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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why PS4 won't be cutting edge, and neither will Xbox3 - or Why Nintendo might win next gen

 

Is my reasoning sound?

Hellz yeah! Spot on 265 33.42%
 
I never thought of it like that.... 69 8.70%
 
So it's the mental institution next for you? 101 12.74%
 
So very, very wrong 266 33.54%
 
I'm a pussy with no opinion 88 11.10%
 
Total:789
DanneSandin on 19 September 2012
nitekrawler1285 said:
With its Gakai purchase who says Sony needs a PS4? Just subscribe to PS+ and have next gen games streamed to your PS3/V. With both being cheap as all hell it would be very enticing. ~$200 dollar "next" gen consoles before 720 or Wii-U can even get a price drop in. Seeing how little Nintendo upped the game I really dont see Sony needing to drop another console to compete.

that's actually pretty smart! could seriously hurt WiiU sales =)



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

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DanneSandin on 19 September 2012
Slimebeast said:
DanneSandin said:
Slimebeast said:
Exchange rates have nothing to do with it. The only factor that determines how powerful PS4 and X720 are is the upper limit of power consumption of the GPUs that you can put in a console.

With that said I believe they will achieve 8 x X360, or around 2 Tflops of performance, compared to around 650 gflops in the Wii U, meaning they are 3 times as powerful as the Wii U.

3 times as powerful is not huge, but this combined with the big publishers discrimination and bias towards Nintendo will assure that the Wii U won't win next gen.

I believe Wii U will sell around 50 million lifetime while X720 and PS4 around 100 million.

I encourage you to read Viper1's reasoning; it's very sound.

Viper1? I can't see any posts by Viper1 in this thread.

Oh sorry! You'll find a link to his reasoning of the exchange rate in the OP. I meantion superchunk's VS thread right afterwards.



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

Slimebeast on 19 September 2012
Crono141 said:
Slimebeast said:
Crono141 said:
Slimebeast said:
Crono141 said:

You don't live in reality.  There is no chance PS3 will sell 100mil in its lifetime, unless there is no PS4.

It will, guaranteed.

You don't realize how long legs Sony consoles have.

As a comparison, in Nov 2006 at the time of the PS3 launch, lifetime shipments of the PS2 were 116 million (end of year 2006). In the 6 years since that, the PS2 has shipped another 40 million units (total lifetime PS2 shipments today are +155 million). 40 million PS2s shipped in current gen!

Compare this to my estimation of only 14 million PS3s being shipped after the release of PS4 in Nov 2013 (very likely) and you'll discover that it's a conservative estimate.

Tell me again about how the PS3 is the best selling console this generation already.

PS2 kept selling because it was the clear winner.  All the games were coming out for it.  It had no strong competitors in its price range.  It library at the time of PS3 release was probably the strongest library any console ever had, with the exception of maybe the PS1 before it, and the SNES before it.  Not to mention that the next generation consoles cost 3 to 5 times what the PS2 cost.  Of course it kept selling.  It was prohibitively expensive to jump into the next generation for 90% of people.

And we aren't talking 14 million more PS3s.  We're talking 33million more PS3s.  Just look at the chart on the vgcharts main page.  Your numbers are completely unrealistic.  PS3 has no chance of hitting 100 million.  Heck, I think even the Wii will only barely breach 100 million, at it only has 8 or so million more sales to go.

 So okay, the PS3 sales to consumers right now is 66.3 million. But it's only September 2012. I'm sure you don't question that the PS3 will sell at least another 6 million during the Autumn and Holidays, right, so that puts the PS3 total to 72 million by end of year. Only another 28 million to go.

And the PS4 is not even announced yet. Sony is targeting 13 million shipped PS3s in 2012 and most likely they'll target 11 million in 2013 or 10 million as bare minimum. That's 85 million right there (I switched to shipped numbers again, sorry ), by end of 2013, and the PS4 is not even released yet.

We've just seen the new prices for the PS3. $269 will be the cheapest PS3 in North America! Don't you realize the untapped potential from future price drops? Can't you imagine several million gamers buy a $199 PS3 and a $149 PS3 in the coming years?

