Activision's Bobby Kotick Excited for Innovation on the Next-Gen of Consoles

[Shawn Zipay]

Activision's Bobby Kotick is positively giddy over the hope that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will bring a world of new innovation to games. His hope for a more promising future came during Activision's earnings call.

"My sense is consumers are going to be excited about this hardware and I think over the long-term that it will probably be as long as the current cycle. I think you're going to see new kinds of software that has not been available in this current generation. I'm seeing things we're working on and developing that we've never been able to do before and I think we'll excite audiences in ways that they haven't seen before."

It kind of sounds like he's merely talking about graphical "innovation" there. Stuff that's been capable on PC's for quite some time now, but I digress. What if he was indeed talking about actual gameplay innovation? Could you imagine?

Just think back to the innovation that was present in the yearly releases of Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, the Tony Hawk series, etc. It is also the same Bobby Kotick that, in 2008, said that their company's strategy is to "focus on the products(...) that we know if we release today, we'll be working on ten years from now."

Innovation!

(via GI.biz)

[CptainCrunch]

Yeah. Looks like a setup for making changes to the games that haven't changed in a long time and blame the limitations of the consoles for that.

What he is saying is true, but that didn't stop other game makers from doing drastic improvements in this generation of console. Look at Battlefield, Batman, Bioshock, Crysis, Far Cry, Max Payne, Tomb Raider, Assassins Creed, and so on. Big improvements in each one.

With the next gen consoles DICE has said they plan to bring 64 player to the console. I don't think they have said that for this generation.

[cikame]

Quiet Bobby, let the intelligent people in the company do the talking.

[K-16]

My short answer is, the heck with next-gen consoles. We need next-gen mindsets. Our way of thinking hasn't changed for over a decade and it's becoming a problem. Long answer is below.

I think the real question will be how stubborn will these companies be when showcasing innovations that customers never wanted to adopt. I honestly don't care about the hardware's potential in bringing out the best in games. The problem I see are developers trying to make their game work with the platform, instead of the platform working for the game. With motion controls, glasses/glasses-free 3D, augmentive reality, touchscreens, and voice recognition, I can only think of a small handful of games where the platform was meant for that game.

On the other hand, I can think of a ton of games that still work just fine without any of these features, yet they're forcefully added in to promote the technology rather than the technology promoting the game. With business and low-level politics controlling the interactive entertainment industry, we've been incredibly distracted with what it takes to really foster and supply to consumer demand. It also seems marketing and legal departments are disgustingly obsolete with a market as dynamic as this. I can't say I agree with Bobby Kotick if our fundamental problem of marketing myopia and imbalanced legal enforcement continues.