Paul Ross, former Technology Director at Criterion (the studio responsible for several Burnout and Need for Speed titles) has already started thinking about what the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Two will be capable of. It’s never too early, right? Or maybe it is.
In an interview with EDGE (via Videogamer), Ross says he started thinking of what future consoles could do when he left Criterion to found Three Fields Entertainment, the developer behind the recently-announced Dangerous Golf.
“OK, what does a PlayStation 5 game look like? What does an Xbox Two game look like? And how can we start to build for that future now?” he remembers thinking, adding: “So what does a PS5 game look like? With PS4 we’ve seen some fidelity put into the worlds, but PS5’s going to be about more dynamic worlds, far more interactive worlds that are more believable in the way they behave.”
He also discussed how physics engines have remained largely unchanged since the late 90s, and how Three Fields’ newest title is part of a paradigm shift “because its about simulating physics at a molecular level.” He says the studio has been thinking about what a PS5 or Xbox Two game could look like because they want to start planning for the future, so they will be better equipped to develop for and take advantage of that hardware when it comes.
Analysts have already predicted that the next two consoles will launch in 2019, six years after the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, making this generation already halfway over. Many have also observed that there’s no way the industry can support the PS4 and Xbox One for as long as it supported the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, due to the already massive technological divide between modern PCs and current consoles. We also already know that Nintendo is working on its next console, currently code named the NX.
What do you think about these observations? Is Ross just stating the obvious, or is it fun and healthy to speculate about the future every once in a while? Let us know in the comments.
