Warren Spector "scared" about cost of next generation consoles

Published Apr 25 2012, 10:38 BST  |  By Matthew Reynolds

Warren Spector has said that he is "scared" of the next generation of systems due to costs.

When asked whether he is looking forward to new consoles, the industry veteran said that he is worried that games with higher production values could fail to break even.















"Honestly? I don't care much about hardware. Nintendo games are some of the best games in the world and from a more graphical standpoint, the Wii can't do what a PS3 or 360 can do," he told Digital Spy.

"It's about design and not so much about tech for me. Honestly, I'm more scared about what will come next than I am excited.

"Once we can do Pixar-quality graphics rendered in real time with interactivity, I could see games costing $200 million to make and all of a sudden you have to sell a lot of games just to break even, so I'm a little worried someone's going to do that.

"Someone's going to spend... well, there are already people spending $100 million on games, that's not even insane anymore."



Spector continued: "$200, 300 million games, I'm a little scared about that, there aren't a lot of companies that have the resources or the courage to spend that much. So my gut's in a bit of a knot about that but whatever comes along I'll just make games that work on that platform, I don't think about hardware too much.

"I think the power of the platforms is outstripping the size of the audience. We can't charge $150 for a game. And when the best-selling game of all time has sold only 20 million copies, at $60, do the math!

"If you're spending $200 million on a game and you're making $60 on 20 million copies sold, oh wait, you're losing money if you're the best-selling game of all time basically, right? I don't know how the business works anymore, that's the problem."

He concluded: "It already takes three years to take a game, when all of a sudden creating assets at an even higher level of quality and animations that are even a higher level of quality, I don't know how we're going to do it. We'll figure it out but right now I'm content where I am."



Spector is currently working on Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, which offers new features including co-operative play, camera fixes, musical elements and permanent choice-driven gameplay.

It will be available on Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac later this year. A separate 3DS tie-in is also in the works.

It has been revealed that Epic Mickey was always planned as a series of three games.

> Read our preview of Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
> Read our Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two with Warren Spector

Watch a trailer for Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two below: