Resident_Hazard said:
Costs have increased to grotesque proportions, but at the same time, making the same kind of games has been "optimized" and made easier as the years have passed. For instance, it costs less to make a PS2-style game now than during the PS2 era. But that doesn't instantly mean that next generation, making a game like GTA4 will suddenly be "affordable" by any stretch of the imagination (especially with all the licensed music and crap). I would sincerely like to see a console business model along the lines of what Nintendo hoped to accomplish with the Wii--that you can sell your game in any form for any (reasonable) price, and simply to have a console that can handle all that any developer wants to accomplish. I'm fine with new disk-based titles that are $20 or $30 as well as $50 or $60. Gamers, however, I feel are a problem these days in that gamers seem to have this attitude that if it's a physical release, it should be $50 or $60 and be massive/epic/big/long enough to justify that price. We should be able to have side-scrollers and puzzle games and the like released as new titles in physical form on consoles, without having to worry about spending umpteen million dollars to make umpteen million dollars. The upcoming Rayman side-scroller looks to be a nice addition to modern gaming. At the same time, a console should allow for pretty much any kind of downloadable micro-game or add-on or what-have-you. But we do have some developers, like Ubisoft and such who are strangely adamant that we need a new console generation right now, despite the fact that, financially, it'd be a bad idea. I agree that the next generation needs to be planned better--this one, despite it's longevity, was not. I've long said that this entire generation was rushed, and the growing pains were very public, and often, very nasty. Xbox's RRoD'd, PS3's went through countless drastic changes in desperation to sell, Wii's bricked (my Wii is the least reliable Nintendo system I've ever owned and often struggles to load disks or channels for some reason), and several studios were swept under the rug and vanished. But I think the next generation will also be unbelievably powerful and whether we think it can advance much further or not, it will advance far further. Hopefully, we'll all be ready for it--and by "we" I mean everybody. Developers, publishers, consumers, gamers, and the console makers themselves. Nobody was really ready when the current generation launched. The Xbox360's initial sales weren't very impressive, the DS and PSP's initial sales weren't very impressive, the games on these three systems weren't very impressive when they launched, either. Nobody was ready and the learning curve was higher and slower than any generation I can remember (and I've lived through all of 'em since the NES). I don't think this generation really hit it's stride until last year.
I'm all for this generation lasting a long time, until 2013 at the very soonest--and Microsoft and Sony both indicated 10-year lifespans on the consoles, which I sincerely hope they're serious about. I think Nintendo's idea of a new system every 5 years is grossly out-dated, and I don't know how the Wii U will fit into things. Hell, if it is only about as powerful as the X360 and PS3, it could be the catalyst that encourages this generation to last a little while longer--in much the way the Wii inadvertantly kept the PS2 going (made porting games easy, so development costs and profits were easy). I still feel that Microsoft and Sony will truly give us massively powerful new machines in the coming years--just hopefully not until we're all good and ready, and this generation has been truly exhausted and developers know how to craft the same caliber of hits for less money next time around.
....I feel like focus may be getting lost in my posts. |
I don't disagree, but I think the "Next Generation" will be an extension of the current generation in a lot of ways, and not really a "Next Generation" in the way people have become accustomed to thinking of a next generation system.
I actually anticipate that the vast majority of publishers will continue releasing the same games on the current HD systems that they're releasing on the next generation systems for several years; and the difference will be similar to the difference in playing a PC game in low detail at 720p @30fps compared to playing the same game in high detail at 1080p @60fps.
While there will probably be some stand-out games (in particular first party games), I'm not expecting much of a revolutionary change in graphics for at least the first several years after release.
People will disagree with me, but I expect that the suggested "50% more powerful" claim about the Wii U is a misunderstanding of what was said; and I suspect a developer said that the Wii U was half a generation ahead of the PS3. This (more or less) falls in line with what has been rumoured about the Wii U, and it would have been pretty bleeding edge system if it was released in 2010. This hardware is actually fairly well suited to how I expect the next generation to play out; the graphical difference between it an the other next generation systems will be minimal because they will mostly be playing advanced versions of HD games, and as the HD consoles die out the Wii U will likely become the "Base" platform with the other next generation consoles getting advanced versions of those games.
