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HappySqurriel on 15 December 2012
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snowdog said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
Vinniegambini said:

Again, people don't realize how the 'next-gen' will cost for developers. Many have been bankrupt by this gen alone. Imagine the transition from this gen to the next and how much it will cost. I see most third parties sticking with the current gen for a while before PS4 720 due to big costs associated with that, only some with the available capital will be able to do so. Which is why Nintendo, in my opinion, is in a better position than PS4 and 720 as only slightly superior to the current gen, the transition won't be too costly.


How is the Wii U in a better position? Industry leaders have been begging for the next gen to start because there needs to be a transitional leap in the performance of games today. Ubisoft, especially has been fronting this whole issue. Nintendo will be behind when the new consoles come, but for Nintendo fans this should not be an issue.

This gen is going to be similar to the 6th gen with regards to the difference in power between the three consoles. All 3 are going to be in the same sort of ballpark going by what's been leaked so far. We're looking at the 720 being 6-8 times more powerful than the 360, on paper (4 times as much RAM, 3MB cache on the CPU, 32MB cache on the GPU) the Wii U is around three times more powerful than the 360 with certain aspects (the OOOE CPU, the DSP, the IO processor, the ARM11 co-processor, the very low latency RAM) making it between 3 and 4 times more powerful than the 360 in real-world performance.

So we're looking at the 720 being 2 to 3 times more powerful than the Wii U, the Wii U has a similar architecture, the U has a DX11-equivalent feature set and we know that the GPU has some exclusive Nintendo Magic going on under the hood which allows developers to save memory for textures. Nintendo aren't going to have any problems with third party support at all, particularly if they continue to make deals with developers like they did for Bayonetta 2.

I would be careful with assuming you know what Sony or Microsoft are going to do, but I do think it is fair to say that they are limited by what they can realistically do ... I do think there are some pretty safe bets:

1) I expect Sony and Microsoft will have an answer for the Wiimote/Wii U tablet bundled with their system at launch. This could take on multiple forms, for example an advanced version of Kinect or Move, a clone of the Wii U tablet, or something entirely different. Whatever they decide will probably not be cheap and will probably take away resources from their hardware.

2) Sony and Microsoft will probably want to sell their console for a reasonable price ($400 as a guess) without taking too large of a loss

3) Sony and Microsoft will probably want to push technical features that go (mostly) unnoticed by the average gamer and eat up a lot of processing power but are easier to market; for example 1080p, 60fps or 3D.

4) Any losses Sony and Microsoft do take will likely be recovered through increased game prices and/or the expansion of for-pay services.