Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has said that the longevity of the current hardware cycle has ‘penalized’ the French publishing giant.
PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are currently approaching their sixth and seventh anniversary, respectively, bucking the trend of past hardware cycles, where a new platform would typically arrive after five years.
This, says Guillemot, isn’t healthy for the industry in terms of creativity, noting there are fewer risks in pushing new IP at the beginning of a new cycle.
“What we missed was a new console every five years,” he told Gamasutra. “We have been penalized by the lack of new consoles on the market. I understand the manufacturers don’t want them too often because it’s expensive, but it’s important for the entire industry to have new consoles because it helps creativity.”
"It’s a lot less risky for us to create new IPs and new products when we’re in the beginning of a new generation," he observed. "Our customers are very open to new things. Our customers are reopening their minds — and they are really going after what’s best.”
"At the end of a console generation, they want new stuff, but they don’t buy new stuff as much. They know their friends will play Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed so they go for that. So the end of a cycle is very difficult."
The executive went on to note that taking risks earlier on in the cycle pays off later down the line. As an example, he noted that Just Dance wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been Rayman: Raving Rabbids.
“If you can’t take risks because people don’t buy, you don’t innovate. And if you don’t innovate, customers get bored,” he concluded.