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Ken Levine still doesn’t think next-gen is necessary

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Talk of a next generation of console hardware continues unabated, with camps from each side of the divide debating on whether or not new console hardware is needed right now. Irrational Games’ Ken Levine is – as he’s asserted before – very firmly on the side that believes there’s no real need for next-gen right now.

“It’s clear there’s still a fair bit of juice left in these machines,” he  told Access (via VG247)

“From a gameplay standpoint absolutely there’s a tonne of juice left in them. I as a gamer am not aching for the new machines yet.”Citing some  recent games, he said “You look at Arkham City, Uncharted and Gears of War and you’re starting to see that these games don’t look old to me. They look very current.”

“I was playing Batman the other day and he’s flying over this huge city, the snow is landing on the wings of his cape and you can see it hitting and melting. They still retain the power to visually amaze me.”

Though he admitted that it’s challenging wrestling power out of current machines, he believes that games still have the power to impress. BioShock Infinite will do just that, he says, using a “totally new engine built on top of Unreal Engine”, complete with new lighting and AI systems, among other improvements. I honestly don’t know how they do what do. It’s pretty amazing. They’re still able to drag a lot of juice out of these machines; lots of things left to explore.”

I’m secretly longing for new console hardware, but I’m excited to see what sort of magic devs will come up with as we enter the current gen’s final years, and we see talented people really pushing the hardware to its limits. It’s something we saw with the PS2, with games like the beautiful God of War 2 , Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy XII coming in the system’s twilight years.

Last Updated: November 8, 2011

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