Which was my point.  If Wii U isn't considered a next generation console then neither will the PS4 if Armstrong's statement proves valid.

But, I don't agree with the notion that hardware denotes a generation anyway.  Generations are always a matter of the predecessor/successor relationship of flaghship consoles.  Horsepower just usually tends to have similar characteristics across those consoles but it isn't a criteria for generational inclusion since inclusion is automatic based on succession.

This is what most people said about wii but it didn't stop it from being a success

There seems to be this collective disbelief among gamers suddenly that graphics "couldn't possibly get much better," which I think  is silly, bordering on ignorant (and I mean no offense as I know people often loathe the word "ignorant").  But we have no idea how much better things can get, and we won't until--really--someone does it.  The new Unreal Engine shows graphics that, as it sounds, might not exactly be possible on the Xbox360 or PS3--at least without some kind of compromise.

I find it hard to imagine graphical and engine effects improving much over what we have now, but I've felt this way in the past, and I know that it's just silly to think that things couldn't improve much.  Keeping in mind the old rule that computing power doubles every 18 months, and this generation is lasting longer than any other, there are some massively powerful machines on the horizon.  Engines are pushing this generation to it's max now--Frost 2 and Unreal and the CryEngine 3.

It's not just general graphics either, it's graphical effects, physics, lighting, reflections, refractions, number of things animating at once, level of animation detail, level of AI detail, number of players playing at once, framerates, size and scope and more.  I see all the time where games are limited by modern technology.  Blurry, surprisingly low-res textures are in pretty much every game.  Gears of War hides it's limitations in fairly linear stages with scripted events.  L.A. Noire has some often terrible framerate issues.  I see visible seams in polygons.  I see textures being drawn in.  I see pop-up moving through game worlds.  I see clipping all the time.  

Essentially, I see the limitations of this generation all over the place now.  And I'm sure you and pretty much everyone else sees it, too.  This generation has never looked better--but it's also very easy for us to now see it's age.  We're used to the current consoles and what they can do, and we're used to their limitations.  

I don't know exactly how much better things can get or look, but I know enough to know I shouldn't dismiss how much further things can go.  Personally, I don't think a new console generation should ever come about unless true advancement can be shown--a major, obvious leap forward.  And it could be that Microsoft and Sony want to make sure they actually can show a big enough leap forward.  For Nintendo, it's easy.  Pretty much anything they did was going to look better than the Wii.  

A new rumor cropped up from GameInformer that Avalanche Studios, the developers of Just Cause, are currently "expecting" a new generation, and new consoles in 2014.  It sounds like they don't have Xbox 720 or PS4 dev kits, and are speculating based on their experience in the industry.  2014 is just fine by me, and by that time (if it does turn out this way), we should see some incredible, currently unfathomable improvement in gaming.  

After all, in two generations, what was once a "really amazing, detailed and incredible FMV sequence" now pales in comparison to the average gameplay footage of any major disk-based release on Xbox360 or PS3.  The leap from PS2 to PS3, or Xbox to Xbox360 was arguably the biggest this industry has ever seen.  Why would we dare assume that the leap to the next generation would pale to this?  Because graphics seem to have reached an apex?  It can always get better!  The next generation may feature Bulletstorm-like over-the-top antics without being scripted events.  That much insanity, detail and chaos--all in real-time, and dynamic.  A game like Prototype with Gears of War-level detail in every corner.  No more compromises:

No more "small scripted area in order to have the most intensive graphics."  (Gears of War)
No more "stuttering framerates to allow for a detail-rich area."  (L.A. Noire)
No more "compromising graphics to fit as much action on-screen at once." (Prototype)
No more low res textures.
No more polygonal seams.
No more draw-in or pop-up.
And if not totally "no more," then certainly, "a helluva lot less."

All I'm sayin' is, we shouldn't dismiss how much further developers can push things just because this generation seems to have reached the top where graphics are concerned.  It about a lot more than just graphics, and even those can still be improved.

Nintendo hasn't been interested in pushing the tech of their machines into the stratosphere for two generations now.  The GameCube was a powerhouse in it's time, easily more powerful than the PS2 and Dreamcast, but since then, it's been all about conservative power output in their machines.  There is no indication that Wii U is pushing any boundaries that haven't already been met (technically) by the PS3 or Xbox360, and that keeps with Nintendo's current style anyway.  Microsoft and Sony, on the other hand, I expect them to pull out all stops where hardware is concerned--and I think they'll blow our minds.

I greatly enjoyed your post and wanted to note that I'm glad someone else finally sees that Obama has done nothing to improve things.  He's done a masterful job of changing nothing, maintaining the status quo, and continuing Bush's worst policies--while adding covert assassination to the list of things America now does that the rest of the world can hold against us (don't get me wrong, it's good we got bin Laden, but it should've been to capture not to kill, and Obama ordered an assassination, not a capture).  Amazingly, we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan despite his promise we'd be out of the Middle East within 18 months of him being elected.  

I've also read that we have yet to see the bottom of our economic crash--the real crash is looming--and the way the government taxes and squanders money willy-nilly is what's going to cause it--when the government bottoms-out the dollar and balks on all it debts.  And he's still trying to create a government healthcare plan.  The last place I want my healthcare coming from is government.  That's all we need--a DMV version of a hospital.

/political hullabaloo

I also agree with you completely on your points that financial considerations are of utmost importance to whether a game console is successful now or not, and Nintendo seems intent on pricing themselves out of their current Number One position.  If they're not going to make their machines affordable to produce, then they may need to adopt Sony and Microsoft's standards of selling the machines for a loss to make money on the software licensing.  

