LOL, I was obviously joking - I really don't expect any current game to use full 8GB on PCs - but, considering how cheap RAM is, give it few years and we will start seeing games with 8GB as minimum.

Me too. Modded graphics look amazing. AI, physics, animation and rich detailed open worlds are what I want from next gen.

I see this argument often.

The reason why PC's don't need that amount for games is simple.

The Video memory and System memory are seperate pools of memory, some games will easily push 3-4gb of ram used just by themselves and then push the Graphics card past 2gb+ of memory used and then on top of that still stream massive amounts of data from the Hard Drive. - This is in stark contrast to the consoles where typically the System memory and video memory are combined pools.

For example... Battlefield 3 on ultra settings at 5760x1080 resolution alone on my system will use 5.2gb of ram and on top of that it pushes my video cards past 2.2gb memory used at 5760x1080 with 8x Anti-Aliasing.
That's 7.4gb used alone all told, not much left over from 8gb is there? Could use the left overs for a stripped down console operating system I guess.

Then you need to factor in that the machine will be around for about a decade and the easiest way for a developer to make improvements is by giving them "wiggle" room and one of the simplest and cheapest ways to do that is via adding more memory.
Personally I would like them to push way past 8gb and go for 16gb or 32gb. - Maybe then textures won't be low resolution and you might actually be able to play games higher than a 1366x768 resolution a few years after the machines life.

i don't know why they need so much RAM, they have been fine with 512mb for the last 6/ 7 years. Even on PC, most games don't need more than 3gb or 4gb so far

More than 4gb is stupid

Not necessarily. They could go the Wii U route and sacrifice high bandwidth for low latency using eDRAM to avoid bottlenecking issues.

I still say that 16 x chips is too much, we'll probably see 12 in the 720 and 8 in the PS4 giving 6GB and 4GB respectively. And I'm still pretty certain it'll be DDR3 and not DDR4 if they want to keep costs down and have high enough yields to make a 2013 launch possible. Both platform holders know that any retail price bigger than 400 pounds/dollars could cause them problems with getting marketshare.

I think 4GB of RAM should be sufficient for COS, God of War, Gears and Uncharted (my favourite franchises).

Is it just me or does Crytek have delusions about their place in this industry?

anyone answer about how much watts new Xbox and PS will be pulling? cannot find any articles based on it yet.

I don't think you'll find any, seeing how there are nothing but rumors right now. My guess is above 70 Watts, since that's what the WiiU pulls once a "demanding" game is running.