In an interview with IGN, THQ boss guy Brian Farrell predicts that the launches of PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect peripherals will extend the current generation of consoles, making space for the evolution of games – the “play experience” – over hardware.
“Frankly, the last thing I think the industry needs now is new hardware. You look at the games coming out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 now and they look stunning,” says Farrell. “If we were to have another $1000 box that the hardware guys have to subsidise and that software developers have to spend even more money developing, that model just doesn’t work.”
He adds that, “To have an extended cycle with a broader audience I think, strategically, is exactly the right way to go, and Move and Kinect are both designed to do that. The market will decide if one or both of those will work, but I love the concept of both hardware guys trying to broaden the audience beyond just the core consumer.”
And he reckons current generation graphics and sound are good enough already. The way forward now for developers is to create games that feature “richer stories, better characters, production values that are much more like movies.”
Just like THQ’s latest, WWE SmackDown vs Raw 2011.
