Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli is hardly the first developer to complain about the sluggish arrival of the next generation of consoles, and he won't be the last. But in an interview with VG247, he fears that this lethargic attitude has allowed other devices to step up and take away the power of consoles in general:
The current generations are drying out and the longer we wait for the next generation of consoles, the higher the likelihood that they could fall behind tablets in terms of being the first thing people reach for when the time comes to play games. Tablets are putting pressure on the gaming industry, and taking over in some ways, so that should be kept in mind.
At first, I thought that this claim was an obvious exaggeration since the tablet is designed for a much wide pool of people than consoles. Practically, if I'm sitting in my living room, I choose my console over the tablet. And when I'm on the go, I've got the DS and Vita.
But then I realized that I was looking at this only from the angle of a consumer… and a gamer at that. If developers see that they can make as much profit, if not more profit on a percentage basis, from designing games for the tablet than the console, that means they're inclined to put less effort on creating console games in general.
I also think it has to do with excitement as a developer, not just in following trends but also in being charged up for designing a title for two, three, maybe four years. We gaming journalists have the luxury of moving from one game to the next within days, but they've got to sit on projects for years, and if those projects are on technology from more than several years ago, it can be disheartening.
Luckily, the Wii U will be releasing this holiday and the next Xbox generation is reportedly in the hands of some developers in the form of debug consoles. So don't worry, guys, it will come… eventually.
