Lol I have so many errors in that rant, I wish my phone could edit post.

If that was the case, than inflation would be the only thing driving up costs.

Here is an article that was posted on VGC before (too lazy to link it)

http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2012/07/02/the-rise-of-costs-the-fall-of-gaming/

and here is an interesting tidbit

long story short, games nowadays require more manpower, and cost more. It's not like games are staying static, annd budgets won't stay static as well. 

I made this thread to mainly talk about developers, not necessarily consoles, and I'm not anti-Wii U. The trolls just...well....came on in. 

- Yes

Can the industry survive developers dropping like flies? What happens when too many shut down?

- The Wii U is the same amount of power of PS360 if not a little bit better, why would we want a console that puts out the same looking games that we been playing for the last 6 years? We expect the PS4/720 to be more power then the PS360 atleast 3 - 4 times like it has been every gen. Nintendoes loss is because of the tablet controller, and I'm expecting a $399 - $499 price for both PS4 and X720, which is acceptable these days.

I wasn't saying the EXACT same graphics as this gen, but not so powerful to the point that developers can't keep up (like this gen). I was thinking a more marginal jump, but a jump nonetheless. The type of jump that people on here describe would make it expensive. Also is $499 really an acceptable price these days? Sony and MS don't their next consoles to end up like the Vita and Wii U right now. 

- Clearly the gamepad is costing a lot of money since the PS360 has similar specs and are profiting at $199 - $250.

The GamePad isn't that much. MS is running a promotion for a $99 Xbox 360 right now (abeit with 2 years of XBL), and the PS3 has Blu-Ray, which still piles onto the cost of the system. 

- 8th gen? No very doubtful, I don't think anyone is expecting this?

Some people in this thread expected it, but not much anymore

- That's the name of the game, happens every generation, the only thing about the 7th genration is the big recession hit hard on a lot of companies. Cost won't triple, they may double at the most. Also there is cheaper alternatives to making games like the mini games on Xbox live and PSN like Journey, Flower, Limbo etc. Smaller gaming companies can start there if they're successful then they can make bigger games

The recession peaked a few years ago, but developers are still closing. The Indie Platform on XBL and PSN Minis are good alternates, but with the industry going the way it is now, all we'll have are those games and big budget COD/Madden/Assassin's Creed games. No middle ground. 

- You don't know that.

Given the amount of developers closing now, who's to say more won't close in the future?

- Companies are preparing for this, do you really think they don't know that things get bigger and better every gen? A lot of companies now are complaining how the 7th gen is going on so long and they want the 8th gen to start, if they were all so scared of the new generation why would they want it to come so bad?

You could say similar things heading into this gen, and if companies were prepared for it, they would have fared better, and not as many developers would have closed. This gen snuck up on them and we got the result. If Next Gen sneaks up on them, the results may be worse, because of rising costs. They want the new gen because they have done all they can with the current consoles. 

No I don't think you understand resolution works, on a long enough distance even 480p won't be noticeable, I sit 2,5m from my 50" plasma and its definetly not sharp enough. Neither did you seem to understand me, I'll repeat again: retail games won't be 4K but certain PSN games most definetly will.  Phones and tablets are going upwards 400ppi, most people's eyes can't resolve sharpness above 229ppi, its not like our phone displays needed to be HD(or use HD like you put it), they have been sharp enough for years in the first place so the argument of "you cant distnguish pixels now" is rather pointless, if anything higher resolutions than you need on phones are bad for your battery life and performance. When the ps3 came out no one had a 1080p tv, 4K is the next big thing, like it or not. Yes they cost a lot thanks for the obvious but so did the first plasma sets and 1080p tvs.

Your big argument seems to keep going around either developers leaving or in threat of leaving but if that's the case why is it that in the 6th gen game sales totaled around 2.3 billion sold across all platforms and now that number inscreased over a billion to 3.3 billion in the 7th gen (and that number will continue to rise). The companies "dropping like flies" never really made very big selling games (sure there are a couple but the majority usually made awful games that no one bought). The way I see it is this just makes room for newer better developers, their franchises never go anywhere anyway, when a game developing company goes under other companies buy their franchises so as gamers were not really losing anything?

There are more game developers today than there ever has been... New studios are opened up all the time.

If what your saying is true then its weird that we hear studios closing all the time. Not kidding but they seem to be more in vita's part though. 

lol no. If you honestly believe teams like zipper were closed over their vita games then you are just kidding yourself. 

I think a good question to ask is how much harder is it going to be to make money with the increasing development costs combined with the much smaller install base.

This is of course assuming that PS4 and the new Xbox release this year.