Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein said in a recent interview that although the video game industry has historically seen console refreshes every four to six years, there's no need to follow that strategy this time around. Consumers just aren't ready yet, he said.
The PlayStation 3 might be around longer than you think.
(Credit: Sony)"Over half the users who played Gears of War 2 so far do not have HDTVs," Rein told Eurogamer in an interview. "My point is, of the systems that are out there now, the majority of them aren't plugged into HDTVs. So there's no way we're ready for the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox Whatever."
Rein's comments fall in line with what Sony has been touting as the PlayStation 3's 10-year lifecycle. The hardware maker has said on numerous occasions that the rapid console updates of the past simply don't apply in this generation. That's why Sony, even though it's trailing far behind the competition today, believes it can still win this console war. It believes that its console is the only device on the market that has staying power.
For a while, many video game pundits (myself included) thought that argument was nonsense. Surely there is something bigger and better on the horizon, right?
Rein doesn't think so. He doesn't believe Microsoft will release a high-powered Xbox 720 to replace the Xbox 360. On the contrary, he thinks the future of the Xbox is based solely in Project Natal, motion-detecting technology to control a gaming system with no controller required.
"It's called Natal," Rein said. "That is the next Xbox."
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