Ubisoft Working On PS4, Xbox 720 Games
Want Ubisoft games at the launch of the next round of consoles? Then relax.Published 28/05/2009 at 14:30 by nofi
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As part of Ubisoft’s financial report released yesterday, company founder Yves Guillemot said “10 percent of Ubisoft’s workforce is working on developing games for the next generation of game systems that will eventually replace [the] Wii, [the] Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3.” Yes, he actually said that. “What has helped us is we always take the new technologies right at the beginning of their availability, and we go after them faster than everyone else,” he continued. The company was one of the first to make titles exclusively for the Wii, and appear to wish to continue this with launch titles for the PS4 and whatever the next Xbox will be called.
Source: Bloomberg, Tip: Tuffcub
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CaptainMurdo | 28/05/2009 14:34
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Hmm. If the PS3 is meant to have a long life then why are games being developed already for the PS4? I can understand a Wii 2 and, maybe, an Xbox 720 but not a PS4 yet. Ubi do seem to be planning ahead a lot recently though.
Gawge | 28/05/2009 14:36
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When they say that the PS3 will have a long life it means that they will support it 10 years from release, not that they won’t bring a PS4 out for 10 years.
Look at the PS2, that has/had a life of 10+ years with new games being brought out but the PS3 was brought out way before they slowed down with the PS2.
wedgehog | 28/05/2009 14:55
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Maybe someone in Ubi made something that could one day run on next gen systems and that picked up momentum and became what he said.
Or … they have a whole team working on making a great game with no hardware restrictions that will eventually be released when it is possible to do so.
As far as I’m aware the PS4 is nothing more than a few mindmaps at the moment – but maybe more.
HDN2641DK | 31/05/2009 19:53
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currently i dont think the PS4 will be released in at least 3 years. the PS3 is only 2 years old.
Ubisoft might be a little bit ahead.
Commando101st | 28/05/2009 14:34
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Wow, as brilliant as that is, I’d really rather they concentrated on the current generation. PS3 is nowhere near used to full capacity, so why haven’t they got more programmers working on harnessing all the extra power left in that?
cc_star | 28/05/2009 14:40
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The fact that Ubi’s game engines run so poorly on the the PS3 anyway needs attention, looking at you Shaun ‘pop up’ White, & Assassin’s ’screen tearing’ creed and so on and so on…
PoP was good though which shows they can do it if they choose to.
cc_star | 28/05/2009 14:36
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Wouldn’t most larger publishing houses with several development studios be working on future stuff as a matter of course?
They then just need to wait for the tech to catch up with their projects, do a little bit of tweaking, and bang you have new game.
But news that the figure is as large as 10% is surprising, because in a company the size of Ubi that would be quite a large figure.
Another thing, I thought we’d decided that all games were going to be ran on server farms and streamed to terminal devices like PS Cloud & OnLive, making it easier all round.
FruitOfDoom | 28/05/2009 14:59
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I don’t see cloud gaming ever taking off. The tech required is not available right now, and latency is always going to hamper the idea of playing games via a remote server. Not to mention the reliability issues with any internet connection, it’s far too much too soon.
The cost to set up capable servers to support OnLive and cloud gaming will be huge! That’s alot of hardware, imagine the strain under games such as COD MW2. How much will gamers need to fork out to play a game they will not own, on a system they do not possess, with their experience at the mercy of a disant server not under the gamers control.
I hope cloud gaming never takes off. But if it does – it will fail.
On topic: The announcement from Ubisoft is a welcome confirmation, but as soon as the 360 and PS3 shipped, everyone must have known the companies would be straight on to their next projects.
With cc_star on the 10% – that’s some serious investment. Perhaps and indication of another massive increase in development costs? How will the smaller studios cope? Very interesting.
cc_star | 28/05/2009 16:38
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EuroGamer claim to have proven that the OnLive concept will work.
Latency will not be the issue the issue is processing power, surely they’d need a CPU & GPU for practically every single person who connects, and no one could afford that.
