Microsoft could get away with being as powerful as the Wii U if they go down the Kinect road, with that being their USP.

Sony needs to get as much power as possible for $399-$450. Unless they come up with something unique, their USP for next-gen has to be 'more powerful, the best core game experience.'

High end PCs are already up to 8 times or more than the PS3, the reason that games don't look it is for many reasons. 

First many of the ways that high end PCs power is used is not readaly aparent in screen shots or low res videos at 24fps. Where as games like Uncharted 3, Battlefield 3 and Gears of war 3 are running at 720p 30fps many PC gamers will be running Battlefeild 3 at resolutions in exess of 1080p at ~60fps with higher resolution textures, better lighting, more complex geometry, more particles, better effects like depth of feild and motion blur, more anti-aliasing and longer draw distances than consoles. Some PC gamers have also taken to using multiple monitors of up to 1080p or even higher, look at this for example http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=833917&mpage=1 and notice the resolution of 7920x1600 that is almost 14 times as may pixels as the console versions are rendering, his PC is probably at least 16 times as powerful as a PS3 but I don't think next gen consoles would come anywhere close to that and far less than half a percent of PC gamers even come within spitting distance of his rig. 

Seccond consoles fixed hardware allows developers to specifically optimize games to utalise the hardware's strengths while avoiding their weaknesses, this means games can look and run much better on weaker hardware, compaired to the PC where there is a vast veriaty of different hardware so optomisations have to be more general. 

Third because of the wide veriaty of hardware that can be in PCs to maintain compatability with lots of different software APIs like direct x have to be used as a sort of interpreter between the software and the hardware this creates a certain amount of a "delay" in communication which means that you need roughly 50-100% (number pulled out of my arse) more powerful hardware to get the same reaults.

Also compare these 2 Just Cause 2 screens one is console the other is high end PC see if you can tell the difference 

http://image.jeuxvideo.com/images/x3/j/u/just-cause-2-xbox-360-011.jpg

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5273/justcause22010062918462.jpg

lol, options hould have been 50% 100% 200% 400%700% 1000%

1) Devs say this whole the time... FFXIII needs that much power it is impossible on X360, you think EA would have said 'Well we could do better with BattleField 3 but we didn't?'

2) It was more powerfull than any PC with the same pricetag..

3) This is the kind of talk they are saying for generations...  I have an Sega magazine from 91 that says we all will pay 80£ for games in the next generation and their will be not so many games considering it would take longer to make...I have an OPM from -98-99 that said the same thing about the PS2 generation... And the same has been said about this generation:  Go back to old threads like 2006-2007..  were plenty of nintendo fan stated that companies are going to get bankrupt because they make an game for the HD platforms...  and you know what after all those years I pay still the same 60$-60€ for games..In fact N64 games were more expensive than the games buy today.


Honestly sorry but I think you are an PC noob and don't really have an idea what you are talking about...don't worry I am not expert myself but I have seen this kind of discussions before on PC forums and their I saw tables that showed the average PC from 2011 will be 4-8 times more powerfull than the ones in 2006..  It is just a matter of time before a PC expert comes in and show numbers what the PC's of today can do compared to PS3..

You mention many times higher resolutions then 1080p but most people don't have higher resolution TV's. Also those images to be honest the PC pic is pretty small and comparing the two is difficult. I'd actually say the 360 version looked better. But as I said the image was to small to make a direct comparison. I'm sure the PC is better looking.

You make many good points as to why the consoles shouldn't be 8x the power of PS3. Why if you can make a game on a console say 100% more powerful then PS3 look as good as a state of the art PC game, would you care to invest heavy amounts of cash in producing hardware that developers won't use?

This isn't like the jump from X-Box to PS3, you can't push the limits as far. Even if the technology existed to make a console 8x the power of PS3. Developers and consumers wouldn't buy it. Infact since WiiU is the only console using multiple screens and the average high end TV is 1080p why would any of the manufacturers need a console more powerful then 100%.

You gave several reasons why console manufacturer's shouldn't go all out rather then reasons they should.

nobody said it yet? over 9000!!

