The only Japanese company that Sony never had support from was Mistalker who has issues with Sony (Hence why Sony never got their exclusive JRPG like the 360 and Wii did from the creator of the FF franchise). Thats the only flaw in their Japanese armor but you must remember Microsofts console will always be the worst console for JRPG's unless Microsoft forks out money for exclusives. Sony doesn't always have to fork out a cent because Japanese companies know they need both Sony and Nintendo. The problem with Japan was actually Sony's fault with Sony neglecting Japan to gain the good graces of the western audience. Everyone knows that if Sony had both the east and west properly making games for them they have no equal from either Microsoft or Nintendo (In consoles not portables). This is the only gen that they haven't so they really need to make up for their issues.

If you are taking posts like mine and branding them as "hater posts" you are a Nintendo console partisan who is doing wishful thinking above about everything else.  I am expressing serious concerns about the amout of available RAM and its impact on console games.  I have an impression you believe video games will remain as they have been, and there isn't a need for more RAM for anything but graphics at all.  And this thread is about next gen consoles, NOT saying that the Wii U can top this current generation by a decent sized margin.  The cold reality is that the Wii U is NOT getting third party to sign on.  It isn't getting the next Unreal Engine at all.  Unless you want to spin how Nintendo doesn't need any third party really, when a point of the way the Wii U is, was to be able to get third-party support, or that they are "lazy", then you need to say something as to why.  The 3DS is getting good third party support, of its own type actually.  It is because it sells and can match what the designs are.  What you aren't getting into is HOW the WII U with 1 GB RAM free will match a system, if it has 7 GB free.  All I see here is "well the graphics will be toned down".  In short, there will be NO development of the worlds being larger at all?  I am not sure you can answer that outside of saying, "Stop being a hater" and "Have faith".  Next up, I won't be surprised if you start saying "b_e_l_i_e_v_e".

Well said.

That is mostly due to the artificial limit of 32-bit addressing than anything tho. Thankfully Win XP and 32-Bit OS are finally dieing so we will see a big leap soon. Especially now that games will be designed around systems with lots of RAM rather than 512MB. Think about it games designed around sytems with 512MB of RAM with a few graphics and draw distance enhancements and some more agressive cacheing already burn through 3-4GB of RAM on PC, imagine how much true next gen games will use.

Look at Crysis 3 (Yes I know crazy high resolution plus lots of MSAA is the main culpret)

Almost 4GB of VRAM and that is just VRAM, the game will also use a few GB of system RAM as well. Given the opertunity devs will use as much as there is available.

Capcom really punched Sony in the face by moving the Monster Hunter brand, the big Japanese brand for the PSP in Japan, to Nintendo. Plus with Resident Evil Revelations, Capcom is showing strong support for Nintendo. It's only a matter of time before the Wii U, like the Wii before it, sees a big Monster Hunter exclusive.

Square Enix has moved the Dragon Quest brand to Nintendo, and has no games in development for the PSV. PSV isn't PS4 though, but it seems like SE and Nintendo are getting goodie goodie, so it's likely that Wii U will see more JRPG's from SE. Maybe FFXIII Versus will end up a PS3/Wii U multiplatform title, there was a rumor before that it could.

Namco-Bandai is developing the next Smash Bros. That will probably improve relationships, but their main brand (Tales of __) has always been exclusive to multiple consoles (PS3 - Xillia, 360 - Vesperia, Wii/GCN - Symphonia, PS2 - Abyss/Legendia, PSV - Innocence/Hearts remakes, 3DS - Abyss Remake, etc).

From Software is the only Japanese developer who isn't improving relationships with Nintendo, but at the same time, there is a decent chance that Dark Souls 2 will go Multi-platform with the Wii U as well. DS1 went MP with PC with a petition, and the Wii U petition is just as big.

Do Japanese developers need Sony AND Nintendo?

So you do admit Sony is neglecting Japan? LOL at the underlined, yea right, being good at everything =/= being the best at everything, unless there is no competition, but that won't happen. Sony is the all rounder in a fighting game, not a specialist, except for action/adventure games. I can bet you with utmost certainty that Sony will not get lead sales in all regions, the Playstation brand isn't what it used to be with the PS1/PS2.

This is a good point. Like I said RAM =/= graphics, but since it boosts load times, it will = larger landscapes and drawdistances. If games like Elder Scrolls push the PS4, they will look significantly crappier on the Wii U if downgraded, it's just not going to happen.

