The Final Fantasy 14 thread got me thinking- one negative side-effect of the power of the next-gen consoles, particularly PS360, is how long it takes to make an iteration in a franchise. This may be the first gen where each major franchise can only appear once (I wont mention Nintendo here since that seems more common for Nintendo, eg Mario Kart/Smash Bros).

For instance, Gran Turismo had 2 PS1 games, 2 main PS2 games, and by the looks of it, GT5 will be the only main entry on PS3, unless by some miracle it hits in 2009 and GT6 goes incredibly smoothly.

Then there's Final Fantasy, which did three iterations on PS1, three on PS2 but 2 on PS3/360 would be optimistic right now.

Then take GTA. Obviously, GTA4 is out- but does anyone really see them delivering another two installments to match up to the PS2? Or Burnout, which had 4 PS2 games, but so far 1 PS360 game which had a long dev process and given th free DLC coming bit by bit, we probably will only see one more Burnout this gen.

But my take on this? It's a good thing. It creates more breathing room for new IPs- people will take a chance on them to fill the gap. It gives us a break from these series between installments, so they dont become stale or tired to us, and heightens our anticipation for each one. I always used to imagine Gran Turismo being bought by EA, to be turned into an annual sequel-fest; "Gran Turismo 2009!" etc, with a few new cars every year. And I always shuddered at the thought.

Your thoughts?

Invalid.

The jump from Third generation (1983-1992) (Nes/Master System era) to the Fourth generation (1987-1996)(Snes/Genesis era) or the "3D jump" to the Fifth generation (1987-1996) (N64/PS1 era) is in no way larger in terms of the exponential increase in system specification $$ costs and capabilities than the jump from the last gen to the current geneneration of videogaming (Relatively Speaking).

All possibilities are open.