Gamers waiting for the launch of Xbox Scarlett have received some great news when it comes to the pricing of the new game’s shipping with that console.
While we don’t know yet how much the Xbox Scarlett will cost to buy, we have been given reassurances that development costs won’t spike.
This was a subject touched upon by Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick during a recent financial event.
As noted by Zelnick, past generational shifts have seen costs rise as devs put together more ambitious projects.
But these same issues aren’t likely to affect the Xbox Scarlett or PS5, which means there is less chance of added costs being passed over to consumers.
It also means that the risk of developers going bankrupt dealing with the added changes will also drop.
This will prove a great boost for the next generation consoles, which are expected to be priced at around $400 when they do arrive.
“We don’t really expect material cost changes with the generation,” Zelnick said, via Games Industry.
“Every time we have new technology which allows us to do more, developers want to do more, and that can cost a bit more.
“But our current expectations are not that you’ll see a cost spike. The days of the sine curve waxing and waning in the interactive entertainment business around hardware cycles… those are long gone.
“The transition from last-gen to current-gen was not taxing for us, or the industry. It’s really the first time the industry’s gone through one of these transitions without someone going bankrupt.
“The world has changed. When we consider a console release, the PC format can be 40% or 50% now of that revenue.
“Ten years ago, that number was 1% or 2%. Clearly, the world is changing. A previously closed system is indeed turning into an open system.
“That means hardware is going to look more like hardware and less like hardware taxing software, which is great news for us.”
Zelnick added that “we don’t see it having any negative influence whatsoever on our business, or our catalog,” with boosts to the creative side of the business also expected.
These changes can prove positive for both Microsoft and Sony before they embark on a new console lifecycle.
It follows news regarding the next-gen PS5 ahead of next year’s release date. And it’s good news for potential PlayStation customers because the new console could work out costing less than expected.
In a new blog post, Sony executive Jim Ryan pledged to lower the company’s carbon footprint going forward.
Not only is this good news for the planet, but it means customers will pay less on their energy bills when the PS5 is released.
“At SIE, we have made substantial commitments and efforts to reduce the power consumption of the PS4 by utilising efficient technologies such as System-on-a-Chip architecture integrating a high-performance graphics processor, die shrink, power scaling, as well as energy-saving modes such as Suspend-to-RAM.
“For context, we estimate the carbon emissions we have avoided to date already amount to almost 16 million metric tons, increasing to 29 million metric tons over the course of the next ten years (which equals the CO2 emissions for the nation of Denmark in 2017).
“I am also very pleased to announce the next-generation PlayStation console will include the possibility to suspend gameplay with much lower power consumption than PS4 (which we estimate can be achieved at around 0.5 W).
“If just one million users enable this feature, it would save equivalent to the average electricity use of 1,000 US homes.”
