Next-gen consoles will lose ground, says Roberts

The next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft won't enjoy the success of their predecessors, according to Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts. Speaking with NowGamer about his current project Star Citizen, Roberts dismissed concerns that the next wave of consoles would undermine enthusiasm for Kickstarter projects like his own.

"I think consoles will be there and they'll do decent business but I don't think that the next generation of consoles will be as big as the last generation," Roberts said. "Essentially, I can build a high-end PC now that's much more powerful than the new consoles that will be announced this year."

While that PC might cost a lot more than a standard console price point, the cost of PC power is always decreasing, and Roberts said the tools to stream content to a living room TV set is similarly coming down. At the same time, console makers are less likely to rack up the huge losses on hardware out of the gate that they did in the last generation.

"So they're going to be on an even footing with everyone else, whether it's Steam Box or whatever, and then what's the best platform," Roberts asked. "Is it a closed platform, which is controlled and curated like Microsoft, Apple and Sony, or is it an open platform that isn't controlled? There are good and bad things about both sides but that's basically the PC platform."

Roberts went on to say that despite the consoles' ability to run Star Citizen, he wouldn't bring the game to them in the next generation unless Sony and Microsoft made their platforms considerably more open. In particular, he said the lack of control over the update cycle and inability to push out new content whenever it suits the game would be two major obstacles.