Ubisoft Expecting New Consoles By 2012
GamesIndustry is running a brief story about comments from Ubisoft's CEO indicating that the company is gearing up for a new generation of consoles within two to three years. "The French publisher is increasing headcount to work on future technology, with mergers also on the cards to increase development and technology resources. 'We want to take advantage of a company that could bring more technology to us, or new brands,' said CEO Yves Guillemot. 'So we have now enough to help us to grow the company for not only next year but to get ready for the coming of the next generation consoles that are probably going to happen 2011, 2012.'" Guillemot also provided some details about the release plans for some of their upcoming games.
Seems to make sense seeing as consoles are usually on a 5 year cycle, which means we could see the next XBox released in late 2010, but maybe Microsoft will want to get an extra year out of it instead of launching early with dodgy hardware again. The PS4 in late 2011 also seems likely. The Wii is an unknown. Surely the next version will have HD capability, but only at a certain price point and Nintendo will want to make a profit from launch. So "Wii Too" will be less powerful than its competitors, but more powerful than the PS3 or 360. 32nm process is probably going to be used, with a rapid shrink in 2013 to 22nm.