Why PS4 won't be cutting edge, and neither will Xbox3 - or Why Nintendo might win next gen

[DanneSandin]

Why I think Wii U might win next gen

Ok, so let me start with the reasoning as to why I think Nintendo might win next gen, why PS4 will not be a major leap and how that will affect Xbox3, and after that I'll go into a little more detail.

Next gen consoles will be more on par with each other than Wii was to PS360. Why? Simply because PS4 won't be a major leap over WiiU. Why? Because Sony can't afford it. It's not all about their financial situation, but about the exchange rate as well. The Yen is too strong for Sony to make a beast of a machine this time around. And if PS4 isn't cutting edge, why should Xbox3 be that? Xbox3 will probably get bundled with Kinect 2.0, and this will keep the Xbox3 specs down. If it isn't bundled with Kinect Microsoft has the cash to up the specs in Xbox3 - but to no avail since WiiStation4U will be similar in specs, and therefore will be the choice of platform for most developers. This means that Xbox3's powerful specs will not be used by 3rd parties.

So, that's the short-ish version. Now for the longer one, which is a post I made in MBP's prediction thread:

Why isn't anybody understanding that Sony won't be able to make a major jump over the WiiU? Viper1 actually made this very clear in superchunk's VS thread. I'll quote a bit of it:

"The high end PS3 launched in Japan for ¥59,980 which was $558 in 2006 but is $766 today. So even if they dropped the PS4 launch price to, say, ¥39,980, that still makes it $510 today. So no matter what, provided the exchange doesn't rapidly move to weaken the Yen in the next year, Sony will either have to launch with a very large loss or reduce the capabilities of the system to launch at a more market friendly price. This is one of the reasons the 3DS launched at such a high price compared to the DS several years before. To hold the same margin of profit or loss, now requires a far higher foreign price than it did before.

And a $100 loss per console is far too much for them as a company now than it was back in 2006. In 2006, they were a financially sound comapny. That is not the case today. If they sold 10 million units at a $100 loss, that's a $1 billion loss to a company that can't handle taking on another billion dollar loss. "

Clearly Sony won't be able to take a major leap next gen due to their financial situation, and due to the exchange rate. They might take a $50 hit for every console, but that's not nearly enough if they wanna blow the Wii U out of the waters.

And if Sony won't make a cutting edge machine, why would Microsoft? As far as we know, they'll probably bundle the console with Kinect 2.0, and they'd price such a bundle at about $399 - or $449 at the most. With the Kinect bundled at that price they won't be able to make a bleeding edge console. Sure they could take a $100 hit/console with a $449 price tag, but will that be enough of power packed in the box to dominate both PS4 and Wii U? Maybe.

But consider this then: If Xbox3 is waaaay more powerful than WiiStation4U (like how PS3 was to PS2), which platform(s) do you think the developers would make games for? It'll be cheaper to make games for WiiStation4U than for the cutting edge Xbox3, and there will probably be a bigger user base for WiiStation4U (2 consoles combined) rather than for the 1 Xbox3. Thus, Xbox3 would get up scaled ports from WiiStation4U - NOT taking advantage of all the power Xbox3 has - meaning, all games will look about as good on all consoles.

What's my point then? This:

If all games will look equally good on all the consoles (with only minor differences) and all consoles will therefore get the same 3rd party support. And thus, the winner of next gen will be determent by other factors, and that's why WiiU might win next gen. It all comes down to:

3rd party games (which they all will have)

1st party games (and we all know Nintendo dominates this category)

Unique features for each console (like the GamePad or Kinect 2.0)

And that's why WiiU won't loose this gen. They'll have 3rd party support. They certainly have the 1st party titles. They have unique features, but it remains to see if they'll be enough. They could win this gen. I'm telling you; they could reach 120m sold WiiU's life time. At the very least they'll reach 60m sold units.

EDIT: Changed the title from "Why Nintendo might win next gen - or Why PS4 won't be cutting edge, and neither will Xbox3" to "Why PS4 won't be cutting edge, and neither will Xbox3 - or Why Nintendo might win next gen". Why? I tried to optimize the title so more would come in here and bring something new to the table ;)

EDIT II:

I posted this in a thread regarding the cut of Sony's credit rating, and I thought it was relevant to this thread as well:

Regarding these last turn of events I'm gonna go a head and make a prediction.

PS4 will launch in October 2013.
It'll cost between 30.000-35.000 yen, which will be something like $/€349-$/€399. Sony will be making modest profit (at the very least) from the get go.
And it'll be about 5-6x as powerful as PS3 (<-- I have no idea if this is doable considering the price I just listed, it's just a hunch).
They might even launch a StreamStation for 15.000-20.000 yen ($/€199-$/€249) without any Blu-ray and disc reading capabilities; this'll be a Gaikai console of sorts.

That's my thoughts regarding their financial situation.