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Never one to be afraid of making bold comments, former Sony Computer Entertainment president David Reeves has made his most startling prediction yet – that platform holders such as Sony and Microsoft could co-develop a console within the next decade.
When you’re on the first-party side, you realise how really, really expensive it is to develop a platform,” Reeves told CVG.
Whether it’s PS3, or Xbox 360 or even Wii, they cost millions – maybe not billions, but absolutely millions. You don’t know when to put that stake in the ground of technology and move on. You know, say ‘that’s enough’.
Eventually, it may just become so expensive to develop that Microsoft and Sony say, ‘Okay, let’s get together’. I’d say it’s between 10 and 15 years away. That’s how long I think it will take. I don’t think it will be the next console cycle, but probably the next cycle after that, where you might have something platform-agnostic.”
Reeves adds that while he thinks his logic is sound he concedes that by then balance of power may well have changed hands, with Google (and, notably, not Sony) being one of the companies he expects to be at the heart of gaming.
But it might be different players, of course,” he added. It might be Google getting together with, dare I say, Microsoft, or Google with somebody else.”
