VG247

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot believes this console generation has lasted too long, leading to a dearth of innovation thanks to the poor performance of new properties mid-cycle.

“The transition has been very long,” Guillemot told Polygon

The executive said the industry is used to console cycles of about five years, whereas the Xbox 360 has been in action for seven years now.

“We need new consoles and at the end of the cycle generally the market goes down because there are less new IPs, new properties, so that damaged the industry a little bit. I hope next time they will come more often,” he said.

Guillemot said that content creators are inspired to “take more risks and do different things” during a hardware transition, whereas when a console starts to age, new IPs don’t sell well even if they’re good. Although the core is still keen on new experiences, he argued, companies can’t take the risk.

“Everybody who is taking risks and innovating is welcome because there are lots of hardcore gamers and those guys want new things, where the mass market will be more interested in having the same experience,” he said.

“It’s not aware as much of what is going to change its experience. So, the beginning of the machines is always a good time for innovation.”

Retail sales figures have been gradually slipping for over a year now, with many major publishers and platform holders posting losses or declines. A growth in digital sales and the rising popularity of alternate business models may negate much of the drop in the market, but Ubisoft – always happy to jump in on a new console – isn’t the first to call for new hardware to give the games industry a boost.

Microsoft and Sony are strongly tipped to reveal new hardware in 2013; VG247 learned recently that new PlayStation 4 development kits were doing the rounds.

Thanks, Kotaku.

This is an old article, fyi.

People can only play the same game so many times before they get bored, and disruption of the market on a regular basis is needed to keep the industry fresh ... This disruption can be brought in small parts mid-generation by ad-on devices, but to disrupt the industry on the whole you need new hardware with new functionality packaged in by default that wasn't previously available.

People fixate on processing power and graphical improvements but they aren't the only things that can be done ...

Then make better games Ubi. There is still much power left untapped on both the 360 and Ps3.

It has got so bad they pushed me to a PC gamer. That and I am sick of the 3 HD consoles looking very similar with mutiplats.

I don't know how much developers expect new consoles to disrupt the market and innovate when all signs point to the Next Box and PS4 simply being more powerful versions of their current gen brethren.

Also, look at all of the developers that went belly-up during this gen due to the spike in development costs, despite this gen being the most successful of all time in terms of total console sales and WW install bases. New consoles means new hardware to learn meaning higher development costs once again. Who's going to be the big casualties over the next generation is a pretty big question that will definitely be answered over the next 5 years or so.

He is right we need sony and ms to start next-generation. Nintendo allready started it.

This.

You already have the biggest games in the same ballpark as Hollywood blockbusters budget-wise. Next gen, even more AAA games will have to sell 4-5 million at retail just to turn a profit. That means more stratification--iterative blockbusters and franchise milking from the big companies, crazy little shit and niche stuff in the smaller digital space, and the continued hollowing out of everything in between. I also expect them to be more forceful in going after resales, while pushing more free-to-play and homogenized experiences (ugh). And on top of all of that, neither MS nor Sony is probably willing to go nuts with the specs after the billion dollar losses for this generation.

I have to say, of all the generations I've lived through, I've never been LESS excited about seeing the next one than I am now. This gen was pretty much a wash for me as it is, and everything I didn't like about it stands to get much worse. Hardcore console gaming is flying head-first into a brick wall, and it's going too fast to get out of the way in time.

While I do agree we need consoles, Ubisoft should release better quality games first of all, AC: R was just a mediocre game and AC3 is so filled with glitches, bugs and errors that it aggrevated.

We definitely need all new consoles by end of 2013 or early 2014. Despite the hardware strength this gen's HD consoles gave us, technology has advanced and consoles need a major tune up. Graphics are one thing (which will be accelerated by new engines) but functionality, HD optimization, frame rate reduction, seamless OS are all things I'm looking forward to next gen.

I can't say much for Wii U, what their plans are, or what advances it will make over the years. But considering what the 360 and PS3 have been doing this gen and the extra time they have till releasing new hardware, we will probably be wowed by what they bring to the table.