j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
- The Wii U may not be as underpowered as everyone makes out. While people have torn the thing apart to look inside, a lot of the actual workings of the specs are still a complete mystery. The CPU is certainly clocked at a lower speed than expected, but it also is apparently quite a bit more modern in design than the CPUs in either the PS360. More importantly, it has far more eDRAM than either console (32mb) and a GP-GPU (a GPU which can also pull double duty and do CPU tasks, such as physics) several generations ahead of the current gen. We've not seen any real visual upgrade yet, for the same reason most 360 launch games didn't look that much better than Xbox ones (or sometimes even worse). Developers need time to get to grips with the architecture. We're already starting to see games like Nano Assault Neo and Trine 2: Director's Cut, which are visually astounding. Give it a year or two, and developers will be able to start showing some of the Wii U's muscle.
- Conversely, don't be surprised if Sony starts reigning in the hardware specs for the next gen. For the last 8 years or so, they've consistently tried to win over gamers by cramming as much tech into their consoles as possible, and it hasn't worked. The PS3 is about level with the 360, but the PSP and the Vita flopped compared to the competition. Even worse, they cost Sony a bunch of money in hardware losses. I would be very surprised if Sony didn't start try to cut back on the cutting edge hardware next time round, and go back to a business approach more reminiscent of the PS2 and PS1. The latest rumour is that they're basing the design off an AMD A10 APU, an all in one design that combines CPU and GPU, not too dissimilar from the Wii U's multi-chip module. Tellingly, the A10 APU is technology that's several years old now, and pretty affordable. If Sony does go with the A10 architecture, the PS4 will be a step up, but it won't be the cutting edge machine everyone thinks it will.
This is also new information for me, I thought the general opinion was that it was a half step. I didn't imagine Sony would try and go for a powerhouse this time (I really hope they don't) and it's a strange situation where I imagine Sony and Microsoft are both basically going to just try and copy the other one, but I'd thought that even an Xbox to 360 sort of advancement would leave the Wii U behind. But if that's not true and I've got your opinion which seems to have some specifics to throw doubt versus a baseless general assumption, then it would leave the market in an interesting place. I can't believe devs would really get behind the Wii U controller (unless the Wii U manages to curbstomp both other consoles). You can't design a game for one control scheme on two consoles and add a design for second and have that design really utilise the strengths. And I'm not convinced it brings enough strengths to make the Wii U a much more favourable purchase than equal power MSony consoles. In fact I imagine most people would be a bit put off leaving the control schemes they know (and however it actually is, the Wii U controllers, doesn't
look as comfortable to hold. And the 360 Halo fanbase is dedicated. Their are plenty of people who will buy the next console for that one game. In that situation I guess people would just tend to buy and use classic controllers as default.
Still I would be surprised, even with the revelation that the Wii U is more powerful than people think, if it were on equal footing with the others. The controller looks expensive to manufacture and providing Sony/MS don't try to force a Kinect/Wand thing down our throats they're going to use that to either make much cheaper consoles than the Wii U or more advanced consoles. Isn't there quite a lot of work just getting the tech power in the system to get the controller to run? But maybe they won't be advanced enough to leave the Wii U in the dust and people just won't bother using that extra power. I mean consoles are way behind PCs at the moment, but people aren't bothered and potentially the same thing could happen with the Wii U. It's good they released early though, if all three came out at the same time I think the strangeness of the controller would be enough to place it in other markets (and it will still probably absolutely corner the casual market, if not as strongly as the Wii) but with an established base it would be attractive to take the time porting
You could make the argument for Call Of Duty, but I would argue that Call Of Duty is a casual game hiding in hardcore clothing. A large part of COD's audience is people who simply play Call Of Duty for the multiplayer, and don't really play anything else. I know several people like this myself- surprisingly older people who enjoy playing a few deathmatches online, but otherwise tend to avoid gaming. The fact that COD's sales numbers are so astronomically huge, while numbers for other 'core' games are more or less the same as 8 years ago, suggests to me that COD is the exception, rather than the norm. If you remove COD from the equation, you're left with an industry that is seeing about the same level of interest as last generation. Each generation, the pie gets cut up into different slices, but I don't think the pie is really getting any bigger.
And of course, it's worth bearing in mind that development costs for games have gone up exponentially since the last generation. While games aren't selling much more, they're costing more to produce. Hence why we're seeing such a focus on bland, homgenous sequels...
I'm still not completely convinced by this, because the number of games sold this generation compared to last actually went up when comparing the top 50 to the top 100, which suggests there's other factors than one franchise. But considering it switches places later on, I'm wondering if whats happened is that we've lost genres and studios. The mediocre and niche ones couldn't cut it in the economic downturn and rising development expenses, so we like games the same amount, but we have less games to choose on and focus on the top 100/200 more compared to the last generation which was really diverse, which I guess agrees with your last paragraph
The CoD casual thing I've never thought of before, but you are right. But I think it's got more of an entry point than with actual casuals. The game is complex enough that some try out Borderlands or Mass Effect or Twisted Metal and that can open up everything. Whereas it's hard to go from Wii Sports to Planescape:Torment because there#s a much greater divide of complexity between true casuals and every other game on the ladder,
All in all, to bring this rambly post back to some kind of coherence... the gaming industry is in a really weird place right now. And I'm not sure Sony, as they are currently, are all that well equipped to deal with it. If they start scaling back hardware costs, and trying to focus on what made the PS1 and PS2 such astronomically successful consoles, then the company as a whole could still soldier on. If they simply make a moderately succesful, rather expensive console, however, that'll just be one more problem to add to their list of financial woes, and right now, they can't take much more of that sort of thing.
I was reading up on the PS2's launch and it sounds like it's success was partly down to the xbox and gamecube sucking =D It was over expensive, buggy, kept breaking and was hard to develop for.
I actually think moderately successful is what they should be aiming for. I think if they tried to gain dominance they would fail, MS and Nintendo are too smart to make the slip ups of before (I mean even the 360's final success is probably a lot down to the PS3 getting a bad start, rather than inherent strengths, because it ended up balancing out). As long as you have enough of an install base that it is always worth developing cross platform games, then you can make money. Sony make something like 30% off every game sold for a PS3 right? If they were taking pounds 60 losses on each console they still make that back in 5 game purchases. And even the CoD casuals buy 3 CoDs and 2 Fifas over a console life span. Providing they don't lose, there's still enough money for them. They don't even have to watch out for rising dev costs in the same way because they have a steady source of income even if they don't produce games themselves or make profit on the hardware
