Epic: Next Generation Consoles Need to Adapt to The Way People Spend Their Money

We always find it interesting to hear what successful game developers would like out of next generation gaming consoles. You would expect to hear better graphics, and perhaps some new innovation that hasn’t quite made it’s way from PC gaming. In addition to those things, Epic Games President Mike Capps threw a curve ball in his interview with Develop-Online:  “I think another thing that’s changed is the way people are willing to spend their money. Consoles need to adapt to this.” Translation? He want’s micro-transactions.

“I think another thing that’s changed is the way people are willing to spend their money. Consoles need to adapt to this. Game revenue has moved to the service model and the micro-transactions model. Consoles need to start being comfortable with that. They need to be able to do something where small virtual items can be sold and bought for 20¢ without a long certification process and a price approval process.

Right now we’re not even allowed to change the prices of virtual content. We’re not even allowed to set the prices. I just don’t think this protectionist approach is going to be successful in a world where the price of virtual items changes on a day-today basis.

Double-A games will never come back unless we get rid of this notion of a game being $60 or not released. The console manufacturers need to let this happen. The best way of driving developers to PC is telling them they have no freedom in what prices they can set for virtual items. It would be great to have the level of freedom that, say, Steam gives you”

You know, it’s funny. Somehow when I dreamed about the next generation Xbox, game developers conspiring to charge me even more than the current $60+DLC didn’t come up. 

Source: Develop-Online via VG24/7