Naughty Dog fears the length of the current gen!

Story:

The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has outlined its release plans beyond the upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, saying it has "at least one" more game for the current generation of consoles.

In an interview with Finder, community strategist Arne Meyer was asked whether the first-party Sony studio plans to make another title for the company's current generation console.

"I would hope so," he replied. "I would hope we would release a game pretty soon. Our development cycles aren't too long, and I have no idea how long this console generation really is going to last, but, yeah, there's no doubt it should be in this console generation for sure."

Meyer was presented with concerns regarding the length of the current generation, given that Nintendo is preparing to release a follow-up to the Wii U, and the number of games still left for release this generation.

"I mean, I have no doubt--I don't know what the timelines are--but [Naughty Dog has] at least one, maybe two games left in the console generation, maybe more," he said. "Clearly we can release a game really late in a console generation and do well, right?"

In September, Naughty Dog's creative director, Neil Druckmann, said a prototype for The Last of Us 2 was made, but sequel is not currently in development at the studio.

"When Bruce (Straley, co-director) and I moved over to Uncharted 4, we were brainstorming ideas for The Last of Us 2 with characters; ideas for TLOU 2 with Joel and Ellie; ideas for a sci-fi game; ideas for a fantasy game, and building prototypes for each one of those ideas," he explained.

"And just as we were getting close to settling or narrowing that list down, we were asked to work on Uncharted 4."

Later that month, PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida confirmed Naughty Dog is brainstorming ideas for a sequel, but the project is not yet confirmed and may not appear for a while.

"Ever since the launch of the first game, people like [The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann] are talking about some ideas for a potential sequel, some experiments that they want to do. It's just talks around development."

Source:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/uncharted-4-dev-says-it-has-at-least-one-more-game/1100-6432312/

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Now, there are a couple of things we can sorta take from this (long text dudes, my bad):

1)

They say their game cycles are fairly short (which, considering their past output on the PS3 and PS2 is true;) but they also fear the length of the gen. This seems to imply that they are (even if vaguely) aware of when the NX may release. Now that in itself wouldn't lead them to "fear" the end of the current gen, right? After all ND works for Sony and they are in a good place with the PS4. In theory, even if NX released in 2016, there are no reasons to assume Sony (or MS even) would have new hardware ready to answer that, would they?

Well (and it's time for MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SALT HERE BROS. Like, find yourself a salt quarry and stick your head in the largest pile you can find!), what if, what if, ND is aware that Sony (and I would assume MS too btw) actually have some sort of "contingency" plan for new hardware (thus their fears of the gen being short) should the NX end up being a massive success?

Now I know what you're saying right now. "But Des, the PS4 is doing great! There is not logical reason to provide new hardware so soon when it's been doing great and dominating the market!". And you are correct. Assuming a normal continuation of the PS4 sales (both HW and SW) and market share, even if the NX ended up being pretty successful, there would be no reason to actually do anything about it. At worst, the PS4 would have "2nd best" 3rd parties (assuming Ninty gets them and not counting PC of course, which reigns supreme) but it would likely maintain a very good, if not great, share of users.

Well, what if the NX does "eat up" a decent chunk of the PS4 market? In that case, a "contingency" plan would make sense AND give voice to ND's (the current premier Sony 1st party studio) concerns about a possible short gen. I don't think a PS5 (or whatever they'll call it) would release in 2017 or anything. But consider ND's cycles are 2-3 years, and a possible 2018/19 release becomes somewhat feasible.

2)

The other thing, is that the first game after UC4 will indeed be The Last of Us 2/Sequel/Prequel. Which, considering the success of the first game is obvious and makes a lot of sense. That said, the mention of "more than one game" means they have other things going on. And we know UC4 will be the last game from them on the series (though I expect Sony to pass it on to another studio for at least 1 more game). Could it be they're actually working on that supposed sci-fi game? I'd love to see ND's take on sci-fi. Something as epic as ME but perhaps with a greater emphasis on how the story is told (assuming a continuation of the TPS genre) could be fantastic. Or perhaps they'll try a different genre altogether. An RPG from them could be a fun experience.

