Are next gen consoles feasible?

[Commenter]

If we start off with the assumption that a next generation will have to offer some significant graphical leap over the previous generation in addition to increased computing power for physics, AI, game logic etc.

If a high production value game today need to sell in excess of a few million copies before it can even break even, then on the next generation we can assume the break even point will be multiplied at least several times. Are there really enough core gamers that are willing to buy a new next gen console at around launch? One game that only sells moderately (i.e less than 4 million copies say) could be a financial disaster, and bankrupt a company, so it'll be either do or die.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Are budgets really gonna get that much higher, though? I mean, with the current generation of console hardware I get the feeling that developers spend an awful lot of money overcoming hurdles to get the games running at playable framerates. A more powerful hardware would solve that issue, at least initially. There are also many improvements which could be made without inflating budgets further: better draw distances, better image quality, higher framerates and higher resolution shadow maps.

 

[ERP]

If production costs do continue to skyrocket, you'll see a lot more companies go under.
At the end of the day production costs have to be based on sales predictions, so unless the market suddenly grows, or publishers find better ways to monetize products I don't think we'll see a leap in costs.

I think it is likely that all 3 manufacturers will look for hooks that are not directly related to CPU or GPU power.

 

[Commenter]

Are budgets really gonna get that much higher, though? I mean, with the current generation of console hardware I get the feeling that developers spend an awful lot of money overcoming hurdles to get the games running at playable framerates. A more powerful hardware would solve that issue, at least initially. There are also many improvements which could be made without inflating budgets further: better draw distances, better image quality, higher framerates and higher resolution shadow maps.

Yes, but isn't it the case that any increase in computational power is always soaked up pretty quickly? Developers could use the extra power to run games at a steady 60 fps, no tearing etc, but the temptation to increase the eye candy will be too great I think.

 

[dragonelite]

Are budgets really gonna get that much higher, though? I mean, with the current generation of console hardware I get the feeling that developers spend an awful lot of money overcoming hurdles to get the games running at playable framerates. A more powerful hardware would solve that issue, at least initially. There are also many improvements which could be made without inflating budgets further: better draw distances, better image quality, higher framerates and higher resolution shadow maps.

And the artist if im not mistaken have to build some high res source art first then iterate over the in game model cutting polygons where ever they can.

With more juice won't the devs get a bit more breathing space instead of iterating over models countless of times.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You can build better games on better hardware without spending a lot more on assets, they might not put out call of duty or halo numbers (but a limited number of games do that anyway), that doesn't mean they can't be profitable.

 

[Arwin]

I would try to focus heavily on building my platform around content creation, and try to innovate there on the software and hardware side together.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You can build better games on better hardware without spending a lot more on assets, they might not put out call of duty or halo numbers (but a limited number of games do that anyway), that doesn't mean they can't be profitable.

That's true in theory, but in practice it doesn't quite work out like that. This gen we've had Wii promoted as a cheap platform, not requiring the costs of the HD games. Yet there's nothing stopping developers on PS360 developing to the same budget as the Wii games. I dare say on 360 a Wii game could be made for less than that same game on Wii (content wise; of course it'd be a different experience). However, presumably due to competition on eye-candy from other games, these self-imposed limits aren't adopted. the growth of download games makes lower-cost content games more viable, but maybe not more profitable given lower selling prices. The same degree of content as a $40 Wii game needs to be sold as a $15 download game.

 

[sebbbi]

the growth of download games makes lower-cost content games more viable, but maybe not more profitable given lower selling prices. The same degree of content as a $40 Wii game needs to be sold as a $15 download game.

Downloadable games in past didn't require that fancy graphics or technology behind them (the time of Geometry Wars). But look at the recent Summer of Arcade titles. In 2009 Shadow Complex already used exactly the same Unreal Engine technology as the biggest AAA retail games, and currently all downloadable games on Xbox 360 pretty much require very high end visuals to succeed. You basically cannot succeed if your XBLA game looks like a Wii game. The competition is just that fierce as majority of the big publishers have now entered the downloadable game market.

