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Xbox 720? PS4? "Couldn't care less," says David Jaffe

Another graphical upgrade isn't quite enough to get the God of War creator excited

David Jaffe, designer of the newest Twisted Metal game, is already over the next generation of consoles. Having worked in the video gaming business since the early '90s, he's seen the cycle for game consoles before.

"I couldn't care less about next-gen," said Jaffe to Edge. "I started at Sony Imagesoft doing Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games, and I went through that to PS1, then PS2, PS3, Vita… You go through the cycle enough and you realize today's 'Oh my f***ing God' is tomorrow's 'Ehh, whatever'. Ultimately, this is all going to be yesterday's news and it's about the experience, the game. Unless we're talking about holodecks, or AI that's so amazing it can actually write a compelling story around you procedurally based on your choices, I'm not interested."

Jaffe also believes that another set of consoles will hamper the ability to get more ambitious projects out the door. He hopes that instead of focusing on horsepower, console manufacturers instead will work on functionality and speed up the slow "ramp-up time" that most modern console games suffer from.

While Eat Sleep Play recently wrapped up the development of Twisted Metal, he's preparing to depart the developer he helped found with Scott Campbell in 2007. He will turn his focus on another studio in San Diego that will look to focus on mobile, browser and possibly console games as well.

Update: Jaffe has now further clarified his stance in a long-form Twitter post, which we've published below.

To clarify: I've been around the block long enough that while better, more realistic graphics are always impressive, a jump in visuals for games doesn't excite me near like it used to. The thrill wears off very quick and because it does, the increased budgets and time needed to create these next-next-gen games becomes a more frustrating pill to swallow. So when Edge asked if I was excited about new consoles, and when I said- in essence- I was not, I was referring to this. I was referring to the fact that UNLESS the next gen of consoles are unique and fresh and bring something substantially more to the table, I could not care less about next gen from a sense of WHAT the new boxes will let us- as game makers- create.

When I went on to say I was looking at doing a next-gen game, I was NOT contradicting myself. Just because I'm not excited about the new tech (from what little I know of it...hell, if it is really innovative and lets our games be better and not just look better, I WILL be excited for it)...but assuming that's not the case: just because I'm not excited for next-gen tech, doesn't mean I'm not very excited to make a next- gen game with our new studio. Big budget, character/story*, new IP games often times NEED to be on the latest consoles and while the next-gen tech of consoles so far has me very 'whatever', the desire to work with an amazing team to help create a big budget, character/story, new IP has me very jazzed!

David

* And before you show off your poor listening comprehension skills and claim I hate stories in games, please re-watch the DICE speech that some1 is SURE to reference when telling me I'm a contradictory douche :). Thanks!

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David Radd avatar

David Radd

Writer - GamesIndustry International/[a]list

David Radd has worked as a gaming journalist since 2004 at sites such as GamerFeed, Gigex and GameDaily Biz. He was previously senior editor at IndustryGamers.

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