Except there's already an equivalently specced machine that sits at that price point and below, that gets all the same games minus Sony's first party.  The only people who are going to buy a PS3 going forward are the fanboy kids who have to have their parents buy it for them.   The next gen is starting, and can start at the exact same price point as LAST GEN PS3.  PS3 will not hit those sales numbers.  There are better consoles people can spend the exact same amount of money on.  And blu-ray players are cheap now.

What do you mean "same games minus Sony's first party" and "there are better consoles"?

If that's X360 and Wii U you are refering to you got problems with both

Many people will choose PS3 over X360 because of exclusives and free online.

And Wii U has the same problem as a typical launch console. Not many games. You dont even get most of the upcoming multiplats for the Wii U.

Look up the sales. PS3 is on top dominating and Sony is so confident in future sales that it just released another version (Super Slim) and increased the price (at least in NA). That speaks a lot don't you think.

Next gen has not even started and won't truly have started even with the Wii U because we won't see any next gen multiplats until PS4 and Nextbox are released.



DanneSandin on 19 September 2012
JazzB1987 said:
DanneSandin said:

Why I think Wii U might win next gen

Ok, so let me start with the reasoning as to why I think Nintendo might win next gen, why PS4 will not be a major leap and of that will affect Xbox3, and after that I'll go into a little more detail.

Next gen consoles will be more on par with each other than Wii was to PS360. Why? Simply because PS4 won't be a major leap over WiiU. Why? Because Sony can't afford it. It's not all about their financial situation, but about the exchange rate as well. The Yen is too strong for Sony to make a beast of a machine this time around. And if PS4 isn't cutting edge, why should Xbox3 be that? Xbox3 will probably get bundled with Kinect 2.0, and this will keep the Xbox3 specs down. If it isn't bundled with Kinect Microsoft has the cash to up the specs in Xbox3 - but to no avail since WiiStation4U will be similar in specs, and therefore will be the choice of platform for most developers. This means that Xbox3's powerful specs will not be used.

So, that's the short-ish version. Now for the longer one, which is a post I made in MBP's prediction thread:

Why isn't anybody understanding that Sony won't be able to make a major jump over the WiiU? Viper1 actually made this very clear in superchunk's VS thread. I'll quote a bit of it:

"The high end PS3 launched in Japan for ¥59,980 which was $558 in 2006 but is $766 today. So even if they dropped the PS4 launch price to, say, ¥39,980, that still makes it $510 today. So no matter what, provided the exchange doesn't rapidly move to weaken the Yen in the next year, Sony will either have to launch with a very large loss or reduce the capabilities of the system to launch at a more market friendly price. This is one of the reasons the 3DS launched at such a high price compared to the DS several years before. To hold the same margin of profit or loss, now requires a far higher foreign price than it did before.

And a $100 loss per console is far too much for them as a company now than it was back in 2006. In 2006, they were a financially sound comapny. That is not the case today. If they sold 10 million units at a $100 loss, that's a $1 billion loss to a company that can't handle taking on another billion dollar loss. "

Clearly Sony won't be able to take a major leap next gen due to their financial situation, and due to the exchange rate. They might take a $50 hit for every console, but that's not nearly enough if they wanna blow the Wii U out of the waters.

And if Sony won't make a cutting edge machine, why would Microsoft? As far as we know, they'll probably bundle the console with Kinect 2.0, and they'd price such a bundle at about $399 - or $449 at the most. With the Kinect bundled at that price they won't be able to make a bleeding edge console. Sure they could take a $100 hit/console with a $449 price tag, but will that be enough of power packed in the box to dominate both PS4 and Wii U? Maybe.

But consider this then: If Xbox3 is waaaay more powerful than WiiStation4U (like how PS3 was to PS2), which platform(s) do you think the developers would make games for? It'll be cheaper to make games for WiiStation4U than for the cutting edge Xbox3, and there will probably be a bigger user base for WiiStation4U (2 consoles combined) rather than for the 1 Xbox3. Thus, Xbox3 would get up scaled ports from WiiStation4U - NOT taking advantage of all the power Xbox3 has - meaning, all games will look about as good on all consoles.