A 15$ digital game can bring the developer pretty much the same money as the 40$ retail game. For digital games you do not need to create the game discs and manuals, you do not need to transport them over the world, you do not need to give some of the money to the supply chain (importers, retail stores, etc), and you do not need a huge publisher to distribute the game around the world (and get a share of your profit). And the lower price point, and the much longer availability (online stores never run out of your game like retailers) mean that you can sell more copies even if you would get slightly less per copy.

Personally I believe that retail gaming is slowly dying, but I don't believe that you can anymore succeed with a digital downloadable game that doesn't look visually top notch. Just my personal opinion of course.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

True, but download's cover a wide range of styles. PixelJunk Monsters is a fine looking game, but dead simple. It would never work as a $40+ dollar disk title, but it was great as a download. Similarly Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, with very cheap assets versus a AAA disk title. Developers still have style options for download titles which wouldn't work for disk games with such a high entry level price. They also don't need as much content.

Now if developers start increasing production values to get more sales, then there will be a cost inflation, and the cost of developing games will go up. I don't think we're there yet, and we certainly ahven't been there so far this generation. The cost to develop on the HD consoles wasn't intrinsically more than to develop on Wii; it's just that developers chose to set a higher budget instead of design cleverly around a lower one.

 

[Jabjabs]

One would be inclined to think that at the very least the end software will be brought into line with what PC games are producing. Even if at the very least we just get PC level games with better shaders, that's a definite improvement with little additional cost.

 

[liolio]

May be Sweeney is somehow right in his "end of the GPU roadmap", i stated that developing mulithreaded app on SMP CPU cost twice as much, on Cell x5 as much and on GPGPU x10 as much.
May be it changed a bit since then as tools improved as well as hardware but the idea may be valid. Wether it's with hardware looking like larrabee or not is a bit irrelevant, I guess he wants manufacturers to quit brute force to shift to more flexible easy to use hardware that can run decently higher level code. May be we're not there rumors stated that next xbox will use a SoC, so it's pretty clear even using 32nm lithography taht it will fall short on raw power to your high-end mid-high-end pc conf (and that could on be mid end by the time system launch).
I don't believe cost will explode, basically the systems will run the same asset as nowadays PC, so mostly existing assets. That's for content creation, the costlier part of game development. On the hardware the jump won't be too crazy either, engine like Frostbyte engine 2 looks pretty ready to quick start next generation systems.
Still there are pretty disputable technical choices like tesselation, J Carmack pov is interesting as well Laa-Yosh's pov, tesselation is not a shoot and forget feature, it requires extra time for the artist to make proper use of it even if tools are getting better. I'm not sure this kind of solution is a good idea. Nowadays GPU can push more polygons no matter what let do that even if it doesn't come free (I guess it will cost extra memory and processing power) I'm not sure dev team can go bigger or even the biggest editors will be in a constant "one failed game away from bankruptcy".

 

[Commenter]

Really, I should reformulate this question. Do you think Sony, MS and Nintendo and possibly even Apple (they have the finances to do it) will release new consoles in the traditional mould of the past 30 years or so (since the NES)?

 

[mrcorbo]

Really, I should reformulate this question. Do you think Sony, MS and Nintendo and possibly even Apple (they have the finances to do it) will release new consoles in the traditional mould of the past 30 years or so (since the NES)?

Nintendo already announced theirs. The XBOX business has been one of the few successes MS has had outside of its traditional strongholds of Windows and Office and is still growing. Sony have committed to Vita despite the challenges facing traditional handheld gaming and have made massive investments in development studios, including the recent purchase of Sucker Punch.

Seems obvious to me that yes, all of the above are in for another round of consoles.

 

[rekator]

Really, I should reformulate this question. Do you think Sony, MS and Nintendo and possibly even Apple (they have the finances to do it) will release new consoles in the traditional mould of the past 30 years or so (since the NES)?

