The person in question has held senior positions at SEGA and Electronic Arts, so he is one of the better-known names in the gaming industry…
Peter Moore has held senior positions at SEGA, Electronic Arts and Microsoft. He launched the Xbox 360 alongside the SEGA Dreamcast, so he was in a slightly different era before becoming the head of EA Sports. And in an interview with IGN, he openly stated that there are serious questions being asked about consoles in Washington and Tokyo, or the headquarters of Microsoft and Sony…
“I think it’s a really serious question that’s certainly being asked in Tokyo, in Redmond, in Washington, in Kyoto. That’s what everybody’s working on right now, because when you launch this next generation, you have to be prepared to absorb billions of dollars in losses. And is the industry, with all the layoffs and everything we’re going through right now, is the industry ready for that? Look at Sony laying off 900 people – a lot in the UK. My two eldest daughters work at EA, they’re fine, but they’re always looking over their shoulders. So I think in answer to your question, these are the questions that are being asked right now and it’s all going to come down to, do we continue to evolve silicon? The role of AI, what does that mean? You can’t look away from that. Are these companies ready to go through another round of multibillion-dollar investments? And at the same time, you’re preparing for another cycle where gamers may not embrace the console and just say, you know what? I don’t need this, times are tough. I’ve got my phone, I enjoy what I have on my phone. There’s a lot of games I can play.
If not, of course I have my PC or my Mac, I can go there and do whatever I need to do. And do I really need to spend what might be five, $600 on a custom piece of hardware just to play games? So both the companies and the gamers themselves are asking that question. Yeah, [that issue came up during] the Xbox 360, during the back end of that. You have that concern. If you think about something that came out in the mid-2000s, what does the end of the decade look like, and how long have cycles been – usually five, six years – and what does it look like in five, six years? Are we going to need another one? Well, the answer was ultimately yes, but the questions were asked then. And why? Because you’ve got faster, cheaper, more ubiquitous broadband in almost every home.
What I’m saying is that the questions are being asked, as they have been for the last 20 years. Are we willing to gird our loins financially for the battle and all the costs of development, silicon development? What is it that PlayStation 6 can do that PlayStation 5 can’t do that would make people jump from PlayStation 5, or same with Xbox, same with Switch, right? God forbid it’s just incremental. And I think companies are looking at that as well. What can we do to extend that life cycle? And then if you’re Microsoft and you’re Phil Spencer, you’ve got Satya Nadella coming in and saying, all right, what’s the future here and how does this play into the biggest strategy of cloud with Azure, with AI? What are we doing with AI game development? How do you make your games faster, cheaper, with fewer people? Those are all questions that I think are being asked,” Moore said.
It’s hard to argue with him.
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