Ubisoft's Guillemot: Prepare For New Hardware 'In The Next Few Years'

Ubisoft is already preparing for new hardware, CEO Yves Guillemot said alongside the company's full year results announcements today. "We need to get ready for the future generation of consoles," he said emphatically on the company's conference call to investors and analysts. "In the next few years, there will be new home and handheld consoles, and if you don't invest... you will not be able to cope with both [the existing and new generation consoles]. None of the big three console manufacturers has given any indication of upcoming hardware revamps, although Microsoft yesterday promised that its presentation at this year's upcoming E3 would "completely transform how people think about home entertainment." Sony, conversely, has long touted its ten-year plan for the PlayStation 3 -- although notably, the similar platform longevity it planned for PS2 had little impact on the timing of the PS3's launch. But the PS3 is only in year three of its planned decade, and Sony has said that achieving profitability for the platform is its primary goal in 2009. As for handhelds, Guillemot's warning comes alongside widespread but as yet unconfirmed media rumors of a wholly redesigned PSP in the works that will discard its UMD drive in favor of a fully digital download-dependent format.