Ken Levine: I have "no desire" to see next-gen consoles come out right now

It's been more than five years since this console generation kicked off, and there doesn't appear to be an end in sight. No more giant leaps - only small steps.

And BioShock creator Ken Levine wouldn't have it any other way.

"At this point I have no desire as a developer and zero desire as a gamer to see the next generation come out where I'm sitting right now," he said during a recent Irrational Games podcast with Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford.

"Connectivity exists today on the platforms, and that's definitely the thing I like in a platform like Steam or something. I don't have to worry about that **** --wherever I am, my games are with me, and if I don't have my game with me, I can have it in a few minutes."

Pitchford, meanwhile, sees a next generation as inevitable, but hopes that the industry will at least throw a few curveballs.

"I would expect that within four years from now, we will be in a new cycle of some kind, and there's more certainty than there was two or three years ago about what that next cycle should look like," he said.

Further elaborating on Levine's notion of connected, always-at-your-fingertips gaming, Pitchford also added: "Yes, that's what we want. We are there; not all of our customers are there. ...When a new platform comes to be, it could be predicated on this new way of thinking."

Granted, the Big Three could take an entirely different route - especially Nintendo, who'll probably figure out an absurdly successful way to let us control games by throwing garden gnomes. Still though, Levine and Pitchford could definitely be onto something, and either way, it's an exciting time to be a gamer.