Mayamellissa said:
with everything that is going on right now, is it REALLY a good idea to go to new consoles when the current crops are still obscenely expensive and have untapped potential?
Define untapped potential. There really isn't much, if any. People seem to be taking statement like 'We are finally getting to finding out what the PS3 can do' to mean 'We just found an extra 20% power in the PS3 by magic!
In reality, I believe it is more a fact of 'How can we make "We've hit the limits of the PS3" sound good for the PS3 to get more money from Sony?'. There is not a lot that consoles can do more than they currently can. Many developers are saying that they have used up everything that the systems have to offer. Some just reword that to market the console.
Edit: Too used to having people post between my posts. Curse you Youtube. Will start using edit button.
him over there said:
Oh great, just what we need. people saying this is overdue because the pc is so far ahead, deal. Consoles have enough graphical fidelity already, any more is just superfluous. consoles, since they are a unified platform, are expected to use there hardware to the fullest. Making a game for the 360 or ps3 is already extremely expensive and the games, as well as the middle class studios are suffering for it. People could be making perfectly good games and no one buying them because they don't have the money to create them in the top tier graphics engines of today. The triple a console scene is shoving more and more people out until only the huge mega corporations / publishers can afford to make games for them at all. Since every bodies pc isn't the same, pc developers can create games from the high and low end of the visual spectrum. Consoles don't get that, games have to be at their fullest ability graphically and we have the fidelity to make huge epic worlds, we don't need anymore. It alienates studios and quality games that can't be produced because of the huge cost. We do not need better graphics, we need to look at the big picture and just work on making better games.
That is your opinion and that is fine. Thing is, nothing at all is going to change without a new console generation, except that consoles die out and PCs become a larger platform.
The graphics offer a path for better games to be made, as they present a certain selling point were there was none previously. Look at this from a Marketing perspective. If someone comes up to you and gives you a sheet of things that MAY be fun, but no-one knows for sure, and there is no guarantee of sales, and someone comes up to you with something that is known to sell, but with 'better' graphics to make it better than the previous installment, which are you going to fund?
Now consider that that stuff that might be fun has 'Awesome new graphics' and 'Aims to push what the new hardware can do', and it starts to stand a chance. In the uncertain market that begins with a new console cycle, new games will be given a chance, and marketing will be more willing to fund these games as they may pump out some truly amazing visuals to draw people in, and that may be a requirement of it. Yes the 'known is going to sell' will still take priority, but there is no reason to put millions into making something you have no guarantee is going to sell.
As well as that, more than simply graphics will be improved with this console cycle. The opportunity for better AI, larger worlds, more interactivity, more actors on screen at once, and even more will be bought to the table. If graphics were the only thing a new console would bring to the table, devs wouldn't be asking for 6Gbs of RAM. That doesn't make graphics. That makes game.
