Well maybe EA can finally go under.
Granted I love Dead Space and Bioware games, It's kinda a necessary evil at this point for more companies to go under.

Developers want more power. More power means better looking games, more intelligent AI etc, etc and the potential for far better games overall. The consoles with the oomph are the ones the developers are likely to support with in turn push up the sales. This is evident from the way many of them dismissed the wii u.

The wii sold a lot of consoles without third party support but it is looking very likely that this underpower console thing that nintendo insist on doing isn't going to work this time around.

The truth is processing power rules with the developers and it is has always played a part for the consumer, seems this will be the case even more next gen.

BTW I do not believe developers when they say PS and xbox regular game prices will stay the same next gen anymore than I would a politician telling me that my taxes and the cost of living will stay the same next year. I simply do not believe it.

As time passes tech gets cheap.   The only reason why PS360 costs $60 is because publishers needed to make their Wii games appealing.    If a PS3 game costs $50 and a Wii game costs $50, according to you which one people would think that is outrageous to have that price?  So instead of making Wii games cheaper they made PS360 games more expensive.   Think about it, why the same version of a game that is also available for PC costs $50 and not $60??? 

When next gen enters overdrive, it will require less resources to make "previous gen" games, making them cheaper to make; and the "current gen" games will cost just about the same as it is right now.

lol Gears 1 had a budget of $10m and Gears 2 $12m. With $20m-$24m they would still be below the current gen average of AAA games.

Also better looking games don't necessarily equal higher budgets. The PC ports already use better textures, new effects and support higher resolutions. Simply using them for PS4/Xbox³ will make games look automaticall much better than last gen games without spending additional money.


@OP

No one expects that Sony and Microsoft make money purely off their console for the next few years. That's one of the advantages of console gaming actually. An equal gaming computer would cost you far more than one of these consoles, because Sony and MS (and now Nintendo) are prepared to sell the console at a loss.

Also we don't know how many games Nintendo needs to sell to make a profit off the WiiU. They just said more than one, which could mean a lot of things. 1-2 games is certainly an optimistic assumption. Expect the WiiU to be more expensive than that.

I agree it's unnecessary and extremely power demanding. If he's lucky he'll be able to play PS2 games at 4k, but no full PS4 game will be able to do that.
A PSN game maybe but only if it's extremely simple.
Either way it's quite redundant.

Button, no.  I just find it ridiculous that some people believe if Nintendo's strategy isn't working, then other companies must be in danger.  Quite a biased conclusion.

No, Nintendo didn't know exactly what the outcome of the Wii would be, so don't suggest they did.  The world could have shunned it like they did with most motion controls in the past.  Nintendo took a gamble and it paid off.  I give them massive props for that.  However, like I said before, this same gamble isn't paying off for the Wii U.  And yes, it is the same gamble.  Underpowered HW, but the focus is supposed to be on the controller, not the power.

It's ridiculous to conclude that costs going up are because a console has more power.  It's as if some of you people think developers pay by the texture or polygon.  A lot of the cost are attributed to inflation.  The costs of everything else is going up.  Salaries, equipment, and leasing buildings for HQs.  And that has nothing to do with the power of a console.  If the consoles are easier to develop for than they were for this gen, which the PS4 will be compared to the PS3, then the prices aren't just going to skyrocket for no reason.  Again, as long as companies put out quality games and have good time/resource management, which was lacking in the companies that went out of busines this gen, then they'll be fine.  And the Wii was not created for the poor economy.  The Wii was in development well before 2006, which was still a year before the economy really went to shit.  Part of the Wii's success can probably be attributed to the weak economy, though.  Still, that didn't really stop the PS3/360 from selling well, also.

Nintendo fans are afraid because they can look at the sales.  The Wii U is selling like a dying console.  And its only been out for 2 months and is only $30-$50 more expensive then the PS3.  They know that Nintendo games can only push a console so far.  It needs 3rd party games, as well.  Basically, it comes down to them fearing a 2nd or 3rd place finish.

Indeed. Inflation is our friend in this case.
Games within a generation don't get more expensive over time even though pretty much all other goods do.

Actually I don't see why publishers and the console manufacturers won't increase the price. $60 in 2005 is just as much as $70 in 2013:
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Sounds fair to me, since the average Joe earns more money in 2013 than in 2005 for the same job.

If they did that the funny thing would be that only WiiU games got more expensive while PS4/Xbox³ games basically stayed the same. (obviously last gen only PS3/360 games got more expensive).

I really question the cry about development cost going up all the time. Sure, sometimes they might, but also, new tech sometimes does more things for the designers, so you, in theory, could actually use less people.

Well, that is what Bungie said about developing Halo: Reach - "Building a motion capture studio in-house saved Bungie time as motion capture data could be applied to the game models the same day it was shot" http://halo.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=Spandex

And, look at the user generated mods to Skyrim. They are making it nearly photo realistic, but not changing the design at all - and only through volunteers. It's quite amazing.

They way things are going - DirectX gives you tools, then people are using Unreal Engine, CryEngine, Frostbyte, Havok, etc. on top of that. So actual game companies can rent/lease a design engine so they only make the game part and use the tools other companies have already made.

As the tech becomes better, stronger, and more accessible, it does open some additional doors for designers.

That's looking at a small segment of the industry though. There are plenty of small indie developers, startups, and smaller Kickstarter funded devs that are actually doing quite well. How many of them will migrate and develop for consoles? There are Indie (low budget) games on PC that manage to push visuals beyong the current consoles. It's possible to do, as always though, the developers have to be intelligent about how they go about it.