More Powerful PS4 and Xbox One Consoles Praised by EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two

One of the biggest talking points at E3 this month was around the new and more powerful PlayStation and Xbox devices coming out. Now, three of the biggest publishers in gaming--Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Take-Two--have weighed in with their thoughts on the consoles.

Executives from the three companies told GI.biz that they like what they've heard about Sony's PlayStation Neo and Microsoft's Project Scorpio. EA global publishing chief Laura Miele said, "The idea that we would potentially not have an end of cycle and a beginning of cycle I think is a positive place for our industry to be and for all of the commercial partners as well as players."

Under the traditional model, when a new console is released, games for the older systems don't move forward with you. However, PlayStation Neo and Project Scorpio will play games you already own on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, thus reducing some of the frustration players can experience when moving to a new console.

"We're thrilled with what Sony's doing, what Microsoft's doing, and we think it's phenomenal," Miele added. "I think that is good for players. It'll be great for us as a publisher about how they're treating it."

Ubisoft's Alain Corre said one of the biggest benefits of the new consoles is the backward and forward-compatibility element.

"The beautiful thing is it will not split the communities," he said. "And I think it's important that when you've been playing a game for a lot of years and invested a lot of time that you can carry on without having to start over completely again."

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick, whose company owns Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne) and 2K Games (Mafia, NBA 2K), echoed Corre's comments. He said he's happy with the idea that a game one of his studios comes out with today can play across a variety of devices.

"The same way that when you make a television show you don't ask yourself, 'What monitor is this going to play on?'" he said. "It could play on a 1964 color television or it could play on a brand-new 4K television, but you're still going to make a good television show."

"So we will for sure get there as an industry. We will get to the point where the hardware becomes a backdrop," he added.

You can read the full GI.biz story, which contains more quotes and insight, here.

Microsoft officially announced Project Scorpio, which boasts 6 teraflops of performance, during its E3 briefing this month. As for Sony, the company confirmed Neo in the days before E3, but did not show off the console at the event. Scorpio is due out in holiday 2017, while Neo could launch this year.