xman said:
Impulsivity said:
Honestly I see 0 point in a new Playstation. I am perfectly happy with the Playstation 3s graphics. They are very on par with the best of the PC world still, its not like the 360 where you look at the 360, then look at the PC version and go WHOA that 360 version is gimped (ala Mass Effect or Gears of War). The Playstation 3 is significantly more powerful and FAR more scalable then the 360. It is also well placed for what the future of gaming is, multiple processor systems with distributed computing as the engine that drives the games. Look at Intel demos of Nilhelm (probably spelled wrong) 8 core systems that are not much more powerful then the PS3 driving fully dynamic graphics WITHOUT any GPU at all. The PS3 can continue to grow in capability as more developers learn how to efficiently use the extra cores. The 360 has hit a wall with its limited 3 processor design, there is no real way theoretical or otherwise that it will keep up with the potential of the PS3.
I know some of you are thinking OMG the PS3 games look the same!!! but you are looking at mainly multiplat releases made for both (which means the graphics in something like GTA4 were reduced so they could fit on a DVD, MS charges extra PER DVD if you go over 1 DVD, read a few developers comments on that). Games that really start to tap the power of the PS3 like Metal Gear Solid 4 look on par with anything the best PCs run, and that will continue to be the case for several years.
Also look at what you get today for 3-4000 dollars in a gaming PC that you cannot get with a PS3 level PC (probably around 1000 dollar gaming PC). You can turn AA up (it is often quite hard to really tell the difference AA makes), can add more complex shadow effects (again, not a huge deal 99% of the time) and do other little adjustments which are not exactly key selling points. What is the new 360 tagline going to be in 2010? Get a new 500 dollar console! We have 8x AA instead of 2x AA and better shadow effects! This isn't the PS1/PS2 generation where there are huge obvious gains to be made. Games like Uncharted and Metal Gear 4 are pretty close to photorealistic already, its not like a small increase or even "large" increase in graphics would be perceptable at this stage to most people even those with 42 inch 1080P TVs (the real high end of the mass market. I would bet less then 5% of all consumers have a 50 inch or larger TV with 1080P or better). Until something like VR comes along and the processor power beyond the PS3 is REALLY needed, I don't see the Playstation brand needing a big refresh any time soon.
Yes the 360 needs a refresh, especially as the PS3 pulls ahead thanks to blu ray/better capacity, but how do you do that? I mean to upgrade to something as good or better then the PS3 the 360 would need to sacrifice its ONLY advantage, which is its North America install base. The Wii will have a reason to upgrade, getting Nintendo characters in HD with better motion controls (probably a PS3 eqiv Wii in a few years at the same 200-250 price point), but the 360? Microsoft, unless they can SEVERELY leap frog Sony with something like VR, will go right back to the Xbox days where they were a little more powerful then the previously released PS system, but there wasn't nearly enough of a difference to drive sales. PS2 to Xbox is what the PS3 will be to the Xbox 720 if its released in the next 3 years. Better, but only on a shrug your shoulders and keep your old console capacity.
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Again I refer to Moores law in previous arguments. If MS and WII launch new consoles PS3 will have to im my opinion the lifecyle for a console is 5-6 years even sony launched the PS3 before its 10 year PS2 lifecyle end.
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Double the processor power and get......? Tripple it even and get....? Of course trippling it in 2011 won't be feasable because of cost, but even hypothetically. The change from the PS2 to PS3 (or PS1 to PS2) was much greater then is reasonably possible even with vastly more processor power. If you tripple everything for a 2011 release there isn't a HUGE difference still, certainly not the PS1 to PS2 or PS2 to PS3 difference it would take to really drive 500 dollar consoles. There are rapidly diminishing returns beyond a certain point when it comes to system resources. You should read some articles on photo realisim in CGI. There is a certain point, around where the PS3 is at, that is sweet spot number one, which is almost photo realistic but still styalized enough as to not become unsettling. Sweet spot two is complete photorealism which requires something just short of a super computer to achieve in anything even close to real time. Thus to really add upon the PS3 in a meaningful way the next console would have to be equivilant to a super computer, which won't happen before 2012 or 2013 at the soonest. A 2010 Xbox would be just like the 2003 Xbox, it will indeed be "better" then the PS3 in capability, but only marginally so, not enough to really make a difference and drive new xbox sales like being way better then teh PS2/game cube drove 360 sales.
As you approach photo realisim there are diminishing returns when it comes to more power. Again I point to the difference between a 1000 dollar computer with an 8800GT card, a 3.0 ghz core 2 duo and 4 GBs of RAM and a 6000 dollar computer with some 4 graphic card SLI set up, an 8 core processor and 16GBs of RAM with a 64 bit OS. There really isn't THAT much of a difference, even the 1000 dollar box can run most games on high resolution, all that extra 5000 buys is better shadows, slight lighting improvements and 16x anti aliasing instead of 2x AA. All three of those are things that A) few people notice and B) fewer people want to shell out 500 dollars for a new console to get.