Ubisoft: Xbox One, PS4 are ‘not the last generation’

There seems to be a believe among some in the gaming industry that this upcoming cycle of consoles — the Xbox One and PS4 (lets also include the Wii U) — will be the last generation we see released by the big three. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is not one of those people.

Speaking to CVG, Guillemot acknowledged that developments surrounding the cloud were likely to have significant impacts on the future of gaming, but did not agree that it will result in this being the last generation of consoles released.

"I still think it is not the last generation, because the manufacturers want a way to control their platform and the machine is the best way to have a specific access to that," he said.

"I think that the cloud is going to change a few things. Now with cloud and the increase of bandwidth we should have the possibility to increase the quality of games a lot over the next few years. But I think five years is the right timing for it.

"If we can take advantage of the quality those machines bring, and if we can spend money, then I think we can make the business grow very fast."

Guillemot has often spoken out about the length of the current generation lifecycle. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are now in their 8th year; Guillemot suggests that five years is about the right period that a generation should last.

"For sure I wanted a transition faster than what they did because when you wait eight years you have a few years that decline, because people have enough machines and games, so they are less interested in this industry," he added. "What I'm happy with is, because we've been waiting for a long time, if we really come with high quality games then the public will come very quickly to buy them. So we will see a big increase in the market."

What do you think? Would you like to see new consoles again in 2018 or do you hope to hang on to your PS4/Xbox One well beyond that?

[CVG]