| cAPSLOCK said: People seem to forget that these games are costing an increasingly prohibitive amount of money to make. If you get another super crazy jump in tech that just means you're going to end up with even more studios betting the whole thing on 1 game, hoping to hell it doesn't flop. How many companies shit the bed this generation? The end result is going to be less games that take far less risks and just play it as safe as possible. Also take into account that, at least in the US, we're still in the shitter economically. People here can't afford the $600 Kutaragi Grill and will think very long and hard about anything over $300. I mean shit, we have something like almost 8 in 10 college students returning home to live with their parents. This situation is not getting better and it's only going to get worse because nothing is in place to fix the situation. Super expensive games built for super expensive consoles to appeal to a rapidly shrinking population that can afford it? You'd have to be the dumbest fucking businessman on the planet to do that. In the end games are entertainment; they're toys. Regardless of how much people on this board (myself included) loves games to the bitter end, the vast majority of people out there have a threshold of bullshit they're willing to put up with from toy makers. |
The thing is, why would anyone want to buy another console if it isn't that much better than the one they already have. Sure games are starting to cost more and more, but I think that the industry may be able to adapt to it. We might find a lot more engine-only developers who make it that games can be easier to make, while still not costing too much. Personally, I feel that I'm already starting to get tired of this generation. The games are agreeably getting better, but they are all starting to feel like I've already played them. A new console generation usually fixes this.
As for a hardware perspective, Sony and Microsoft only need to make the usual jump. Having a 10 yr lifespan does not mean that they have to make up for the extra time. By 2013, these companies could easily put out a console 6-8 times more powerful than the current generation while still keeping the console at $300 or less because the hardware won't need to be the top of the line. By 2013 GPUs will be at least 10-14x more powerful but I think people would be satisfied with a 6-8 times jump.
