Xbox designer discusses the difficulty of ignoring Apple's influence

Xbox co-creator Ed Fries has expressed his belief in the increasing difficulty for console manufacturers to continue ignoring the influence of Apple technology.

Speaking to Game Informer, Fries - who currently works as a consultant on Android console Ouya - stated that console development issues such as requiring developers to pay for patches must disappear in the next generation of consoles.

"It's getting harder and harder for the traditional consoles to ignore the Apple kind of experience," said Fries. "Anybody can develop for the platform, certification is a relatively cheap and painless thing, and in the old days of consoles there are all sorts of myths and legends that say that's a bad thing to do.

"That's why the game business melted down in '84, there was too much junk on the market, but now you've got guys who make games like Fez who can't do an update to their game because it costs too much, if that game was on iOS that wouldn't be a problem, but because it's on XBLA it's a problem. Those kinds of ideas have to go away in the next generation."

According to Fries, these issues will "go away" with the launch of Ouya, and if Apple itself offers up a similar product to the console space.

"...the console makers like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, they have to respond to that, it's just the future," he said. "Likewise they have to respond to the free-to-play game model, the world is changing, people want this free-to-play experience, game developers want to build free-to-play experiences and the console ecosystem has to adapt to that. It can't just be $50 product in a box all the time."

Earlier in the year, the Ouya console surpassed its initial $950,000 Kickstarter funding goal, reaching $8,596,474. Check out our in-depth report on the $99, Android-based console.