Ubisoft EMEA executive director Alain Corre thinks Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 “are a really major leap from the current generation” consoles.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the executive said he’s excited by the prospect of technological advancements driving improved gameplay experiences on new hardware.

“Developers want to surprise all the time, to innovate – and technology allows us to go into unknown territories and to bring something fresh,” he said. “Like in watch Dogs for example. Thanks to the AI that they are mastering now we are able to bring a new gameplay.

“And if the manufactures of this world can go on innovating and pushing the boundaries of technologies, then we will be able to create better games and convince more fans and the industry will go on growing.

“I think the social aspect in the game is something that is more and more important,” Corre continued. “The new technologies will provide new ways for fans to exchange data.

“And there are plenty of other new elements to improve the quality of gaming. Microsoft spoke about SSD [super-fast hard drives] and the fact they want to reduce the loading times… It’s a very important topic and it’s a revolution, this thing.

“On the graphics side, it’s still improving because you will see a difference form 4k to 8k. There are things they are proposing that will make these machines super sexy for the fans to look forward to.”

Not unexpectedly, Microsoft is bullish about the potential of new consoles, with Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty claiming their arrival could be “as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D”.

However, Platinum Games studio head Atsushi Inaba is not convinced by what he’s seen of Microsoft’s and Sony’s next-gen plans so far, telling VGC he’s finding it “hard to get excited” about upcoming hardware that feels like “more of the same”.