What say you System Warriors? Am I overthinking this too much? What do you expect ND will do after UC4? Discuss away!

5 years would be fine. No more of this 8 year shit. I also expect PS5 to backwards compatible as they have no reason to change architectures again.

It doesn't matter to me. I'm not a patriot of these companies and their glorified plastic boxes that play my games... If something has a game I want to play. I might end up getting it. Simple.

Screw these sales wars.

Just give me Savage Starlight or The Last of Us 2.

They're probably going to surprise us with an announcement of their next game set to release holiday 2017/spring 2018, similar to how The Last of Us was announced after Uncharted 3. The studio is bigger than its ever been with over 300 people working there and we know they have a second team working on something else. As a comparison, 150 people worked on TLOU.

I...what?

Am I missing something? I see no fear.

I don't fear it. As long as the next console quadruples in power at the least and can do 1080p/60fps with ease. It can end next year for that matter.

On paper it's hard to imagine Sony giving up on the PS4 so soon, or really messing with its mojo.

Why? They made a good return on investment on the hardware, and they sell more software than anyone. Unlike last gen where their first party had to struggle early, till mid-late gen when the userbase was there to validate their projects, this gen they are sending out their first party to a larger share of the market. Xbox isn't going to pull the trigger this early, because they simply can't: you have so many projects in production as is, you've invested so much and R&D to get this thing, and we're going to be on year 3 next year.

2018 might be when we get new machines, but given how slow this gen started I think all of them are aware that it's not that easy anymore to have a cleaner launch run. Third party are more or less guessing in the early going what the final specs are, your first party has to go do the growing pains for everyone (not a good thing), and all in all this gen kind of sucked as it is for the Triple A space, you might need the long gen just to give all these pubs/devs time to get some stuff out there and actually make some money on these things.

I don't think it's a contingency plan, as much as Sony and Microsoft probably don't want to go for a long 360/PS3 like gen, but I would argue they probably shouldn't be aiming for Gen 9 so quickly either. We're on year 2 of these machines, and lets be real, this has been a pretty unimpressive 2 years in terms of triple A selection, that doesn't improve with new hardware.

Hey! If GS can do clickbait, I can do too! :P

Also I didn't mean it literally, more in the sense that they are unsure they can do (as the interview says) more than 1 game. That one game is basically confirmed as they have been (probably) working on it for some time and we can expect it in 2017 (again, probably). More than that? They just don't know. Hence the concerns/fears that this gen might be short (or shorter than the last one).

Yeah, I agree. I think this is basically the most likely scenario, which I did mention. If things continue as they are, even if the NX launches in 2016 and is indeed a proper successful console, Sony should have no reason to actually act upon it assuming they maintain their own trajectory. This was more a discussion on a what if scenario that could happen if all things go well for Ninty (as they did for Sony on this gen really).

MS on the other hand, I feel have more reason to move "fast", much like when they went from the Xbox to the Xbox 360. Will they? Probably not. I don't think MS, despite all of it's money, is that willing to keep risking so much on the Xbox but who knows, really.

And yes, I feel the AAA's (both 3rd party and 1st party) are finally starting to get there, thus releasing a console in the next 2 years would be a financial mistake (only feasible in an extreme scenario). Assuming no more constant delays, 2016 will be a return to the late gen prosperity of the PS3/X360 era I think.

Cool, Halo 6 on the Xbox Too works for me. :P

Try Windows 10 and it would be more accurate.

That makes no sense...

@ultimateimp: Yes it does. He's saying he plays the games and doesn't care what brand it is. I agree. If you have the games....I will play them. Sales Wars is silly. Sure if someone is tanking they might pull out....but all things being equal unless there is other things going on with a brand....they will make consoles.

Play the games......not the numbers.

Nope, in the future all MS gaming will all fall under the Xbox brand.

