Pachter: No New Consoles Before 2013

[Jumplion]

Nobody cares about the improvement anymore. Nobody gives a fuck whether a console is topped out or has potential left (never mind that a console is NEVER topped out, there's always some new method that gets found to squeeze a bit more out of it). It doesn't matter if they improve the graphics throughout the generation because they've got good enough already, people stopped caring about further increases while increases cost a ton of money.

So, you don't care if story telling can be improved? What about content? What about visual aesthetics? Amount of content? Characterization? Animations?

There are plenty of other things to improve besides graphics, that's something many people seem to forget when talking about internal improvements in the media. And even if we were only talking about graphics, what's so bad about that? If we can improve graphics/visuals, why the hell should we be against that? We should be encouraging people to make improvements on anything, even if it is as "useless" as graphics/visuals. Why are we all so against the improvement of graphics/visuals, it's not like every single developer concentrates only on graphics to sell the game. Sure, there may be a few Crysis-s and Killzones out there, but those show how amazing you can push the hardware to further improve on other games.

I'll never understand why some people are so vehemently against improvement on anything really, even if it is slightly prettier visuals.

Anyway, for the topic, 2013 is four years from now. By then, the PS3 and Wii will be about 5, 6 years old (both released near the end of 2006). That doesn't seem too old to me, I'm sure they could stay until 2016. And don't any of your dare talk about PC gaming being highly advanced by then, we're not talking about PC gaming here. We're talking about consoles, those are a whole different bag of fruit here.

 

[KDR_11k]

Plus with costs having increased meaning less profit isn't a true reflection as the market is much larger, and game sales are much larger this generation than previous generations.

Are they? Company fiscal statements speak a different language with revenue remaining constant. There's no significant growth in the core market and especially not in levels comparable to the cost increase. The beacon of misinformation that is VGChartz claims Halo 2 did 8.5 million while Halo 3 did 9.5, that's insignificant. I don't have total numbers for the game industry (and especially not for the part that is the core market since it's hard to argue that your HD blockbuster will sell more if the growth is mostly in other market areas that don't care about it at all) at hand so if you have any feel free to post them.

Plus large worlds do need a large memory as they need more textures, but to clarify I'm talking varied open worlds, not repetitive concrete levels, for size.

And it still depends only on what's in view simultaneously. You aren't going to need your desert textures while the player is in a forest.

Also price isn't reflected in game costs. I've never found large titles e.g. Killzone 2, to be more expensive then other titles e.g. Motorstorm 2.

I don't mean to you although games did get more expensive on the HD consoles for the consumer too. The development costs increased by the factor 2.5 on average. That's 2.5 times the sales needed for the same return on investment. Our Halo example there would see an ROI reduction of 46% (I'll assume a 20% higher price for Halo 3 than 2 there). About half as profitable!

Nobody cares about the improvement anymore. Nobody gives a fuck whether a console is topped out or has potential left (never mind that a console is NEVER topped out, there's always some new method that gets found to squeeze a bit more out of it). It doesn't matter if they improve the graphics throughout the generation because they've got good enough already, people stopped caring about further increases while increases cost a ton of money.

So, you don't care if story telling can be improved? What about content? What about visual aesthetics? Amount of content? Characterization? Animations?

At what point did I say it's about me? Never mind that I think most stories could be improved by liberal application of a paper shredder none of the things you mention need HD graphics. I'm not saying games cannot be improved, I'm saying graphics improvements don't matter to the people at large. Improving stories, content amounts, etc can be done without caring much about the hardware at all. It doesn't matter whether the system has untapped hardware potential or an HD upgrade or whatnot, it has no influence on improving the non-graphics parts of the game appreciably.

 

[D_987]

Patcher doesn't know anything anyway - he's been wrong about a decent number of events...

 

[Svenparty]

Meh if Microsoft don't bring out a RROD free 360 then I think this gen I'll be screwed when mine breaks.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

I would expect to see a new Microsoft console in 2 years... xbox was released in 2001(NA) xbox360 released in 2005(NA), only 4 years in between. Things are slower now, for a few reasons, but Microsoft will want to get their next console released before the next Sony console, so they can increase their market share.

