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bananaking21 on 23 November 2012
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BlueFalcon said:
bananaking21 said:
i deleted most of your most because t was really long. and to answer your question  "does Samaritan Unreal Engine 3 look next generation to you? "

yes it does. there is a good enough leap between the samaritian and this gen console graphics. if next gen consoles manage to make games that good looking ill be really really happy. no current gen game comes even close to the samaritian


Smart thinking bananaking21 for not quoting my entire post with pics. :) 

Sorry I wrote so much; just wanted to bring some clarity so that people have a rough idea of the next progression in graphics and what the expectations are. I do think the Samaritan Demo does look nice but it also brings us to the point of people's dissappointment with Wii U. Developers are unlikely to embrace next generation game engines and spend millions to make games look like the Samaritan Demo, unless there is a very large install base of gamers with capable hardware to justify these types of investments. Unfortunately, the Wii U cannot support this level of graphics, which already means the market for developers just shrunk by 1/3. In other words, PS4's graphical leap is very much tied to Xbox 720 from a developer perspective. If Xbox 720 doesn't come anywhere close to 10x as powerful as Xbox 360, we'll end up with 2 consoles (Wii U and 720) that didn't reach the specs required to pull off Samaritan Demo graphics. By that hypothesis, if the PS4 is way more powerful than Xbox 720 and Wii U, will the developers actually take the time and spend extra $ to make better looking games specifically for it or will it end up with a gluttony of poor ports? The counterpoint, if Xbox 720 is way more powerful than PS4, will developers bother making much better looking games for Xbox and neglect PS4? Doubtful. 

Chances are we will end up with a similar situation to Xbox 360 vs. PS3, Genesis vs. SNES, PS2 vs. Gamecube, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about PS4 not beating Xbox 720. It is the Wii U that appears to be an outlier for next generation console race. What has me worried is that such a weak next gen console with minimal storage costs $300-$350. Sony and MS surely cannot afford to release $499-599 consoles in this economy but can they pack a fast enough next gen system into a $300-400 price range? The Wii U couldn't, despite dropping mechanical hard drives, cost cutting with cheap plastics that scratch easily, lack of USB 3.0 ports, lack of optical out, no BluRay drive, just 1GB of system memory. Let's hope that is largely because of the Wii U's expensive GamePad.

One main reason why PS3 was such a powerhouse was because Sony took massive losses on each console sold. Given their financial situation, they simply can't cope with a similar strategy. 


i remember reading that the gamepad of the wiiU costs an equivalent of about 150$ in japan. so it does add money to each console sold. also i think that the wiiU's disk drive would cost more than a blueray drive because bluerays are every where and they have been making them for years, but wiiu's drive was custom made by nintendo and made specifically for the console.