Small improvements won’t be enough for the upcoming PS4 and Xbox 720, says DICE general managerKarl-Magnus Troedsson. Instead, the Battlefield 3 man wants to see Sony and Microsoft put as much power as possible in the hands of developers.

“The developer heart in me says ‘give me all the power you’ve got,’ when it comes to CPU and GPU and memory and BUS speeds — just bring it,” Troedsson says. “Because that’s what we see as the future of consoles, that they really need to take a big step forward. Not a small step, that’s not enough. They need to take a big step forward.”

As well as asking for “a platform that is easy to develop for with a hardware setup that isn’t too unique”, Troedsson had these words of advice for console hardware manufacturers: “I would inspire [console makers] to realize that they’re delivering the quality HD platforms. Together with modern PCs, they are the HD platforms, and they should be the premium platform. They need to be at the forefront of what technology can do.”

The core gamers on these platforms, this is what they expect,” he told Gamasutra. “You need something that looks and plays well, and sounds really good, and that’s pushing the envelope.”

Source

I completely agree. If MicroSony do "bring the power", the games we see won't only make huge advancements visually, but we'll see improvements in gameplay with improved AI, bigger and more detailed game worlds and smoother frame-rates.

As for the price of these machines, a $600 system would be overkill, but some gamers seem to forget that the reason the PS3 was so outrageously expensive at launch is because of the CELL and Blu-ray drive. Xbox 360 has proved that you don't need to pay a fortune for powerful tech, it was $150 cheaper than the PS3 at launch and the differences between the systems are miniscule. Blu-ray, the definite format for PS4 and probable format for Nextbox is now cheap and it's been heavily rumoured that Sony will ditch the CELL. We can see vastly improved tech in our next-gen platforms for affordable prices. 

Amen brother DICE & well said brother Andres.

My name is Commander Millenium, and I aprove of the message in this thread.

And we'll continue to see nothing but yearly iterations of COD and studios closing down due to high production costs/low ROI. If they do go the route of more power, I would hope that developers recognize that they don't have to fully utilize it to make a great game.

adapt or die
we still see many small studios making hits, the witcher 2 sold very well and looked amazing. mojang and minecraft as well.

Cod remakes will be made, but many other awsome games are made as well you just hvae to look for them.

There almost definitely will be a bigger focus on digital downloads, and if SONY and Microsoft make their stores more open (like steam), the middle man gets cut out and more studios won't need publishers. Cheaper to distribute and bigger profits for developers.

It'll be interesting to see how the future pans out. Nintendo is definitely not going the power route, but rather the unique experience route. We'll see how that works out for them.

I have to ask, won't 1440p or 2160p make a large difference visually than 1080p?

I mean yea at this moment it probably doesn't matter if a console supports 2160p or not, but think 5 years from now when this technology will become much more prevalent, the consoles will need to able to support them to be future proof with their 10 year cycles.

The sweet spot for next gen is 10 times the rendering power of the X360 at $399 launch price. That is my dream. That is what gamers want.

Well, I wouldn't mind the extra power. I know I'll buy Xbox 3 no matter the cost and/or the final specs.


As for Wii U, I have said it before: First party titles that even are on par (graphically) with PS3 would probaly make me shit rainbows. Even Galaxy 1/2 looked beautiful for crying out loud!

It would make a large difference, it a bad way. Games will look a lot better rendering at 1080p on the kind of hardware we have in mind. If the next-gen consoles do support any resolutions higher than 1080p, I can garuntee you it won't be for gaming, maybe for movies.