What Devs Want from the Next Gen

Joonas Laakso, Producer at Bugbear on Ridge Racer Unbounded

I hope it's not coming yet. Bring on Wii U - we need an HD Wii, so that's fine - but we're still getting to grips with the PlayStation and finding new things to do with the Xbox. I do admit with the demand of the physics [in Ridge Racer Unbounded] we are hitting the limits of what we can do, pure processing wise, but with graphics it's good enough already, and I'm not at all convinced consumers are willing to shell out just for graphics alone.

I'm really hoping that we can do away with the physical media at some point - for me, that would be when I would welcome a new generation. Obviously I'd buy a PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, but only because I have to!

In five years or whatever, I see a future where all of our media is going to be subscription-based, and I don't see anything wrong with that - bring it on! I'm a Spotify Premium user, and I couldn't have imagined doing that a year ago. I'm spending more money on music now than I was ever before, and it's not my problem how the music industry splits that - they should figure it out! I'm spending more money so everyone should be happy. Other content's going to go the same way - movies kind of already are, TV's in general already pretty much is, and games are going to be next.

Martin Edmonson, Reflections co-founder, currently working on Driver: San Francisco

If you're talking about the next generation of consoles - and nobody knows exactly when they're going to be - if you say we're coming into the twilight years of the current generation, surely, surely - please god! - there's got to be easy to use tools like there used to be in the old Sega Model 2 arcade boards, where you can build games very quickly without worrying about the technology.

Because we can't be doing this - we can't be building rendering and physics tech from the ground up any longer. I don't think we'll be doing that again - in fact, I'm sure we won't be doing it again. It's incredibly slow, incredibly expensive and time consuming and it's like reinventing the wheel with a slightly rounder wheel.

David Amor, executive director Relentless Software.

I want an anti-next generation machine, quite frankly. The worst possible thing that could happen to me and my work as a developer is a £300 piece of electronics is necessary to play my games. It's a huge barrier. I'm trying to make games for those 400 million people - those aren't people who are going to spend £300-£400 on a next generation console. The best possible thing that could happen, I hope, is someone will say, 'Well this is the next generation: it's £50, and it also streams Hulu and Showtime and those things as well, so people have sort of bought it by accident.' I'm not particularly interested in… an increase in polygons.

Dave Ranyard, SingStar game director, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

I just want a portal to entertainment. I want to make some great games and I'm not that bothered about what the box is, to be honest. I just want to make a great game and get them to people to play.

From Dust creator Eric Chahi

Oddly, I don’t have any specific demands. In fact, my philosophy is more about adapting to existing technology, because there is always a way to create something original. As long as it is simple for the developer to programme and easy for players to use!