Ponderous Thoughts on Generations

[fatslob-:O]

Viper1 said:

fatslob-:O said:

I see this generation riding out for ATLEAST 10 years!

My question then is....Is that due to the reliance on node shrinkage for performance increases or simply due to the costs involed with software development that require long generations to ammortize costs across multiple products?

It's a little bit of both I'd say.  

As AAA development costs keep skyrocketing there is a need to create new tools such as engines for next generation platforms and libraries for each of those platforms and all of these are expensive so you could say that one part of it is to repay back the initial expense. The other reasons being that process shrinks don't occur very frequently as we reach the limits of moore's laws and therefore console manufacturers don't see it necessary to release new platforms in as little as 5 years as performance will only increase by a factor of 3 at most.