Warren Specter talks next generation, Wii U, etc
Warren Specter’s latest game was Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, and it wasn’t terribly successful either critically or commercially. The esteemed game designer has been very quiet recently, likely deciding what he wants to do with his future in the industry, but just yesterday he spoke out about various topics, the most interesting of which was his opinion on where the industry is going:
The biggest risk associated with consoles, at least to me, is that they’re frozen, hardware-wise, while mobile platforms – phones and tablets – will continue to get more and more powerful. I mean, where do you think the iPad or Kindle Fire or Surface or whatever will be in 3 years? 5 years? It’s crazy to think about. And the consoles will still be right where they were in 2013 or whenever they come to market. That’d be a little scary to me if I were a console manufacturer.”
– Warren Specter
I think he hits on a really important point: Speculation is useless. Listening to folks five or ten years ago about talk about the gaming industry, they get more or less everything wrong, and yet we consider them “experts”. Take Michael Pachter for example: That guy said it doesn’t matter if he’s wrong, and he’s said he essentially makes stuff up when he’s predicting things. It’s a silly market niche without a doubt, and I’d argue that it’s more fun to speculate for imagination’s sake than for actually being taken seriously, since… well, you can’t take speculation too seriously!