The Wii U will be in 3rd place next gen

[Andrespetmonkey]

Jay520 said:
Also, the Wii U will be launch a year before the other consoles. If within that time period, 3rd party developers find success, they'll likely stick with the Wii U just to be safe.

Though it's likely, we aren't sure if the Wii U will be a year ahead. The PS4 could be announced at TGS with a release date of Q1/Q2 next year, there have been rumours about Sony wanting to get it out before Microsoft. And hell, even nextbox could be revealed in a couple days. But I guess it is unlikely, so that's a good point.

Another factor to consider is will developers be willing to use consoles to their full potential next gen? This gen, we've already seen plenty of studios shutting down due to the skyrocketing costs of making games technically impressive. Next gen may very well be the first gen where developers choose to not use the full potential of their consoles. I think only the largest studios will bother pushing the PS4/720 to their limit. I could see a generation where 3rd parties decide to make games 'cheap' enough that they'll be able to function across all three consoles.

Or if we see a huge push towards digital distribution, we'll see all the costs that go towards manufacturing and distributing physical copies, go towards the games budget instead, which will make up for the added costs to some extent. Also, all 3 are tyring hard to make developer-friendly consoles, which means it's easier and quicker to create games and port them, this lowers costs as developers don't need to work on games for as long.

I even think that the consoles this gen are too powerful that developers shouldn't bother trying max out. It really isn't worth the development costs. If you're a big company like Epic or Naughty Dog, then sure, push the cosnsoles. But I think the average developer should just focus on making a game look clean & not ugly. No need to max the consoles. And the consumers won't mind the non-top-notch graphics. Look at CoD for example. I wouldn't be surprised if next gen, the majority of developers only bother to make a modest bump in graphics that the Wii U will be able to handle them.

That scenario considered, it still wouldn't be enough for the Wii U to come 2nd or 1st imo, unless one of the others fail.