Maybe. But the shareholders would like to skip the xbox division so I wouldn't bet my money on that.

Nah, they're loving those XBLG fees, trust me, I know all there is to know lol. :P

People wouldn't give a shit about generation length if the other platforms were as considerate as Nintendo with Backwards Compatibility.

Gen 8 is strange and a very poor gen indeed.

5 years would be fine,the PS2 sold 100 milion in those 5 years,and continue to outsell next gen consoles until 2007.

So i say 5 years 2018 sony delivers their next PS console and i hope they stick with AMD and x86 so no excuses for broken backward compatibility or non at all.

you never really realise how long an 8 year gen is until you really think about it. Definitely never again, or at least hopefully.

They say they have at least one, possibly 2 or 3 or four more releases coming for PS4 but they're still wrapping up production on Uncharted 4 so there's no way for them to predict the release schedule for titles that are still in a conceptual stage and won't release for years.

Somehow you've managed to spin this into some magical fantasy where the Nintendo NX is going to come in and take over the gaming industry and third party support is going to just disappear for PS4 and Xbone. It's highly unlikely that the tech gap between the Nintendo NX and PS4 will be much more substantial then the difference between Xbone and PS4. But even if it is, third parties aren't going to suddenly drop support for PS4 and Xbone and suddenly start making titles exclusively for NX, a console with an instal base of 0.

So this entire thread, is it wishful thinking? An idiotic theory that's devoid of all logic? Or are you just trolling?

Naughty Dog should be afraid about delaying and delaying and ...... yup, you guessed right, delaying a game.

I don't know. I hope it is about 7 years because game development time is longer than ever. At this point it feels like a shittier but prettier version of gen 7.

I don't see where he "fears" the length of the current gen. They are just randomly speculating about future sequels or projects. Obviously their next game after Uncharted 4 will be strictly current gen - probably somewhere in the 2017 release window. I bet they even know what the next game is and have started more serious work on it, they just don't want to leak it officially - and thus are teasing about other projects they had been brainstorming. I'm betting on a Last of Us sequel though...since that almost seems required.

Now the 2nd game after that, it could either be current gen or "cross-gen". As that would be 2018-2019 target window. If this gen is short, I could see any 2018 or later games being "cross gen". So basically they either have 1 or 2 "current gen" games left - which is what he said. I would put the over/under on 2 more current gen games.

This what i figured all along, Last of Us 2 will be a PS5 launch title.

More gaming goodness on the way guys.

@Pray_to_me:

I recommend reading again. Especially the part where I say "what if". Twice. Preceded by "huge amounts of salt!". Because, you know, it's just an what if scenario. As further explained in the thread itself.

Or are you just trolling? Because if so, we can take care of that very quickly! :D

I personally would like the these consoles to last a little longer than 5 years. Thats only 3 more years.

IF this sort of thinking starts around the horn then all we're going to get are AAA for sure games like AC, COD, and all that shit until the next gen comes out.

I mean....Watchdogs has a lot of potential...but if everyone starts thinking that the next gen is coming 3 years from now....then it's going to be a while until we get a version of that game of what it could have been.

I dunno....I guess I could stand to go with the flow for another gen in the next 3 years.....but I would rather maybe...4 or 5 more.

This gen will last until 2019 or 2020.

@acp_45: Not so much about sales as more about console releases. Thought it was pretty obvious :P

The release of a new console now or soon...will be a big deal in the industry yes... On a personal level.....not so much. But to some people ( System Warriors as you said ) It's astronomical.

Seems like they're expecting a short gen like the rest of us. Personally, I am fine with that. No one expected this gen to be such a let down. Maybe in 2018-2019 they will have hardware that can produce 1080p/60 fps with better visuals. Even though I'm guessing 4k will be a lot more accessible by then. Then people will bitch about not having a 4k machine and so on. It will never end. Technology is a beautiful bastard.

Link? Are you talking about the hedge fund guy who also wanted to split up Sony's divisions and do a big sell off?