Crytek: Sony and Microsoft must support free-to-play

Sony and Microsoft need to support free-to-play games to survive, according to Crytek founder Cevat Yerli.

Crytek will become a fully free-to-play company in the near future and Yerli said the next generation of consoles will need to embrace the model.

When asked whether Sony and Microsoft should support free-to-play, Yerli told Eurogamer: "I hope for them that they do. If they don't then it's going to be a tough time for them. It's quite a challenge for those companies logically because they rely so heavily on retail to sell the hardware and to sell the games where the margin for retail really is.

"If they would forgo their entire retail business and go digital free-to-play, then they would not be selling any more Xboxes as well. There's a chicken and egg thing there. And they have to make radical calls."

Yerli admitted that free-to-play gaming has a bad reputation but Crytek is planning on changing all of that.

He added: "We know that free-to-play games have a bad image. They have a bad reputation - it's pay to win, it's low quality. I completely get that, but we are making free-to-play that's high quality. It's CryEngine 3, it's a big investment."