With new consoles coming out faster than I can keep up with them (okay, so that may be my own problem) it’s fair to say that the gaming industry is booming. Technology becomes faster, cheaper, and more accessible with each passing year. Under the circumstances, one may wonder what we as gamers could possibly need more of. Well, according to Platinum Games studio head Atsushi Inaba, the answer is innovation.
In an interview with VGC, Inaba discussed the transformation of consoles and his thoughts on the current and upcoming generations. With the announcement of Project Scarlett at E3 2019 and the previous reveal of the PlayStation 5, everyone is looking ahead at what’s to come. The new consoles promise faster load times, backward compatibility, and of course, the latest technology needed to make the entire console experience smooth and better for the user.
However, Inaba feels that consumers are being offered “more of the same” from consoles. While the perks of new tech are good for the consumer, Inaba says that new consoles offer “nothing that’s disruptive or super innovative.” He went on to explain his reasoning:
“Game hardware used to be about custom chips that you couldn’t do on PCs. Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists. The Switch, for example, is a Tegra which already existed and the other consoles are using very similar chips and graphics cards to what you see on PCs, but maybe slightly updated. None of it seems unique to that hardware anymore.”
Inaba believes the most innovative upcoming service is Google Stadia and its cloud technology. It presents something different, and perhaps that’s just what the market needs to shake things up.
