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Degausser on 19 September 2012
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hsrob said:
I've been thinking along the same lines for a while. If either Sony or MS overshoot the specs of the WiiU by a significant margin and the other doesn't, the one that does might find itself in a bit of a pickle.

The 'overspec'd' machine could find itself competing against 2 similarly spec'd machines for third party attention. Ironically this is similar to the situation the Wii found itself in at the outset of the current gen and despite it's overwhelming sales success this proved to be a handicap that it never really overcame.

It could even be argued that this might be a wise move for Sony which can no longer afford to compete with MS on a loss-leading strategy. Sony troubles seem to start with them reaching for the bleeding edge of technology despite the great success they had with the moderately powerful PS1 +PS2. By returning to what has previously worked for them and targeting their machine in the same ballpark as the Wii U they could make the WiiU/PS4 combo a very attractive proposition for developers in opposition to developing for the likely smaller install base of a single system (Xbox720) and the higher development costs associated with pushing the boundaries on a much more capable piece of hardware. It could also work the other way if Sony again reach for the stars but I feel that's much less likely.


 I don't think we'll ever see a situation like the Wii vs PS360 next gen though - that was one system which was SD vs two behemoth HD systems. The gap was just... far too big.

 The gap between Wii U and Ps4 / xbox 3 won't be the same as something like the Frostbite 2 engine which runs on Wii U / Ps3 / 360 but when you run it on a super awesome PC looks amazing there too. I think we've reached a plateau where the game engines should be able to run on all 3 platforms with just scalable graphics, although in the future we may see new engines made which don't run on the weakest system. I don't know if publishers will ever see a demand for that any time soon though.

 The reality is most the first wave of games for PS4 / Xbox 3 are just gonna be things running on existing engines like that of Frostbite 2 or Skyrims engine. It also means developement costs shouldn't shoot up in the same way that SD to HD content did - albeit costs will always rise as the games market is very competitive, but costs rise with or without new hardware.