Market giants Sony and Microsoft are going heavily on free-to-play and in-app purchasing models on their next-gen consoles, Epic Games co-founder and vice president Mark Rein says.
When talking at the GameHorizon conference, Rein said both the companies will take on the kinds of financial models seen on mobile devices, Joystiq reports. "The next-gen consoles are going to be fully embracing the free-to-play and these IAP-type business models," he said. "So in case you don't know that I'm putting that out there. Sony and Microsoft are both going heavily in that area."
When roundtable chair Matt Martin of GamesIndustry International said "we still need to see some kind of evidence," for these claims by the console makers, Rein replied, ""Well, I'm telling you. I'm telling you what they're telling developers."
It should be noted that Sony Worldwide Studios chief Shuhei Yoshida had recently stated that his company is quite open-minded when it comes to different financial models and that Sony is working on a "free-to-play type" PS4 game. "We are developing a free-to-play type of game, but we haven't announced it yet," Yoshida told Game Informer (via Gaming Everything). "We don't have any subscription-based games in development, but we are not crossing out any type of game; if it makes sense for a particular project, we'll look at adopting different models. We are open for any types of models. Overall, we are increasing investment in the digital side of development, either through digital titles like Journey that we've been doing, but also trying to add more service-based models to our games going forward, like DLCs or additional features post launch," he explained. His comments should also be read in the context of Sony's upcoming release of Blacklight: Retribution as a free-to-play PS4 game.
Talking of new opportunities in video game hardware, the Epic co-found opined that the PS4 and Xbox Infinity can learn from Google and Apple on how to make gaming more convenient for players. "I think the real big thing that the consoles can do is improve their interfaces. They can improve the Xbox Live-type experience. They can improve their media center capabilities. But that's only going to make them also better platforms for having your games. Your games will just come down from the cloud, you'll be able to go to any Xbox, sign in, and boom, you'll be able to play your game," he said. "I think they can make gaming a lot more convenient, and then I think you'll game more if it's more convenient."
Sameer Baroova of GameStick and Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games Studios also spoke on the subject.
Listen to the experts' views in the video below:
