Xbox co-creator warns of "generation gap" between developers

Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley warned developers during the 2009 GamesBeat conference that the "generation gap" between devs and the industry needs to narrow in order to nurture future talent.

"There's a whole generation of games designer that is is absent. It's like the World War One 19-year-olds, they've vanished," he said.

"The Will Wrights, the Warren Spectors, the Sid [Meiers], the Tim Schafers - we can give those guys what they want, and do large deals for them. But there is no generation after them."

According to The Escapist, Blackley said that current method does not work and it is squandering young developer's talent by "putting them to work on the next Godfather game."

"That [approach is] a fine business decision, but the perspective for us is that it is a much better idea to take these three guys who perhaps have a beautiful idea and a different way of working, protect them a little bit as they build up a new idea and a new way of looking at things and a new way of design - and a few years from now they will be a much better business," he added.

"In the '90s there was no mechanism to do that - and we lost a generation of designers. I think its important we look to reclaim that new generation."

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