Ponderous Thoughts on Generations

[fatslob-:O]

Viper1 said:

fatslob-:O said:

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. 

Good post.  But where does console maker intention and software developer demand meet?  Is a new gen console solely at the discretion of a the platform maker or are the demands of software providers of equal importance?  And if so, could their demands instigate a new generation before a console maker would have liked by themselves?

It's almost always the console maunfacturers that get to choose when a new generation starts but that doesn't mean that some software developers demand won't be met because as engines are becoming more scalable there will be some developers that will choose PC to be their main development platform as new hardware emerges more often.