Long hardware cycles have benefits to the platform holders, as they do not have to manage expensive hardware launches. However, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot says that such moves are not beneficial to software publishers.
“I think that what has happened is the transition has been very long,” said Guillemot. “You know, in the industry, we were used to changing machines every five years. This time we are in the seventh year of the 360. We need new consoles and at the end of the cycle generally the market goes down because there are less new IPs, new properties, so that damaged the industry a little bit. I hope next time they will come more often.”
Guillemot thinks that console transitions are the best time for a company to reinvent itself. “Transitions are the best times, are the best ways, to make all of our creators take more risks and do different things,” he said. “When a console is out for a long time . . . you don’t take as much risks on totally new IPs because even if they are good, they don’t sell as well.”
“Everybody who is taking risks and innovating is welcome because there are lots of hardcore gamers and those guys want new things, where the mass market will be more interested in having the same experience and doesn’t want to take as much risks because it’s not aware as much of what is going to change its experience. So, the beginning of the machines is always a good time for innovation,” he concluded.
Source: Polygon.com
