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Mummelmann on 19 September 2012
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Plezbo said:
Slimebeast said:
Exchange rates have nothing to do with it. The only factor that determines how powerful PS4 and X720 are is the upper limit of power consumption of the GPUs that you can put in a console.

With that said I believe they will achieve 8 x X360, or around 2 Tflops of performance, compared to around 650 gflops in the Wii U, meaning they are 3 times as powerful as the Wii U.

3 times as powerful is not huge, but this combined with the big publishers discrimination and bias towards Nintendo will assure that the Wii U won't win next gen.

I believe Wii U will sell around 50 million lifetime while X720 and PS4 around 100 million.


This is ridiculous.  360 and PS3 won't ever come close to 100 million, and their follow ups won't sell any more than they did.  PS2 and PS1 sold so many consoles because they were easy to develop for, and had all of the games.  PS3 and 360 were tough consoles to start developing on.  It took significant investment to reach a level of graphics and online integration that was up to par with what Sony and MS were willing to license.  This will not change next gen.  Also, gaming has shifted.  You will get fewer and fewer people making impulse buys, or using their system as a DVD player like PS2, since they can play the game they want on their phone/tablet.  I would say that all 3 next gens sell around 60 million. 


I think you're right about one thing; none of the consoles will sell 100 million, or even close. I disagree with the rest of your post though.

PS1 and PS2 were notoriously hard to develop for, the PS1 gained massive 3rd party support mostly because they sensed that Sega was nearing a crash and they wanted to flee from Nintendo, which had offered shitty conditions for a decade with their near monopoly since the 80's, the PS2 simply inherited these advantages and came off of the best selling console in history but was still a bitch to develop for. Both consoles also pushed new formats and the PS1 was a small revolution when it came out.

The 360 is well known for its conventional and kind architecture, making it perhaps the easiest console ever released to develop for alongside the PC. There will be no rise in the cost of development of HD games (see that point discussed in my large previous post) so that won't be an issue, the processes here have been largely streamlined and become a lot more cost efficent than in the beginning of the 7th generation. There's a reason why the 360 was the lead platform for almost every 3rd party multiplatform title for a long time (until marketshares and timed exclusive content and moneyhatting became prevalent). The WiiU is built on chipsets and processing tech that is two PC generations removed from the PS4 and X-box 720 and they will have a lot more and faster RAM so three times the power is not only fathomable, its a downright given even to casual observers.

True console games can not be played on tablets and phones, these are usually grossly inferior editions or most of the big games simply don't get released at all. If anything, tablet and phone gaming, at this stage, is more like the PStore Classics or X-box Arcade, offering basic games for a cheap sum. These do not directly compete with big budget titles released on consoles and PC since they are two entirely different markets.

Your last statement seems about right, I expect the overall number of consoles and handhelds sold next gen to be smaller than this one since the cycle itself will be shorter and the hardware market is branching out when it comes to media functionality and entertainment features.

The winning console next gen might very well win by as little as 10 million units or less in the allotted time on the market.

 

 

Edit; JEMC: I hope this won't be the case with the GamePad but I fear it. The inventory/looting system and aiming in ZombiU, for instance, is original and different and it really got me excited then and there. In hindsight though, it appears rather cumbersome and the controls themselves seemed a tad unresponsive and slow. You never know though, I might be surprised and the controller has big potential in the right hands (speaking of both gamers and developers... ).