I'm not saying "Graphics can't get better", I'm saying "Graphics can't get much better given the hardware currently available and the limitations on game publishers due to development costs"

The raster-scan line algorith is a very old and well understood "hack" to produce 3D graphics without the processing power requirments of a global illumination scheme. We have spent decades building upon this flawed approach and we're getting to the point where we have done (just about) as much with it as we possibly can.  We can stack the material and lighting effects we have produced on top of eachother, but we're really hitting the limit of how good these can look using a raster-scan line approach.

Beyond this, development costs have already increased to the level that few developers can afford the "mistake" of making a game that is not a massive success. If development teams have to more than double, and development timelines increase by 50% to 100% again, how many games would really end up being profitable; and how many developers would survive?

If we are in a 10-year generation, then introducing an upgraded Wii halfway through makes sense.

Mike from Morgantown

Costs have increased to grotesque proportions, but at the same time, making the same kind of games has been "optimized" and made easier as the years have passed.  For instance, it costs less to make a PS2-style game now than during the PS2 era.

But that doesn't instantly mean that next generation, making a game like GTA4 will suddenly be "affordable" by any stretch of the imagination (especially with all the licensed music and crap).  

I would sincerely like to see a console business model along the lines of what Nintendo hoped to accomplish with the Wii--that you can sell your game in any form for any (reasonable) price, and simply to have a console that can handle all that any developer wants to accomplish.  I'm fine with new disk-based titles that are $20 or $30 as well as $50 or $60.  

Gamers, however, I feel are a problem these days in that gamers seem to have this attitude that if it's a physical release, it should be $50 or $60 and be massive/epic/big/long enough to justify that price.  We should be able to have side-scrollers and puzzle games and the like released as new titles in physical form on consoles, without having to worry about spending umpteen million dollars to make umpteen million dollars.  The upcoming Rayman side-scroller looks to be a nice addition to modern gaming.  

At the same time, a console should allow for pretty much any kind of downloadable micro-game or add-on or what-have-you.  

But we do have some developers, like Ubisoft and such who are strangely adamant that we need a new console generation right now, despite the fact that, financially, it'd be a bad idea.  

I agree that the next generation needs to be planned better--this one, despite it's longevity, was not.  I've long said that this entire generation was rushed, and the growing pains were very public, and often, very nasty.  Xbox's RRoD'd, PS3's went through countless drastic changes in desperation to sell, Wii's bricked (my Wii is the least reliable Nintendo system I've ever owned and often struggles to load disks or channels for some reason), and several studios  were swept under the rug and vanished.  

But I think the next generation will also be unbelievably powerful and whether we think it can advance much further or not, it will advance far further.  Hopefully, we'll all be ready for it--and by "we" I mean everybody.  Developers, publishers, consumers, gamers, and the console makers themselves.  Nobody was really ready when the current generation launched.  The Xbox360's initial sales weren't very impressive, the DS and PSP's initial sales weren't very impressive, the games on these three systems weren't very impressive when they launched, either.  Nobody was ready and the learning curve was higher and slower than any generation I can remember (and I've lived through all of 'em since the NES).  I don't think this generation really hit it's stride until last year.

I'm all for this generation lasting a long time, until 2013 at the very soonest--and Microsoft and Sony both indicated 10-year lifespans on the consoles, which I sincerely hope they're serious about.  I think Nintendo's idea of a new system every 5 years is grossly out-dated, and I don't know how the Wii U will fit into things.  Hell, if it is only about as powerful as the X360 and PS3, it could be the catalyst that encourages this generation to last a little while longer--in much the way the Wii inadvertantly kept the PS2 going (made porting games easy, so development costs and profits were easy).  

I still feel that Microsoft and Sony will truly give us massively powerful new machines in the coming years--just hopefully not until we're all good and ready, and this generation has been truly exhausted and developers know how to craft the same caliber of hits for less money next time around.  

....I feel like focus may be getting lost in my posts.

I don't disagree, but I think the "Next Generation" will be an extension of the current generation in a lot of ways, and not really a "Next Generation" in the way people have become accustomed to thinking of a next generation system.

I actually anticipate that the vast majority of publishers will continue releasing the same games on the current HD systems that they're releasing on the next generation systems for several years; and the difference will be similar to the difference in playing a PC game in low detail at 720p @30fps compared to playing the same game in high detail at 1080p @60fps.

While there will probably be some stand-out games (in particular first party games), I'm not expecting much of a revolutionary change in graphics for at least the first several years after release.

People will disagree with me, but I expect that the suggested "50% more powerful" claim about the Wii U is a misunderstanding of what was said; and I suspect a developer said that the Wii U was half a generation ahead of the PS3. This (more or less) falls in line with what has been rumoured about the Wii U, and it would have been pretty bleeding edge system if it was released in 2010. This hardware is actually fairly well suited to how I expect the next generation to play out; the graphical difference between it an the other next generation systems will be minimal because they will mostly be playing advanced versions of HD games, and as the HD consoles die out the Wii U will likely become the "Base" platform with the other next generation consoles getting advanced versions of those games.

it does not matter because the wii u has the perfect nintendo strategy

small technological leap + gimmick = win

it worked perfectly with the wii and it has worked perfectly with the 3ds.. oh wait... well forget the 3ds. Nintendo is always pushing the boundaries technology and innovation, just think about all the new IPs they show each year and now they have HD and touch screen, they will sell millions no matter what.

Imo, the Wii was half-way between the previous gen and this gen. While the Wii U is this gen.