zarx said:
I don't think you are really taking financial feasibility into account at all especially if you think that half step consoles after 8 years is going to exite anyone but the most hardcore fanboys. If the next gen consoles are close enough to this one that ports are easy then what is the insentive to move to next gen? It's not like Sony and MS have a Wii style advancement that is not on their current consoles, Kinect 2.0 is not going to make people want to upgrade. So that would leave us in a position where most consumers can't see a reason to upgrade and publishers will keep support the current generation because it's free money when they can launch the exact same game on both gens and just up the resolution and franerate for next gen meaning there is even less reason for the 20 million COD/Madden/Fifa players to upgrade which will mean that next gen consoles will be religated to only enthusiests meaning they will sell like the OG Xbox. Unless you expect an OG Xbox style killing of of the last generation. The Dreamcast launched in 1998/9 over a year before the PS2 at US$199 a full $100 lower than the PS2 with graphics that were arround 6x the previous generation with some of the most beloved exclusives of the generation and that killed SEGA (admitadly more because the massive hype for the PS2 and the fact that publishers expected the successer to the PS1 to do the best but the point still stands) despite having everything you seem to think that the next generation from Sony and MS should have and be and also exactly what the Wii U is (don't worry Nintendo have a stronger brand and more better exclusives so the Wii U won't be another gamecube). But I guess you would be happy as that would give Nintendo a massive advantage next gen by offering Nintendo exclusives in an almost entirely exclusive driven market as well as acceptable versions of most multiplatform games. But I doubt that MS and Sony want that to happen. It is in MS and Sony's best interest to put as much distance between themselves and Nintendo and the last generation as possible, and if they can't well they might as well not bother and stick with what they have until they can as anything less is just a waste of time and money. Well we will just have to wait and see then I guess |
The incentive to buy next generation consoles will have to be something other than raw processing power ...
The "general leaps" in graphical processing power have also included "generational leaps" in the cost to develop games. Since the NES each generation of game has resulted in development costs increasing to 2 to 4 times the level of previous generations. Being that games already need to be released on the XBox 360, PS3 and PC to get multi-millions in sales to be financially viable, games would (probably) need over 10 million sales in order to justify the increased development costs. While there are a handful of games a year that could justify this increase in cost based on sales, most studios are (probably) going to try to keep costs close to where they are currently; which would limit any increase in the quality of visuals.
While additional processing power could be used for "techical" features, like 1080p output (or 3D display), producing a console at this point in time that trys to sell itself on processing power alone is a losing strategy.
