Gaming magazine Edge just dropped a bomb. Some game developers have already abandoned work on the Xbox 360 and PS3 and are instead focusing on the next generation of game consoles from Microsoft and Sony, which should be released next year; just in time to take some of the joy away from Nintendo and its upcoming Wii U.
Some game developers are working with PCs based on the specifications for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. The ‘target boxes’ include a custom AMD GPU which will find its way in Microsoft’s upcoming console. Ubisoft Montreal is one of the developers working on these target boxes. Developers should receive genuine devkits before Christmas and Edge is speculating that a finalized Xbox 360 successor should be released in late 2012.
Now on the PS side, it has been revealed that a Sony owned studio has shifted its focus to the successor of the PlayStation 3 and is involved in the development process for the graphics technology of the console.
Ubisoft’s Yves Jacquer had said in July, “our challenge with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox (360) is that we’re extremely limited in what we can do. It’s a challenge for the engineers to provide nice graphics and nice AI and nice sound with a very small amount of memory and computation time.” He went on: “We think that the next generation of consoles won’t have these limits any more” which reinforces the idea that next generation consoles are in the works.
It’s also logical that both Sony and Microsoft will not want to let the Nintendo Wii U roam without a challenger. We could see Microsoft announcing the Xbox 360 successor at CES in January, with Nintendo presenting the finalised Wii U at E3 in June.
[Edge magazine, concept art from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]