PC gamers can push such high resolutions because that is the only way they can tax current hardware with the level of detail available in current games, no developers are creating games because at the moment creating console level assets is all they need to do as PC gamers have shown they are willing to just use the hardware currently available to push much higher resolutions, multiple monitors and heaps of AA. But current PC hardware is now so powerful that they are running current gamesat such massive resolutions while maintaining over 60fps. If developers used that power to push the level of detail higher PC games would look like the samaritan demo which was running in real time at 60fps 1080p on a high end PC BTW and Epic admited that it was unoptomised and they could have the demo running on less PCs a third as powerful with compariable level of detail. 

Just click once on the pic when the mouse pointer turns into a magnifying glass and as long as you are running a modern browser it should show the actual pixels rather than scaling the image.

A console that is twice the power of a PS3 would show no where near the resaults you could get on a modern PC, optomisation will only cary you so far to come close to what a PC that is 8x as powerful as the PS you would need a system that was at least 4 times as powerful. Like I said the API overhead and lack of optomisation only really cut capabalities in half at worst. And for consumer to see a real difference in games you would need more like 6 times the PS3. 

Something for you to think about, currently console games are usally 720p at 30fps to jump to 1080p you are rendering 2.5 times the number of pixels so if you want next gen games that look as good as uncharted at 1080p you would need a system at least twices as powerful (optomisations can let you render some pixels faster) so even if the PS4 is twice as powerful as the PS3 if developers want to fill consumers 1080p TVs with unique pixels rather than upscaling like they do now games would other than the games looking a bit sharper would look the same. What consumer in what world is going to think that that is going to be enough to invest several hundred $$$?

Like I said before the next generation will be a big leap because it needs to be for consumers to see it as a woth while investment. There is no point in MS and Sony releasing a console that is any less than 4 times their current system. If they don't think it's worth the investment for new hardware (which is already here for 4-6 times the power without power and heat and cost becoming to big a deal and in 2 years 8 times will be possible) then they just won't release a new console. The benifit of this generation running longer than previus gens is that MS and Sony wont need to invest crazy amounts of money to create a powerful system as the tech already exists. You have to remember at this time in the cycle last generation the 360 was already out and the PS3 launch was imminent, this gen we are looking at another 2 years from now for tech to advance. More's law may be nearing a wall but it hasn't quite hit it yet.

Yeah as the others have pointed out, you should know what you're talking about before making a thread liek this.

First off, what is meant by 50% or 100% more powerful? Are we talking about a perceived increase in processing power or an actual increase in processing power? If it is actual processing power who, beyond an analyst that has no technical background with an unnamed source, has made claims about the actual processing power of the Wii U?

If we're talking about perceived processing power, I think both Sony and Microsoft's next console with struggle with seeming only slightly more powerful than their current generation systems, There are three factors at play:

1. Sony/Microsoft released bigger and more expensive systems which have far higher energy consumption than consoles typically have been in order to increase processing power this generation, and I expect they will return to a more standard console in the next generation. If they're looking to release a system for $400 without bleeding money, that is more in line with their slim versions of their current systems, it will certainly not be as much of a technical powerhouse when released.
2. Diminishing returns eat away at how people see the improvement. When you look at the better looking elements of many of the better looking games they're about as high detail as we can really expect something to be in a videogame, and most of the graphical effects we will see in the next generation of consoles are already being done on the HD consoles, so what the improvements will be focused on is increasing detail on less important objects and stacking effects ontop of one another. While you will be able to see a difference, it won't really be groundbreaking.
3. Limitations of game development costs. Even if developers have all the hardware resources to implement whatever they can imagine, if you need to put 4 times the manpower into creating games to give your graphics that generational jump beyond what the HD consoles are doing few publishers will pay for that. The average cost of a HD console game is in the $20 Million range, with many big budget games being $40+ Million, and if the costs increase this generation like they have every generation since the NES the average game would be closer to $80 Million with big budget games approaching $200 Million.

I don't think the OP knows that 100% more powerful really only means 2x as powerful. If you think MS is going to release their next gen console at anything less than 8x as powerful as the PS3 you're living in La La Land.

Typically the upgrade in power from one gen to the next is closer to 16x the power is it not?

100% more powerful would not even be worth the investment for Sony or MS.