Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of well known franchises Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden isn’t so happy with the current state of affairs of modern consoles. The Playstation 4 and Xbox One may be wooing crowds now, but he doesn’t believe this will be the case in the future.
The Playstation 4 and Xbox One have both adopted changes – but Itagaki doesn’t believe it’s far enough and is adamant that more needs to be done.
“In a world where our customers now have their attention divided by their PCs, their tablets and their smartphones, simply having consoles expand upon what they previously were isn’t going to work any longer,” he said.
“Having a system that just reads controller input, makes a screen image and outputs it to the TV isn’t going to work, no matter how rich the media it’s producing.”
“It seems like every first party is trying to get a feel for what makes a console truly special, and that’s something developers are going to have to feel on, too.”
I do actually agree here – and I’ve said myself a few times that although I’m impressed with many aspects of the Playstation 4, I didn’t find it that full of innovation. sure, there were many things I didn’t like about Microsoft’s Xbox One – specifically the 24 hour check-in (which now is removed) but at least they were trying new things. I just believe that they went about trying these things in the wrong way.
There’s little doubt that the tablet and mobile markets are growing at a staggering rate, and that will leave systems like the successor to the 3DS (whatever that will be) in possibly a tight spot. PC gaming seems to be enjoying a surge right now. Sales numbers for PC’s are down, because low power / cheap devices are now being replaced by say a tablet, but the gaming side of things is remaining rather healthy.
Sony themselves have said that diversity of titles is key, and this is one of the reasons that their strategy focuses so heavily on indie game developers.
“Overseas developers showed off a lot of FPSes and third-person shooters that pursued photorealism and endless detail, but as for the gameplay, I felt there wasn’t much innovative,” he said.
“I feel that I need to keep watching how trends unfold overseas, but continue developing games with an eye for what a Japanese person would see as fun and bring that to the world marketplace.” – Motohide Eshiro of Capcom.
He firmly believes that western developers are fixed on FPS titles and third-person shooters.
I’m unsure if I completely agree with his sentiments however, when Capcom themselves many would argue are guilty of turning Resident Evil from survival horror to a more action title. However, he does have a point – the modern military shooter is almost certainly going to be the number one seller when its released. Call of Duty and Battlefield will of course fight it out for who is supreme.
