Yep.
Yes and no. In the past they did, and enjoyed it. There was a rewarding challenge in extracting performance from the old 8 and 16 bit systems. But as technology has progressed, complexity has increased exponentially, and the cost of developing just a working title, let alone extracting optimised performance, is massive and only growing. And bare in mind that's not just cost in $, but in effort. If you want to create a particular game, you'll have a lot more fun on a limitlessly powerful system where you can just iterate ideas than on a small, limited box where you have to carefully manage what you do and keep hitting walls in the way. We've heard it here plenty of times from people of devs that wrestling with code isn't popular any more. Devs want easy development. We even see that in the change of hardware to make everything easy. Custom, uber-powerful hardware is out in favour of hardware devs can use without giving themselves a breakdown!
I am on the easy to develop for boat, but even if this is true i find it hard to believe that there isn't a difference between having developed for the same console for X years. The evidence is the consoles we have now, and even if they are more exotic than the next generation i am pretty sure the same thing will come true for the next generation. There is no first year release that can compare to the 4th year, developers will gain knowledge for every release. In the case of V1,V2,V4 and V4 unless it's very basic speed bumps there will be considerable new things to learn on the way. I am not saying it will make the games look ugly, just saying that the potential of the hardware wont be used to the same extent as it does now, there will be a overhead.
The lack of far better games on PC than its capable of is due to market dynamics. They are somewhat tied to what the consoles are doing, and ancient consoles are setting a low bar.
Pure PC titles like MMO's just doesn't confirm that, games that are designed to only run on PC's does look great, but they still doesn't look they should with the monster that is driving them. However MMO's does tend to be developed with weaker configs in mind as well. As i said in a earlier post, targeting a lower spec hurts higher spec machine, imho. Which will be the case if V1 is supposed to run V2
V2 will, be the same as V1, playing the same games as PS4, only where v1 plays the games at a dodgy 25-30 fps, and PS4 plays them at a rock solid 30 fps with better AA, V2 will play them at 60 fps. As a consumer in 2015, you can choose to buy the cheapo V1, or the more expensive V2, but either way you can take your games with you to V3 and V4. If you buy PS4, you get a fixed box with fixed games that'll gradually look older and older, wait for PS5 when you want a better experience, and then at some point you have to say farewell to that software investment to buy PS5.
Yes PS4 games should be able to run on all versions since they are designed with that spec in mind, V2,V3 and V4 may be faster, but as we saw on the PC, the lowest common denominator hurts everything when the max size is a DVD and the maximum performance is limited by a RSX and a Spilt memory pool. In short, the gains will not be as big as they could except for the exclusive games. And even those will be limited on what V you target.
You make the basic game for V1 and add extras for V2, V3 and V4. Or you drop V1 because it's too old and target only V2, 3, 4. Or if you're really ambitious and think your game has a lot of appeal, you can target V3 and 4 only, losing 40 million potential customers but increasing interest of the remaining 40 million from 5% to 35% because your game is really making a difference by targeting the better hardware.
Translation, you limit your game design to V1, the other versions will be brushed up versions that look better, run at higher res with higher framerate. But the basic limitation of the game will be V1.
The limitation can be anything from map size in FPS games to read speed from the local disk, input devices, how much you can do with the kinnect and the current hardware. After 6 years you could in principle have a PS2(V1) design run on a PS3(V3) with souped up grapichs.
As i said i may be one of those that could by into a console like this, but i am really finding it hard to see the market for a publisher. There is no doubt in my mind that every game developed would have to target as many consoles as possible. Limiting your market to for example 25% (V3,V4 and no PS4) just doesn't make sense with the stories we have been told around here. The development costs is creating content and assets for the ever growing size of games and then limiting your market afterwards?
And then there is the consumers that doesn't hang out on the Beyond3D Console forums, if they enter a shop 2 years after they bought their console and see some games are only V3 they will be angered.
Imho, a more traditional console refresh every 5-6 years would do more to help the problem, with backwards compatible in mind so that buyers didn't felt left out. But the problem with earlier refreshes could be smaller user bases for the publishers, the same problem as a ever refreshing platform.
Fascinating, i would buy it but can't really convinced it's a good idea from a market perspective and i am doubtful about the gains in games quality. But even smaller gains could be enough for me, afterall i buy new hardware for my PC
