The Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 are bringing with them many new AAA titles for gamers, however, one developer thinks that while this is happening, the middle market of gaming development will completely vanish.
According to a report from GamesIndustryyesterday, Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat spoke about how things will eventually shape up for games outside of the AAA sector on theXbox 720 and PlayStation 4.
"On one end of the spectrum you will have all the big, AAA blockbuster games that [offer] more and more production values, more value for the players, but there will be fewer of them taking a bigger chunk of the market.
"The in-between, the belly of the market, is the one that just collapsed in a way and disappeared.
"Meaning there is no room for B-games, if I should say so, which proves the point of quality. I think that companies that put quality and consumer value as a primary focus, as we've been doing at Ubisoft, will enjoy great success," Mallat said.
Ubisoft is certainly one of the publishers who has fully embraced the AAA gaming approach to development. They already have a number of AAA titles lined up for release this year, with two of them being "Assassin's Creed 4" and "Watch Dogs." Both of those titles are also expected to hit the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4.
There seems to be a lot of developers on the fence about what type of impact they think the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 will have on game development. Some believe what Mallat has echoed, while others think things will stay consistent with middle-of-the-road titles hitting next-gens.
Another factor people are not discussing is the digital aspect of the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4, and what type of impact digital will have on game development. Just because a game isn't the most expensive to make, doesn't mean it's automatically a lesser game than a AAA title is.
That relationship has yet to be discovered and won't be known until the two next-generation consoles have been released. The end of this year will be an extremely telling time in gaming for many, many reasons.
http://www.examiner.com/article/xbox-720-and-playstation-4-aaa-games-will-kill-mid-level-competition