Tuffcub | 28/05/2009 14:43
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Damn I’m good
Klangaroo | 28/05/2009 14:51
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This is pretty normal, what they actually are doing is working on their estimated specs for the upcoming systems and doing all their development on PC. Capcom and Ninja Theory did this, too. They talk about it alot in the “Making Of” documentaries for early PS3 and 360 games. If they underestimate the specs, they are all ok and can port them when they get the development tools. If they overestimate, they have to spend time making drastic changes to their engines. This is why Heavenly Sword runs at terribly framerates most of the time, the developers overestimated what the PS3 specs would be when they started development on PC.
Dar-Kaus | 28/05/2009 14:51
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It’s all about lead times for production, remember Killzone 2 took 4 years to develope, chances are the same will be true for the next gen AAA games also.
YOURMUMANDME | 28/05/2009 15:07
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Heard of the next gen online gaming consoles , I’m guessing everyone has by now . They don’t require much software or hardware to play from a catalog of thousands of games .
My guess is that next gen Ps/Xbox/nintendo console will be nothing more than a brand of that same product with a huge similarity to makes of tv , freeview , pc etc. All providing their model to access the same content on a server etc.
Not a dead cert but an educated guess !
deepmenace | 28/05/2009 15:08
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makes sense.
if you can goto sony/ms with a new theoretically possible property that blows their collective minds you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll be falling over eachother with “exclusive rights” cheques for that elusive day-one killer app.
Tuffcub | 28/05/2009 15:13
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Sony dont pay companies for exclusives. The exception being Ghostbusters which they actually bought the publishing rights to rather than a backhander like MS love doing.
Raen | 28/05/2009 16:27
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What about all the new PSN titles they’re paying for the development of?
cc_star | 28/05/2009 16:42
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The ghostbuster thing maybe because Columbia/Tristar (a Sony Motion Pictures company) is the rights holder to ghostbuster and there may have been a bit ‘leaning’
Another point of view is that Atari were about to go bankrupt, an needed the cash injection… up popped MS, and then the bigwigs at Sony said they can’t have that happening to their own IP.
forevermacin | 28/05/2009 15:12
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quite frankly I could care less that ubisoft is working on games for the next gen of games consoles. Where is Splinter Cell conviction ? A sequel to PS2, Xbox + PC game 13 would also be nice. If remember that one was left deliberately on an unresolved cliff hanger !
Gastos84 | 28/05/2009 15:24
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I think Ubi are being a bit OTT. Maybe the XBox has been out longer but in terms of the PS3, titles truly worthy of the Next-Gen tag have only just started to surface. The PS3 has been out a couple of years or so but unless Sony start to see a drastic finacial gain, I don’t expect them to be onto PS4 for a long time yet. And in that time surely new technologies and engines will crop up making Ubisoft’s current investment look dated.
If i’m truly honest, the reported financial losses on the PS3 make me think that Sony might not even turn up for the next bout of consoles.
colmshan1990 | 28/05/2009 20:25
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This could be Sony’s BIG E3 reveal.
Could you imagine the reaction if Sony show the PS4 at E3?
Lorcan | 28/05/2009 22:22
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There better not be any new consoles until at LEAST 2012. 2013 in an ideal world. The PS3 just feels like it’s getting started.
Plus, I don’t want to have to shell out for another console already. Looking back at how much the PS3 has come on, I don’t want to have to go back to a stage when I have a console which is only potential. I just got through that stage with the PS3. Now I want to enjoy it as it is before going back to the “Just wait a few more years” stage again.
FruitOfDoom | 28/05/2009 17:11
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When everything is connected to transfer data at the speed of light – then i’ll be confident about latency not effecting the experience.
OPM claim OnLive promises 720p video at 60fps on a 5mbps internet connection. Giving just 10,922 bytes to update a frame of 921,600 pixels and stream 6 channel surround sound. “It would be a world first”.
I get lag streaming a 720p film from BT, and that requires no inputs or heavy processing.
This is so a TSA DEBATE. Lets continue it off this post?
Tuffcub | 28/05/2009 17:48
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If by that you mean the “pub” fund, that’s only available to I think three small games per year? And it’s peanuts compared to $50 million MS paid for GTA DLC, its something like 10 grand, not even worth mentioning.
Raen | 28/05/2009 18:11
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I’m not saying it’s the same in terms of money, but surely all that matters is the principle.
cc_star | 31/05/2009 20:37
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If it’s released in another 3 years, they better get their heads down and get on with developing for it.
Killzone 2 took over 4 years, and a game on a future console will probably take even longer.