| superchunk said: lol at all of you who doubt that MS and Sony will put out new consoles by 2012. Name one generation where at least one of the big parties didn't release a new console within 6 yrs. NES 1983 SNES 1990 N64 1996 GC 2001 WII 2006 MASTER SYSTEM 1985 GENESIS 1988 SATURN 1994 DREAMCAST 1998 PS1 1994 PS2 2000 PS3 2006 xb 2001 360 2005 In everycase the next-gen started around 5/6 yrs. So, saying 6/7 is actually giving an extra year to the 'norm' already. |
Going by history alone is folly at this point. See my original post (look for the Atari2600 ET in my Avatar). Finances, third parties, and massive financial losses endured by almost every company in the industry made the transition to this generation harder than pretty much all the previous ones. The technological leap and cost of development far out-paced the number of consumers interested in hardcore high-def gaming. I'm sure it looked good last gen as the PS2 managed to reach over 100 million consumers, but then again, the PS2 was also heavily promoted as a DVD player at the time DVD players and DVD's were becoming cheaper and were finally usurping ye olde VHS. The PS2 was last-generation's casual console and it appealed to more than just gamers, which is why it sold so well.
The PS3 is not seeing the same success for more reasons than just it's initially, and generally still, high price. It also "out-teched" the casual fanbase the PS2 held. Blu-Ray is not seen as the big important leap that DVD was, and in fact, the average consumer really doesn't see any kind of real difference. HD TV's are only now catching on, but 1080 is still not the norm by any stretch of the imagination. An incremental change is also the problem with the gaming industry: To Joe Blow and Flo Housewife, the Xbox360 and PS3 are simply overly complicated, more expensive versions of the same old stuff. The controllers are still too big and buttony and scary.
Despite the generally mild learning curve in control for games (which is essentially identical to last gen on the HD consoles), the learning curve for everything else (namely, graphics, complex high-tech hardware, and cost) was ramped way up. Because of that, this is the most expensive all-around new console generation we've ever had. The Xbox360, PS3 and even the Wii all cost more at retail than their previous counterparts. Cost of production on the HD machines shot up like a bullet--doubling or even tripling already high-cost productions from the previous generation. And industry growth, aside from the DS or Wii, was too slow to make back that money for the vast majority of developers. It's why Final Fantasy XIII is now a multi-platform title.
Rushing the next generation based on old timescales will only make things worse, and you can bet that with as long as it's taking for 3rd party devs and publishers to turn real profits this time, they're going to be extremely cautious about jumping on-board "yet another" generation too soon. If Microsoft is actually stupid enough to rush a new console out in another 2 years, all they'll end up releasing is the Xbox Saturn. A system shunned by 3rd party devs due to asinine decisions by the console maker.
