Epic Games 'actively lobbying' for more power in next gen consoles

[Kresnik]

zarx said:

Kresnik said:
I really don't want this to happen to be honest. Development costs just keep going up and up and up and more studios are being shut down for failing to recoup costs even when they're putting out critically acclaimed, mildly commercially successful games - the kind of things that would have kept them in business in previous generations.

Plus, I doubt Sony could afford it anymore. I reckon they're going to go back to the PS2 model of less-powerful but trying-to-secure-exclusives that gave them all their success, they can't afford another expensive juggernaut of a console. If they lose Epic again it'll be a shame, but no real loss since they've never really had much support from them anyway.

That's odd, the PS2 when it launched was the most powerful peice of hardware available, it was a beast. Sure the 2 consoles that launched a year after were more powerful but that doesn't mean that the PS2 wasn't a powerful peice of kit, it was far more powerful than the Dreamcast that launched the year before the PS2. The PS2 featured highly advanced custom hardware. The PS3 used the same stratergy they just messed it up, and overshot in some areas such as the Cell and stuffing Blu-ray into it. Reports had Sony losing $50-100 per console at the PS2's launch, MS lost ~$125 per unit on the OG Xbox and Nintendo were losing ~$20 on the Gamecube.

Don't you see the differences between the situations though?  Sony launched a powerful console (but not the most powerful) a year earlier than the 'competition' with the PS2 - and although they were bested in terms of power, they easily won the market overall.

In this generation, the PS3 is the Xbox/Gamecube - releasing later and being more powerful, but not winning the market.  The 360 is more the PS2 of this generation but it hasn't the dominated the market to the same extent.

Plus, all the stuff you mentioned about stuffing the PS3 with too many features which it didn't need.  Which is why I see Sony trying to recapture what they did with the PS2 a bit more.  Although honestly I'm not sure you can really do that with the market the way it is - there's too much money for third-party companies making multi-platform releases.