GDC 08: Gaming legends discuss what is really next-gen

What’s next-gen for you? Is it over-the-top, photorealistic graphics? An art direction that blurs the line between videogame and masterpiece? Perhaps online play? This is what five of this industry’s luminaries tried to figure out at this year’s Game Developer Conference. Check out what they had to say in the full article.

With the buzzword “next-gen” being tossed around all too casually in today’s industry, it’s easy to get confused as to what actually is next-gen and what isn’t. So what really is next-gen? At this year’s Game Developers Conference, this was exactly what five gaming luminaries, namely Peter Molyneux, Phil Harrison, Chris Taylor, Raph Koster and Neil Young, discussed. Let’s see what they had to say about this matter.

Neil Young opened the discussion by bringing up two important points: that people shouldn’t really fault incremental improvements, because everything is incremental in some degree – and that innovation, while important, can be difficult for the consumer to absorb right away. So while a game sequel or even a new console may only offer incremental improvements over its predecessor, a radical change or innovation can also work against it.

Ralph Koster followed up with his own idea of next-gen – that is, online play. His own words:

It’s not the graphics, right? Xbox Live is the next gen game you play on 360. It’s the connectivity and the meta games. Next-next-gen will cut across more platforms.

Phil Harrison agreed, saying that new things – like the services that didn’t exist at first on the preceding console – should be considered next-gen, not the graphic processors or the media itself.

Peter Molyneux wrapped up the discussion by mulling over just what the consumer thinks is next-gen, and that the developer’s mindset is drastically different from the consumer’s. In essence, he agreed that to truly define what is next-gen and what isn’t, different media will have to collaborate with each other.

Definitely an enlightening discussion between developers, in any case. Updates as we get them.

Via Gamasutra