 

[Doug]

I think that maybe after deveolopers get over the "OH WOW GRAPHICS!" moment, we might get some good games that will increase sales that keeps everyone happy.

Keep waiting - been waiting for that day for 10+ years and counting. There are, of course, the odd exceptions, but really, once publishers saw 'Better Graphics == $$$+£££+$$$+£££+$$$" they basically said 'Fuck anything else!' - the failure in terms of sales of really good games like Pyschonants probably proved that too.

 

[Jumplion]

At what point did I say it's about me? Never mind that I think most stories could be improved by liberal application of a paper shredder none of the things you mention need HD graphics. I'm not saying games cannot be improved, I'm saying graphics improvements don't matter to the people at large. Improving stories, content amounts, etc can be done without caring much about the hardware at all. It doesn't matter whether the system has untapped hardware potential or an HD upgrade or whatnot, it has no influence on improving the non-graphics parts of the game appreciably.

Sorry, it came off to me as if you were including yourself in the "Nobody cares about improvements". Point still stands though, we should all be encouraging improvement no matter how small or arbitrary it is.

 

[KDR_11k]

Sorry, it came off to me as if you were including yourself in the "Nobody cares about improvements". Point still stands though, we should all be encouraging improvement no matter how small or arbitrary it is.

Yeah, graphics improvements just take disproportionate amounts of effort since graphics are already highly developed. It takes much less effort to improve the underdeveloped parts of a game, e.g. games with "good stories" still tend to be far behind other media but in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. With some effort (say, a quarter of the additional 15 million you'd spend on improving graphics assuming the average 10 million USD budget for the main game) put into developing storytelling for the game medium (and I don't mean just taking a book story and ducktaping some game elements to it, developing a way of storytelling that naturally meshes with the gameplay) you could have a title that's so head and shoulders above the rest that it's a massive selling point if advertised correctly. Yet all the easily improvable areas get ignored and instead they try to keep pulling that one trick their pony does in more and more elaborate ways, having to push harder and harder to make people actually notice the difference.

 

[KamachoMcSagget]

good, because i dont want to have to spend money on them to keep up. also, what about that one comming in winter? i forgot what it's called, but it's the one that lets you stream games off of a server, and you have to pay a subscription to use it.

 

[Geoffrey42]

The 360 is having DVD issues

Have you got a source for that? I've seen you say it loads, just wondering where you got it from.

Yeah, ID games have had to scale Rage back significantly due to the 360 & thats also putting it on 2 DVDs. Then they also commented on saying the problem with that is production costs increase significantly the more discs you use, leading the 360 to become a rather unattractive console to develop for.
With games always getting larger, by 2010, I can't see there being many more games for the 360. It may be ignorance, but I'm not actually aware of many large upcoming exclusives for the 360 this year.

So...
I'm fairly certain that id has been very specific that [a href=http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54780]Rage was not cut[/a] for the 360, although they are pretty clear about the need for more aggressive compression given targeting a 2 DVD release. If you want to chalk that up to damage control by Microsoft, or id trying to avoid a lawsuit for slander, so be it, but at least qualify your facts.

At the same time, it was not production costs that kept them from going to 3-discs, but Microsoft per-disc royalties (which sounds an awful lot like Microsoft is trying to discourage companies from being idiots about space allocation and reasonable compression, but which seems to be biting them on this one).

On the subject of where I'd rather developers invest their time and energy:
1. Better games (better gameplay, new genres, new genre-hybrids)
2. Larger, more dynamic worlds - I don't care how big it is, if its still 100% static, it is dull and lifeless.
3. Better graphics.

And, as far as hardware companies go, unless Intel, AMD, and nVidia start dedicating more of their process improvements to heat reduction, the next iteration of consoles, whenever it is, is going to cause 3rd degree burns at 10 feet.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Why the dogshit are people talking about new consoles? They're just starting to make really good games for the current ones.

 

[Booze Zombie]

2013 isn't quite as catchy as 2012... I think they'll probably go with the second one.
This guy already proven himself a twit by previously stating that there will be no more consoles, I really don't think this guy is a good source of info.