| MikeB said: I think the PS4 will be the most powerful console on the market when released, Cell based and coming with PS3 compatibility out of the box (as well as PS1 and PS2), but will be far less costly to make as for instance Blu-Ray technology will be cheap by then. It will probably have Home pre-installed, so users after signing into their user profile (including trophies) can directly make use of their customized character and customized private space. |
I agree with most of what you said, and I do believe that they will stick with a CPU based on the Cell processor and a Blu-Ray drive. The thing I don't really know about is whether Sony will produce "The most powerful console on the market" ...
I personally believe that Sony and Microsoft are both going to take a look at their current strategy and are going to realize that people are only willing to pay so much for a console, and taking a massive loss to produce more powerful hardware does not increase the sales of the system; as a consequence of this, they will take advantage of newer technology to produce a more powerful system but their main focus will be on producing an affordable system that isn't sold at a large loss.
In contrast, I see Nintendo comming to the conclusion that the uniqueness of the Wiimote allowed them to sell so well (and attract third party publishers) in spite of the lower performance of the Wii. In the next generation they will not be in a position where they have such a unique user-interface and will be forced to produce a system which is more competitive in terms of processing power.
Who ends up haivng the "most powerful console" will (in my opinion) depend on how far each of the console manufacturers go in their new direction. It is entirely possible (although unlikely) that Sony would decide to take the exact same approach Nintendo took with the Wii and release a system that is 2 to 4 times as powerful as the PS3 that comes with an upgraded Wiimote; at the same time it is possible (although unlikely) that Nintendo would release a system which is much closer to the limits of what is possible when they release their next console, which could be 8 to 16 times as powerful as the PS3 or XBox 360.
