of Electronic Arts is confident that the PS4 and Xbox One will outsell their predecessors in years to come; “I think they’ll be bigger than the last generation, actually,” said John Riccitiello.

“The last generation can be described as supercharged engines – they had super-powerful boxes. But the entirety of the online communication and being able to connect to your friends and all that stuff, a seamless, smooth, social experience, was just masking tape – barely put together,” he added.

Riccitiello added that improved internet and broadband speed and penetration will benefit the new consoles dramatically, whereas the previous generation was only touching the tip of the iceberg.

“Remember that this was eight years ago. Most people were just moving on from their 28k modems. Now these are fully functioning, fully integrated online computers connected to the best screen in your house,” said Riccitiello.

“You put a super computer under your TV, plug it in with one connection and it works. It knows who you are, it knows what your games are and it’s unbelievably simple; it’s not like PC plug and play, it’s just plug and play. The next generation of consoles are going to be a massive improvement on user interface. So I think that’s going to matter,” he said.

Riccitiello also spoke about the fact that there are a lot of people in the games industry for the wrong reasons and that “there are too many opportunists who are there to make money”. Riccitiello believes that many of these big game companies are just “tweaking” existing game concepts to turn a profit.

“They’re working on a Puzzles and Dragons rip-off, except they’re going to change one of the colours to blue. I mean, wait a minute. Are you in this because you want to create something or does it look like the easiest way to make money is to take one of the top-ten games and tweak it?”