Jake Song, CEO of XL Games and the lead designed of ArcheAge, made a statement in a public discussion in Seoul (South Korea) recently stating, “There is no rosy future on console games market as it has an outdated business model”. Song’s response was to an audience member’s question about Song potentially entering the console market space one day.
Jake Song defended his reasoning by stating that consoles rely on the sales of third parties’ software to produce revenue, and likewise, the hardware (that is expected to live around 5 to 6 years) is costly and will inevitably become obsolete. Song also used Apple’s new iOS as an example saying, “its software only costs US$20 at maximum while the quality of the iOS games is catching up what of the console games fast”. While some may find Song’s opinion on consoles offensive, he does have a very good point and is sticking by his guns. Song went on to state, “The Korean gaming industry was able to set up such wonderful environment for online games 15 years ago. So why should we go into the outdated market while so many overseas developers are suffering from learning our online games development experience,”
As far as what Song has accomplished up to this point goes, he could not be happier. Jake Song made it very clear in the discussion that he has no interest in the console arena and would prefer to help the MMO arena continue to thrive. It’s exciting to see that there are some new projects in the works, and we can’t wait to see them! If you’d like to leave your opinion in the comment box below, please feel free to let us know what you think about Jake Song and his current mindset. We’d love to hear what you have to say!