HappySqurriel said:
Well, we shouldn't see as dramatic of an increase in development cost in the next generation as we have seen in previous generations for a few reasons. In the big-buget HD games most of the modeling and texturing techniques that are being used in pre-rendered movies are already being used (at a lower level of quality), and the cost to make a single graphical asset is similar across formats; this means we have hit (or are close to hitting) a plateau in the quantity of work that is required to make a graphically intensive game. Besides that, I think one of the consequences of this generation (in particular the Wii's dominance in this generation) will be that most projects will not try to take full advantage of the graphical capabilities of a system to produce the most realistic graphics. Although they will boost the model and texture detail from what they have produce for the Wii (with much better lighting and effects), I wouldn't expect to see EA (or other publishers) take games like Boom Blox or MySims and drastically improve the graphics using techniques already applied on the HD consoles. |
True, but its also fair to say that anyone who decides to increase the graphical capabilities of their next console terribly far beyond that of the PS3 next generation does so at their own peril.