Peter Molyneux says Sony and Microsoft acted like ‘two frat houses’
After the nuclear fallout of this E3’s next-generation showdown, Fable creator Peter Molyneux voiced his personal disappointment with the demeanor of our console makers. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, he said, “It seemed to me like two frat houses. It’s like ‘oh you’ve done that, so we’ll do this.’ They are kind of defining each other’s strategy. I think Sony changed its strategy because of what Microsoft did and Microsoft changed its strategy due to what Sony did.”
After the smug presentation of Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, it’s not hard to understand what Molyneux is addressing. But he was also dismayed by the mixed messaging of Microsoft leading up to this point.
“Right now it’s not very clear; it went from once every 24 hours to not at all to all the time, and I got very confused by it. They just need to be very clear, focus on the benefits, and after a while, we’ll be in the same place as [smartphones]. This has to be always online and we didn’t have to think about it[…]We need, as an industry, to be super clear to our consumers, and when you’re at E3, you kind of forget about consumers for a while. It just seems to be all about the show.”
“I deeply care about this industry and I do worry about it. I’m not saying I have any of the answers but I just feel we have been in an amazingly easy world for a long time where we’ve got fans and core gamers that we’ve been unbelievably abusive to and if we’re not careful we’re going to lose the belief of those people.”
Mr. Molyneux currently heads up an independent studio called 22Cans focusing on free-to-play mobile games while still being an active consumer and voice in the gaming industry.
Thanks, Games Industry