In regards to the Wii, I don't quite see how not pushing hardware specs equates to "helping third parties to make lower cost games." It's not like it's any easier to make a cheap game on the Wii than it is on another platform.

I think I agree with Bod on this one. Developers don't HAVE to use a console's capabilities to the fullest. A developer could easily make a relatively cheap ps3/360 game by focusing more on fun factor rather than flashy visuals, complex interactions, etc. Like he said, developers should stop focusing on pushing the tech envelope if they want to make cheaper games.

Also, Sony wasn't out to "Screw" third parties when they created the Cell. Sony has always created crazy hardware for it's consoles, but they've always had a rather friendly attitude towards third parties, hence why the ps1 became such a success.

Also, I think it was 1st/2nd parties and prices drops that saved Sony last year more than anything else. Uncharted was easily the best game on the system last Fall, and arguably still is.

 How many "No More Heroes" would it require to bring in the amount of profits that something like Call of Duty 4 has?  The big titles may be risky but when they're "hits" they usually bring in a lot of money.  It also seems like unless there's a big license or amazing tech or an established franchise behind a game it's chances of success are much less.  Also if you have two games that are both "fun" and competing against each other then it could be something as simple as better graphics that allows one to cream the other in sales.

1: Stop making shooters. Please. You're not Valve. I'm waiting for the next Portal.
2: Stop trying to force photo-realism down my throat until you can get out of the uncanny valley. Work on style and presentation instead of just pixels and bloom.
3: Try something weird and new, and hope we like it.

You'll cut costs way more than you cut revenue, and thus increase profit. Ask Carnival Games. Ask Geometry Wars. Ask Puzzle Quest. Ask Katamari. Ask Viewtiful Joe. Ask Portal.

I bet putting MGS4 on one Blu Ray disk is cheaper than putting it on 8 different DVD's.

 2:  Agree completely.  My god, you can spend as much time and effort making sure that the faces of all the people in ME2 or whatever game have realistic pimples and scars but I don't care one bit about it!  You know what I do care about?  If you used that time to design and implement another weapon or something.  Who cares if there's realistic nose hairs?  I'm not going to notice the damn things anyway.

I think the answer to this problem will be a massive rise in reusable fixed assets (make one game, reuse 2x for a trilogy!), pre-made engines and middle (every game will be made with UE3), and high game costs ($60 already for 360/PS3 vs wii $50).  None of those appeal all that much to me. 

Well I think the true increase in the costs of development is largely under reported because even though they claim game development costs have increased 2 to 4 times of the cost of games in the previous generation, the average length of most games is 1/4 to 1/2 of the length of games in the previous generation; being that the largest portion of game development is creation of the graphical assets, and the quantity of graphical assets needed is directly proportional to the length of the game, it is fair to say that these development costs are much higher than the 2 to 4 times we have seen reported.

Now, the unfortunate thing is that large publishers (for the most part) are not the ones who will be hurt by this increase in development costs. Like EA, most large developersrelease sequels to large franchises on a very regular basis and can afford to build a library of 3D graphical assets over years with only a moderate increase in their overall development costs. Smaller developers don't have the luxury of releasing 4 versions of the same racing game or shooter in a generation, and the development of all of their graphical assets has to be recovered upon the sale of the game they're used in.

As I've said before, the important thing isn't that all third party publishers cut back on their development costs and focus on more modest graphics, but I do think that it is important that developers only invest as much money as they can truely afford to on the games they're producing.

ps3 lost a truckload of exclusive and multi 3rd party devs because the ps3 is so hard to develop on.

the guy who sold me burnt ps2 games for 10 bucks cant even make a den in the ps3;s hardware. now i need to go purchase games for 59 bucks.

The PC says hello!

Even the major gripe of piracy is a trend that has been changing since last generation. Piracy is now a problem on consoles as well as PCs and the difference to me is that a PC is far better equipped to deal with the problem.  There are already several companies having success against piracy and while it may never go away it can be made into far more of a hassle than it is worth.

If the previous generation taught us anything, it should have taught us that systems with roughly the same capabilities just leads to stagnation with only one gaining any dominance over the others simply by default. It makes it easy to do ports, but ultimately, the economic model for staying in business involves going where the most profit is to be made. Which is why the PS2 got most of the exclusives last generation, even though it had quite literally nothing but a head start over the GameCube and XBOX.

This generation is a complete 180 of the last one, in that all three systems are distinctly unique from one another in at least one way. This uniqueness does have the side-effect of making ports difficult to do between the systems, but it also has the benefit of allowing for a more diversified potential economic model for developers to follow.

Last generation, you basically had to put your game on the PS2 if you wanted it to sell at all; GC and XB were first-party systems at heart, and nothing was going to change that. This generation, that's all changed. The up-start companies who can't afford to take a big risk have a safe avenue to turn to with the Wii. Meanwhile the long-time industry fatcats with enough cash to build a bridge to the moon and back have their way with the 360 and PS3. And if those fatcats have an experimental title that might not draw interest, or they want to release a game that will obviously appeal to a broader crowd than the 360/PS3 one, they can just put the game on the Wii and solve two problems at once.

About the only ones who fail to benefit from this, really, are the ones who became dependent on the multi-platform approach where all systems were approximately equivalent. This "shotgun approach", as one might call it, is a thing of the past for this generation of systems.

Yea, I'm sure 3rd parties are crying because you have to buy their disc and give them money, instead of having their games ripped for free.