War is over (Project Cafe to define the Next-gen ?)

[Asriel]

It tends to be that Nintendo's new hardware is dictated by what new things they can do with cheap, available technology. I wouldn't be surprised if the new system is a small chunk more powerful than the current HD machines, but I believe that processing power will be pushed into streaming games to this new controller--Nintendo have said they consider all forms of entertainment as competition to videogames, and the big disadvantage home consoles have right now is that if they are attached to the living room television, they have to compete with all the other functions the television is used for. 

If you can seamlessly stream the home console content to the controller (having the console do all of the hard work, the controller is just a display/interface unit), then the console becomes a gaming and entertainment hub that can be used regardless of what is on the tv. This fits in with Nintendo's family friendly approach--the husband can play Zelda as the wife watches a soap, the kids can play Mario Kart on their controllers as the parents watch a film, and users can switch back to using the tv as a display when no-one else is using the television. And that sets aside the possible uses of this controller in tandem with a television to replicate the advantages of the DS display. It might not sound like a particularly amazing or desirable innovation to the current market, but did Wii or DS sound like innovations we needed? Does 3DS streetpass and spotpass seem like innovations we need? I don't think they do, but in the long run I think they will prove to be the genuinely compelling features of Nintendo's systems. 

As for Microsoft and Sony--I agree with the assertion that a new hardware generation within the next few years is undesirable to both companies. Sony in particular have invested massive amounts in the PS3, and though I always viewed their "ten year plan" as a PR gimmick, the simple fact is the PS3 took far longer to get going than Sony would have liked, and they had to cut price (delaying profitability) earlier than they would have liked. As for Microsoft, their investment in Kinect, as well as the RRD fiasco has made this generation far more costly than they would have liked. They might be able to find the raw funds for a new machine that will launch in 2013, but how desirable is this when they are squeezed on both sides by Apple and Google? The question isn't whether or not these companies can afford new machines, but whether or not they can justify those costs? 

I don't think they can. I agree that the new MS/Sony machines will be more incremental upgrades in terms of processing power, and by extension, development costs. But that isn't a bad thing--hopefully it will encourage the kind of out of the box thinking that has resulted in the Wii, DS and Kinect. Hopefully this will encourage not just control innovations, but OS innovations in games consoles, online services innovations, new ways of delivering content and new hierarchies of content. The danger (as Wii's software market has displayed) is that these low development costs will encourage shovelware, mountains of which can wreck the market for third party software. But that's a risk I think we'll have to take, and we'll have to trust to the quality of developers to deliver new, compelling experiences that justify the continuing existence of 'traditional' games devices. I think that was the misunderstood message of Iwata's keynote at GDC this year--we shouldn't fear new ways of playing games, or new business models, but we need to accomodate these new models while also seeking to remind the wider market why evolving our old way of doing things, of having a games dedicated box with secondary functions, of buying £40 blockbuster titles from retail, is still a valid and compelling way of developing and playing games.