happydolphin said:
| Sal.Paradise said:
This is exactly what I would have said 10 years ago though. People forget about the march of progress so easily. I remember seeing old usenet posts about diminishing returns in the early Dreamcast era - how much further could we possibly improve graphics from upcoming 128 bit beasts! How can we expect developers to create games on PS2/GC/Xbox hardware, it's too powerful and complex!
It's the same spiel every generation, difference is now Nintendo have a weaker machine to sell, so they'll be saying it too, not just forum posters.
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Sal, what Iwata mentioned also applies to the PS360. All he's saying is that companies are struggling to capitalize on current graphics even today on the HD twins, and some are going belly up. In other words, Iwata expects more companies to focus on the experience (with a baseline satisfaction in graphics) and probably artstyle first as that will probs offer a safer and better ROI.
A tad unrelated, I also don't see a huge leap between PS3 and PS4 graphics happening if PCs are any indicator of it. I don't think the same argument could be used in the Dreamcast era. But I could be wrong on this one.
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Well, I was talking specifically about richardhutnik's comment there about diminishing returns from graphics, not Iwata's comment on the importance of gameplay experiences. As to what you're saying Iwata said...I think my comment still applies! Developers go belly up every gen, and small/medium developers survive and spring up through every gen - the market this year has been bad for retail games but it's not been a trend throughout this generation. (In fact I think it's fair to say there's been more quality/successful middleware on the PS360 and PC than the Wii, but that's influenced by other factors as well).
Again, people forget that as the industry progresses on the power front, we get better development technology and more experienced devs to go along with it - for instance a lot of studios have realised that a single, flexible engine for multiple products is the best way to go (Epic led with Unreal 3, EA got smart with Frostbite - they use it in their shooters, racing games and even RTS games, now we see Square's Luminous engine, Crytek with the Cryengine, Konami with the Fox engine that they can use for both their flagship products Pro Evo and Metal Gear Solid. A good real world example is in the Luminous engine demo, they showed how they can now make adjustments in real time to in-game objects (colour, size, quantity) in the game that would previously have taken hours, days or longer on previous engines. It's this intelligent middleware that will cut costs, to compensate for the increase in man hours required for more detailed art assets. Devs just have more experience with HD development now, they've gotten out of the 'toothing stage and with (hopefully) the Nextbox and (almost certainly) PS4 using less complex unique architecture this time round, they should be even easier to develop for if a dev has experience on PCs, along with more advanced middleware.
