Dr. Greg Zeschuk, the co-founder of Bioware, recently revealed his thoughts on the next-gen consoles that are expected later this year to GamesIndustry International. While many developers and gamers alike are excited over the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, Zeschuk, who retired last year from the game industry, had a less-than-thrilled reaction.
"Everyone's kind of holding out hope for the new consoles, but I honestly don't think they're going to be that big a deal. I worry a lot that unless Microsoft or Sony pull something magically out of a hat, it's pretty much the same old, same old repackaged and I don't think they're going to change the dynamic of the retail market...I don't see how they can, the market is what it is," Zeschuk explained.
Clearly, Zeschuk believes that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 are not innovative enough, and thinks that merely upgrading the hardware inside the machine is not enough to excite him about the consoles. Of course, this ignores some of the new features that are expected with both consoles, such as the PlayStation 4's Share button and the next-gen Xbox's rumored Kinect 2.0. Perhaps his time away from the industry and diminished passion are to blame for his apathy towards the next-gen consoles.
"I think part of it, too, is that I'm not spending as much time playing games as I used to. I used to play them all time, I used to have my finger on the pulse, and absolutely I'm less on the pulse than I was. I still play some big releases, and I'm going to grab BioShock Infinite, but I don't play the way I used to play," he commented on the matter.
Whatever the case may be, Zeschuk does not believe that the next generation of consoles offers gamers very much to get excited over, and it will be up to game designers, and ultimately the consumers, around the world over to prove him wrong once the systems come out.