What's my point then? This:

If all games will look equally good on all the consoles (with only minor differences) and all consoles will therefore get the same 3rd party support. And thus, the winner of next gen will be determent by other factors, and that's why WiiU might win next gen. It all comes down to:

3rd party games (which they all will have)

1st party games (and we all know Nintendo dominates this category)

Unique features for each console (like the GamePad or Kinect 2.0)

And that's why WiiU won't loose this gen. They'll have 3rd party support. They certainly have the 1st party titles. They have unique features, but it remains to see if they'll be enough. They could win this gen. I'm telling you; they could reach 120m sold WiiU's life time. At the very least they'll reach 60m sold units.


Good read!  Another reason why the next gen console of Sony will not be a drastic leap is this:   Remember the  "PS4 will have  Avatar like graphics" debate? 

Okay now just think about it for a second.  Avatar the movie was  released in 2009 okay but they used  40,000 processors and 104 terabytes of RAM to render frame by frame by frame etc. etc.  So how exactly should the PS4 be able to render 60 frames or even 30 per second with the ability to do 180° turns as opposed to the fixed camera in movies? Those movies also lack  A.I etc. 

There is simply no way this kind of technology can be sold for 500 dollars or so.

If WiiU looks as good as the Zelda HD demo suggests and Sony can in no way achive Avatar like graphics they will obviously settle for something inferior to Avatar like graphics.

But todays consoles almost completely recreated all the "effects" the real world has compared to the last gen that almost lacked everything.  We have nice looking water we have clouds we have acceptable shadows (albeit with room for improvement)  and nice lighting effects etc. 

Polygon count is something less obvious then effects or is it really visible that the Ps2 Version of Resident Evil 4 has half the polygons of the Gamecube version?  
Or did you know that Drake in uncharted has 30000 polygons compared to the 12000 of the pirates he fights? OR did you know that characters in Crysis for Pc only have 8000 polygons of which 3000 are for the heads only? 3000 that is twice the polygons Mario in Mario sunshine had.

Polygon count  is nothing uber obvious. Todays graphics need  a huge amount of processing power to make even the smallest visible changes (exluding changes that appear because of smart developers coming up with new ways and tricks to make the games visually more appealing)

The leap between WiiU and Ps4 will not be that big.  Ps4 might have some tesselation going on and some better textures but thats it.  Maybe it will be a  PS2 vs XBOX 1  difference.

And btw if games use awesome art style  Polygon cout is almost unimportant.

First off; thanks you! Secondly; I just have to agree with what you're saying =) I think your last sentence says it all!  Just look at borderlands2 or Zelda SS - great art style!!



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

Crono141 on 19 September 2012

Except there's already an equivalently specced machine that sits at that price point and below, that gets all the same games minus Sony's first party.  The only people who are going to buy a PS3 going forward are the fanboy kids who have to have their parents buy it for them.   The next gen is starting, and can start at the exact same price point as LAST GEN PS3.  PS3 will not hit those sales numbers.  There are better consoles people can spend the exact same amount of money on.  And blu-ray players are cheap now.

What do you mean "same games minus Sony's first party" and "there are better consoles"?

If that's X360 and Wii U you are refering to you got problems with both

Many people will choose PS3 over X360 because of exclusives and free online.

And Wii U has the same problem as a typical launch console. Not many games. You dont even get most of the upcoming multiplats for the Wii U.

Look up the sales. PS3 is on top dominating and Sony is so confident in future sales that it just released another version (Super Slim) and increased the price (at least in NA). That speaks a lot don't you think.

Next gen has not even started and won't truly have started even with the Wii U because we won't see any next gen multiplats until PS4 and Nextbox are released.

Yeah, it shows how full of themselves sony still is.  In the hardcore market, Xbox owns this gen.  There are 3 upcoming games for PS3 that I'm aware of that are exclusive and might be worth having a PS3 for.  Then there's halo 4, and all the Mario goodness on WiiU.  PS3 is not a strong system, and it never has been.  PS3 might surpass Xbox before its all said and done, but it'll never breach 100 million.  That is a pipe dream.



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HappySqurriel on 19 September 2012
Slimebeast said:

That's actually more like a drop off for the X360 you have there (the X360 will fade away much faster than the PS3 once next gen starts).

Do you realize that you put only 6 million PS3 shipped after 2013? Sony will go from producing +40 million PS2s during this gen to only 6 million PS3s during next gen? That's crazy unrealistic.

