Neil Thompson, BioWare's director of art and animation, has stated that Microsoft's upcoming next-generation Xbox console won't be a massive upgrade in technology as the Xbox 360 was over the first Xbox console.

"The next generation of Xbox hardware won't be quite as barn-storming an upgrade as Xbox 360 was over the original Xbox, It'll still be quite a big leap, mind."

BioWare may very well be working hard on the development of sequels for two of their most popular franchises--Dragon Age and Mass Effect--for Microsoft's next-gen console, and Thompson touches on some of the challenges that they face while developing for the new system.

"Clearly we still hammer up against the limitations of the hardware on a daily basis and if you push those parameters back, as I'm sure the next-gen will do, we'll hit them again," he began. "I think the main thing is that the industry doesn't get itself into a corner where it becomes economically unviable to make a game.

"The last technology iteration caught folks by surprise - especially the number of people you needed and the skillset jump to do the work that people expected. In the last generation the perception was that it was going to be a ten times improvement over the previous generation. "

"For the next generation there will be quite a big leap, but it won't be as obvious," Thompson continues. "People will do things in a cleverer fashion - and I have to be careful here as there are non-disclosure agreements involved! I think they'll be better prepared, shall we say - but we can't see a ten-fold team increase again as the budgets would just be ridiculous.

"You'd have to sell 20-30 million copies before you broke even."

EA has also made predictions that their new FrostBite 2 engine will dominate the new system's hardware, and since Dragon Age 3 has been confirmed to utilize the engine and has a planned launch date of late 2013, the game has been widely recognized as a next-gen release.

We've already taken a look at Dragon Age 3's concept art which was quite impressive; however it will be even more impressive to see actual in-game screenshots and footage that shows off the capabilities of EA's new engine.

The gaming world has been flooded with Xbox 720 rumors, such as the console's rumored launch in November of 2013 with an estimated price range of $300-450. Additionally the 720 has been speculated to feature upgrades like enhanced RAM, processors and other rumored specs that still remain unconfirmed.

As always, be sure to take these rumors with a grain of salt and not accept them as total fact, regardless of the supposed proof. All in all they still have yet to be officially confirmed.

Thompson's voice does add perspective to the expectations of Microsoft's next-gen Xbox console, some of which have been wild and fanciful. In any case, BioWare should be a credible source on the subject since they're working on both Dragon Age 3 and Mass Effect 4.  However, gamers will most likely be able to see what Microsoft's new Xbox console has to offer during this year's E3 in June.

Via OXM

It sounds like some kind of stop gap system. Its not as powerful as leaps we have previously had but there will be some kind of leap.

Now I'm curious. Sounds like wii u won't be as behind as people think it will.

What he is saying is there will be a big leap, but it won't be as obvious from Xbox to Xbox 360. I always thought it would be like that anyways.

This is probably a dumb question but i wonder if Valve is going to release their games on 720 and PS4

Well they released all of them on the X360 and they all sold well. So i would think so. I still believe that the steam box will not be that successful. Valve and Sony has had a pretty good relationship as of late too so thats good. As long as both of them are easy to develop for then they will probably get them.

Dragon age 3 as a launch title would be pretty awesome, as long as they dont screw it up like they did with dragon age 2...

There won't be that much of a visual leap, which is what most people identify with changing generations, but the potential leap in other areas, like AI and environmental effects, has the potential to be significant. The lack of memory this gen had a pronounced effect in that regard. Still, that's not something most people go "WOW" over in a trailer.

That particular title doesn't matter much to me, as I'm going to play it on PC regardless.  I've heard some people complain about the gameplay of DA2 on consoles, but I loved it just as much as DA:O on PC.  Personally, Bethesda and BioWare are -always- PC purchases.

The gameplay was identical on da2 between consoles and pc.  My problem with da2 was not the gameplay, it was story, plot, revisiting the same environments, etc.  it just felt like a rush job on everything except for combat...

"You'd have to sell 20-30 million copies before you broke even."

This is the main reason why I think even if next gen consoles will have incredible powerful graphics only a small minority of devs are going to take advantages of those numbers. First parties are going to take advantages of the specs but the small 3rd party games will only have a "small" leap compare to current gen games.