The only multiplatform games we will see between Wii U and PS4 are those which were designed to be multi-platform from the ground up. You can make character models which push the PS4 by accuratly modeling finer particles, like hair, and then remove that RAM based visual perk in the Wii U version. However, you still need a core engine which works on the Wii U, and how many people will buy the Wii U version over then PS4 version then?

I can see the Wii U getting more multi-platform games then the Wii did, the gap from Wii U to PS4 is smaller, then the Wii to PS3 gap, and it's crossable (You can make games that work on both systems without much alteration). However I only see some genres getting multiplatform titles, genres like Action Adventure and RPG. FPS are driven by graphics, and I don't think FPS fans are Nintendo fans either, so we won't see many FPS's on Wii U (e.g. Destiny and Battlefield 4 will release on PS3/360, but not Wii U).

So to put it simply, we will see some developers make multiplatform games, and other not. Ubisoft can make MP games since most of their games (Like Assassin's Creed and Rayman) are based on engines which do play PS3/360 games. Mass Effect might be available on Wii U since the Frostbyte engine is what the game is based on, and Mass Effect 3 used that game engine, and is available on Wii U.

The question is, will we continue to see MP games after the PS3/360 phase out? I think they will, I think we will see more Nintendo-other platform MP games then ever before, but Nintendo will heavily rely on exclusives, mostly first party, to keep it competetive.

This is a common argument most say about more ram, that it will provide larger landscapes.
But people forget we have had games with sprawling landscapes for decades, take morrowind, it's game world is just as big as Oblivion and Skyrim, but did so with 1/8th of the ram.
Granted with techniques such as impostering, developers got around the need for large draw distances chewing up Ram.

The main grunt that's going to be driving next generation isn't going to be the Ram, that's just a cache, the processing is still all done on the CPU and GPU and is what will *really* drive next generation graphics and physics to new levels. (Although, I'm skepticle on the Physics part if developers use CPU based physics on the PS4's anemic processor.)

However, I beleive from a gameplay standpoint, nothing will change, in-fact they will probably get more linear and simple, it's a quest that developers have been on for years and is a plague in console games.

I agree

The issue with larger lanscapes is the cost of actually designing and creating the content to fill it rather than a system problem. Current open world games like Skyrim and Just Cause 2 already have massiv draw distances with massive lanscapes, making bigger worlds unless you go into procedural generation that has it's own set of huge problems is just too cost prohibitive. And for linear games making a huge area is not even necessarily desirable let alone viable. 

And even if we ignore the content creation problem no one component can be taken in isolation, a lot of people have become fixated on the whole 8GB GDDR5 RAM thing for PS4. And I see a lot of people going around talking like just having 8GB of RAM suddenly means that everything will suddenly be bigger and better. Forgetting that having 6GB of HD textures loaded into RAM doesn't really matter if your GPU can only proccess 2GB each frame. It does however allow developers a lot more room to push certain features further than they otherwise could, desgin and budget permitting.

On the topic of physics the Knack and Havok stuff that was showed off looks promising on that front. It remains to be seen how it actually translates into actual gameplay tho. The lots of weak CPU cores plus GPGPU (now that GPU accelerated rigid body physics is starting to take off it should start to be less of a useless visual gimmick as it has been in the past) actually hold some promise on that front, especially as unlike the PS3 devs shouldn't be offloading a lot of graphics stuff to the CPU next gen. 

The divide is an issue, but open worlds don't just require system RAM, they require VRAM as well, otherwise your world will exist as black screen.

It doesn't make sense to discount the PS3's VRAM  when it's essential to containing much of the data a game world requires. Part of the 360 and Wii's RAM is taken up by video assets as well. Games don't just need to be run, they need to be displayed. What good is a complex world running on a blank screen?

I can't help myself, I am compelled to reply :D

Well yes of course that's correct, but the thing is that is a problem because the data in VRAM has to pass through system RAM to get there, therefore you can think of it as needing twice the space needed on a unified system.

I'll be honest, I don't have the technical knowledge in detail to express how it all works but I know that anything that goes into VRAM originates from system RAM and obviously data can't be streamed into system RAM instantly and that the CPU can't address data in VRAM.

edit...

Just found this, basically sums it up.

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/GlenJoyner/20121014/179348/Outofmemory_Skyrims_PS3_woes_examined.php

So we're both wrong and right to some degree ;)