Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
We don’t need a next generation console platform, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has told VideoGamer.com. The outspoken creator of Borderlands didn’t stop there, but outlined the many reasons why the current crop of consoles is good enough.
“I’m actually excited by the fact that we’re at a point now with this generation where it’s not a technical problem,” he said speaking to VideoGamer.com this morning. “We’re in the craft of game-making now. We understand the hardware, and now we’re focusing on gameplay, focusing on leveraging that hardware towards the purposes of entertainment, instead of wrestling with the technical issues of how to just exist on it. As a game-maker, that’s the best possible place to be.”
He continued: “We have HDTVs. There’s no HD2, so it’s not like we have a new output device. We’ve got our setup and it’s good, so it’s not like we need a new system in order to render on those things. So we’re starting to anticipate that turnover, but we’re not demanding it yet.
“When I say ‘we’, I’m talking about the industry, the customer, the game culture. We’re just starting to get to the point where we’re anticipating it, but we’re not demanding it yet. Contrast that with… go back to 2002. The Xbox had been out for just one year, and we were all like, ‘What’s going to draw awesome graphics on my HDTV now?’ Some of us were already adopting high [definition] televisions. There was just a four-year gap between the Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360. Now we’re in year six, and we’re fine, because it’s not like we’ve got new TVs. The machine can do it.”
Pitchford is currently helming Duke Nukem Forever, a game that’s unlikely to need brand new hardware to run – it started development way back in 1997. VideoGamer.com’s Jamin Smith said there’s “a lot to love” about the game in a recent Duke Nukem Forever Hands-on Preview.
We’re not so sure the consumers aren’t already wanting the next big thing. Sure the casual audience might not care about the visuals, but core gamers are seeing huge advances in the processing power of PC graphics cards, but console platforms remain as they were.
We could be entering a period where PC gaming begins to attract the hardcore, simply because that’s the platform on which the best experience is achievable.
Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