Apple got the finances… But may be is not the most good use of their finances.
Apple already enter in the run, by a different way but they're in.And its probably the way that news players use also. The next it's Google, and may be Samsung. Before Google buy Motorola i'm bet on a GoogleSung device, now is different.

Console and approach are now really different than NES area, consoles now are here to provide content, games, music, video, TV, and others and target a largest customers base.
You have also small local actor who can enter like Internet providers, they're already in the customers house, delivering video, TV and music. They can also provide game via Onlive, Gaikal or other like.

 

[Arwin]

Really, I should reformulate this question. Do you think Sony, MS and Nintendo and possibly even Apple (they have the finances to do it) will release new consoles in the traditional mould of the past 30 years or so (since the NES)?

Almost no console is in the traditional mould. They are changing all the time - look at how heavy for instance the media consumption aspect of them has become, or the online services component, or stuff like motion controls.

I think the answer will be yes, as the key to this business is the combination of software, hardware and services. And it is questionable you'll ever be good at just one of the three these days now if you're not also heavily involved in the other two. Sure, co-operations could start between companies to cover certain aspects together, but those things always happen on all sorts of levels.

The days of a blind drive towards more performance are likely over though - it is clear that just that isn't enough to woo the mass consumer (not that any Nintendo console ever suggested otherwise).

 

[Rangers]

If we start off with the assumption that a next generation will have to offer some significant graphical leap over the previous generation in addition to increased computing power for physics, AI, game logic etc.

If a high production value game today need to sell in excess of a few million copies before it can even break even, then on the next generation we can assume the break even point will be multiplied at least several times. Are there really enough core gamers that are willing to buy a new next gen console at around launch? One game that only sells moderately (i.e less than 4 million copies say) could be a financial disaster, and bankrupt a company, so it'll be either do or die.

I dont know why many people always worry about rising dev costs.

In a (pseudo, since we're pretty socialist) free market, it's always a self correcting problem.

If games dont make money, people will stop making games, full stop.

I dont see that really having been a problem this generation. At all, once again.

There will be plenty of money to be made and plenty of games will be created. And there will be more kvetching about unsustainable rising dev costs, again...the cycle begins again.

 

[Rangers]

Really, I should reformulate this question. Do you think Sony, MS and Nintendo and possibly even Apple (they have the finances to do it) will release new consoles in the traditional mould of the past 30 years or so (since the NES)?

Yes. There's no question.

Nintendo has already announced their's anyway.

 

[-tkf-]

The hardware should be cheaper this round, especially for Sony , unless they develop a brand new chip again. Plus the Blu-Ray gamble isn´t needed again.

My hope is that Sony does a Cell 2 with whatever needed GPU, this time planned instead a stop gap solution.

That Microsoft goes back to the x86 and creates a more PC/XBOX friendly platform and helps to build a stronger PC gaming platform.

That Nintendo wins this round again

And that Apple just goes away forever and takes all it´s brushed arrogant aluminum with it, and it´s users

 

[bkilian]

Are budgets really gonna get that much higher, though? I mean, with the current generation of console hardware I get the feeling that developers spend an awful lot of money overcoming hurdles to get the games running at playable framerates. A more powerful hardware would solve that issue, at least initially. There are also many improvements which could be made without inflating budgets further: better draw distances, better image quality, higher framerates and higher resolution shadow maps.

I'd say that the engine development costs are not a huge component of the total game cost. Most companies just licence an already existing engine, and even if they don't Engine costs tend to get amortized over multiple games. The real cost is in level, sound and graphic asset creation. Time is money, and if you have to sit there and hand paint every tree in the game, or make your megatexture completely unique at every point, it takes a _lot_ of time. Motion capture takes time, voice recording takes time. Those probably won't change much into next gen, but graphic assets just might.

Maybe they'll make shorter games, or use smaller levels. I saw an article recently that said only a tiny percentage of gamers finish any particular game.