Also remember that a PS3 still costs $250 with lots of room for future price drops and lots of sales potential in untapped market segments. Meanwhile at this point in last gen (from Spring 2004 to Spring 2006), the PS2 cost only $149.

If you have a large enough userbase, system sales are high enough, you have low enough manufacturing costs, and a large enough library of games with broad appeal you can keep selling a system for years after the next generation begins ... The PS3 is far behind where the PS2 was in all these areas when the previous generation began so its sales will fall off far faster than the PS2's sales did.

Unless you expect Sony to be able to reduce the price to (about) $100 by the end of 2013, and unless Sony can build up hundreds of games that are more approriate for children and new gamers, the PS3 is not going to sell well past 2013.



Mummelmann on 19 September 2012
Anari said:
What I expect to happen next gen based on rumours, leaks and currently known facts:


WiiU - 4850/4870 performance GPU.
PS4 - 7850 performance GPU.
720 - A GPU between 7850 and 7770, power-wise.

Nintendo will win the generation in sales. They are launching first , at a good price and have a well featured console. Plus, they are set to dominate Japan in both the console and handheld space.

As for PS4 and 720, too early to guess which will take second place.


The 360 also launched first, this matters very little, especially if you have poor support and only 1st party and late, late ports to live off of. And just how are they set to dominate Japan? If anything, Nintendo are losing their grip on Japan, especially in the home console market, the Wii has shown appaling numbers there lately and the home console market as a whole is fast becoming irrelevant in Japan compared to the global scale. There is no reason to think that the WiiU will dominate in Japan, there's no reason to think that any of the consoles will do very well there at all next generation. Handhelds will sell well, at least for now.

As for price and features; one has to consider that it will likely be compared to the PS3 and 360, so the price is far from amazing and the same goes for features, there's nothing incredible or mindblowing about, its more catching up to the norm.

I agree that there is no telling who will sell the most out of the PS4 and the 720, but I have a feeling that MS might be able to edge this one out in the end. All in all though, I don't expect any of the three (possibly four) to show very impressive lifetime sales.



osed125 on 19 September 2012
nitekrawler1285 said:
With its Gakai purchase who says Sony needs a PS4? Just subscribe to PS+ and have next gen games streamed to your PS3/V. With both being cheap as all hell it would be very enticing. ~$200 dollar "next" gen consoles before 720 or Wii-U can even get a price drop in. Seeing how little Nintendo upped the game I really dont see Sony needing to drop another console to compete.

That could definitely work for America and Europe, but contrary to popular believe the internet it's not fast enough (for the normal consumer at least) in most countries to be able to do that, probably in a couple of years. So this could potentially hurt all of their consumers outside of America and Europe.

OT: I completely agree with you, but if the Vita is any indication I think Sony hasn't learned from their mistakes, they will try to go for the most powerful console, making it really expensive and just having a really small lost on HW. I could see Sony releasing the PS4 at $500 or even higher, call me crazy but I think that's going to happen.



Nintendo and PC gamer

DanneSandin on 19 September 2012
PDF said:

Sony is mycompany of choice. In three generations they have made me a very happy customer. They in my opinion deliver the best product, with the best exclusive content. I am about as loyal as they get but I will jump ship if they don't deliver.( as sad as it would make me)


If I am willing to jump, so will others. In your dream scenario of MS the only one going for powerful specs, I would wager thats will the Core gaming audience will go. They alone will be able to justify games being made for their platform, they will also suck up tons of 3rd party exclusives that cant go anywhere else. MS wins landslide. I hope your wrong though.

Think is I said that if MS is much more powerful it won't get 3rd party games supporting all that power. The games will be developed for WiiStation and ported to Xbox3 - meaning Xbox will be uselessly powerful... And if it's got VERY unique play features (3D glasses integrated with Kinect 2.0) they're gonna loos the core



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

DanneSandin on 19 September 2012
SvennoJ said:
You're forgetting that Sony won't include a tablet controller with their new system, plus it's coming 2 years after the WiiU. If the WiiU already makes a profit on day 1 that will leave plenty of room for Sony to make a more powerful console.

Aaah yes, they probably won't - but they're pushing Vita in a similar way now.



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.