Jonathan Blow, known to fans of indie games as the creator of 2008's Braid and 2016's The Witness (which we listed among the Best Adventure Games of the Decade), doesn't speak often publicly. Years may pass between his statements, but when they do appear, you won't read him pull any punches. For example, even though Braid debuted as an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive back in the day, Blow would later admit he had suffered a 'mildly unpleasant' experience with Microsoft back in the day.
The Witness would turn out to be a timed PlayStation 4 exclusive, too, as the game designer and programmer was able to approach Sony when the console was still under development, while the same proved impossible with Microsoft and its Xbox One. At the time, Microsoft's indie program was quite complicated, though that changed over the years thanks to ID@Xbox.
Now, Jonathan Blow has spoken once again. During a Twitch live stream aired a few hours ago, he very briefly discussed the upcoming next-generation platforms.
I'm excited about some consoles in the next-generation, let's put it that way. PS5 is pretty good.
Beyond the explicit comment made towards Sony's PlayStation 5, we are left to interpret the rest for ourselves. It seems like Blow isn't impressed by at least one next-generation console. If we consider that we're unlikely to see a real Nintendo Switch successor (though there could be a juiced up 'hardware refresh' at some point) for quite a while, given that the console launched in March 2017, the only remaining options are the PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X. Now, given that the latest (albeit incomplete and possibly out of date) leaks put the Xbox Series X at a targeted 12 teraflops and PlayStation 5 at a little over 9 teraflops, it seems unlikely Blow would be talking about the high-end next-generation Xbox.
On the other hand, he could be very well referring to the low-end Xbox codenamed Lockhart, rumored to be targeting 4 to 5 teraflops in order to be priced lower than the PlayStation 5. After all, it could be argued that Lockhart's inferior hardware might cause developers to fail in exploiting the full potential of the Xbox Series X (or PlayStation 5, for that matter) as they'll be forced to run the games on this budget console as well.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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