Wii 'U'nder powered?

[zarx]

NJ5 said:

What specs rumors are you talking about exactly? Every rumor I've seen is very vague regarding the GPU (they typically refer to a generation of GPUs which includes low-end to high-end components and everything in between).

The main reason why I don't believe MS/Sony will offer a huge graphical leap is that they've had huge problems with this gen's graphical leap. They will not want to put expensive or very hot (as in temperature) components in the new consoles due to "$599 U.S. dollars" and the "RROD". Expensive hardware is simply not working out well for them in terms of profits.

 

PS: Regarding the "plus" I may have been confusing this thread with another so just ignore that.

The cost and heat were a problem when they were making a massive leap after just 4-6 years between consoles. With this generation looking to last another 2 years before MS and Sony are going to launch their next consoles we are looking at a 7-8 year gap, combine that with the recent push towards mobile devices and SOC designs by both Nvidia and AMD both of which require an increased focus on performance per watt and lowering the heat and size of proccesors the next generation should be a massive increase in power. And Sony have shown with the aparent loss they expect to take on the Vita hardware for the first 3 years they are still willing to take a loss on the hardware.

Not to mention Nvidia expect to have GPUs that offer 32x the performance per watt over the PS3's GPU by 2013 even if they miss that target that is still likely to be over 16x more powerful GPU in the PS4 over the PS3, add in lots of cheap fast RAM and you should see a massive jump as per usual. 

As for the cost of development the ability to use more dynamic real time effects and tessalation for model defimation plus procedural generated content should actually lead to lower costs for the next generation. Afterall graphics aren't actually the biggest factor in increased costs this generation, the amount and quality of voice acting and music have a lot to answer for in that area.