Next-gen tech question.

[Soopy]

Hi guys.

I am curious. As we know, the previous generation of consoles somewhat held back the advance of gaming technology due to their old design and components.

My question is, how long do you think it will be before this generation of consoles are surpased to the point that the become a burden?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That's actually an interesting question. It kind of depends on Xbone and their "power of the cloud". We don't know much about it. But let's ignore the cloud processing for now. If we're focusing solely on the hardware as it is, then the Xbone will severely limit this generation. Out of 8Gb of DDR3 only 5 are used for gaming. The GPU is also significantly sower than the one in PS4. For multiplatform titles that means that PS4 may not be used to it's full potential, or it means that developers will use Xbone's cloud processing to make the games same on both consoles, or it could mean that the PS4 will be the weaker console if the Xbone cloud ends up being bees knees (which I seriously fuckin' doubt). However, this generation lasted for 8 years and we still have some great games coming out despite the ageing hardware. So I can't really make a prediction at this point.

 

[Soopy]

Something that the last generation of consoles stimulated late in the piece, was developer initiative. Whether I am a fan of the big names or not is irrelevant, but what they managed to do with graphics on such old hardware deserves commendation.

Will this generation be more... fluid, than the last seeing as both manufactures are using similar architecture?

By which I am referring to the gaming issues caused by the PS3's unique CPU setup.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Probably. Every serious developer knows how to work with x86 architecture. Their biggest limitation is their own imagination and willingness to take some risks. It's gonna be an exciting generation. No doubt about that.