Looking Back, This Gen Was Disappointing On The Graphics Side Of Things...

Not when over 50 per cent of Gears of War 2 gamers played the game on an SDTV it isn't.

The premise of this thread is rubbish.

 

I don't know, I think we had some AAA titles this gen, and certainly we've seen leaps and bounds better than the last gen. The OP cited God of War 2 as a landmark in the graphics - especially considering the source of the game (PS2), but I'd look at Heavenly Sword - a first gen PS3 game and can tell you that it's a substantial improvement in graphics, framerate and animation. True to form, I wouldn't call Heavenly Sword "my cup of tea" in comparison to God of War - but I can appreciate the incremental progress made by the game, and thus the platform (and through they were incremental...they were still improvements). HS being a first gen PS3 game - I can see us having some latter generation games that would equally "wow" us.

If I were going to make demands for the next generation of consoles, I'd be looking for:

1. As shifty said, quality control standards that required a 60fps minimum
2. Mandatory V-sync in all games.
3. Advances in animation that tied skeletal system to actions (for instance, in a boxing game...I'd love to see some sort of impact to throwing punches with your feet in the wrong place - which is a fundamental of boxing...but nary a consideration in a game) - I'm not advocating a shift from realism to game-ism (to coin a phrase) - but some impact would be nice

4. 2xAA minimum for all game with a decent level of AF applied (don't know quite what that is..4x? But no more bi-linnear filtering).

5. Standard rendering output at 1080/720 available for all games...elliminate 480p alltogether, and no more weird output rendering resolutions

Jack

 

Well its a bit ironic that TEXAN seems more impressed with some of SEGA's recent arcade games than many of today's console games.

And no this generation is far from being over

 

Completely agree. But more for 2011 than 2012.

Unfortunately, the economy may delay development.

Remember that back in 2006 when the PS3 came out, there was skepticism that enough people would have HDTVs by the end of the decade, let along 1080p displays.

Well the takeup, at least in the US, has been pretty good. HD media is pretty well-established now.

Maybe we can have at least real HD rendering instead of using scalers.

 

This gen wasn't that bad, except for the exhorbitant push to make these consoles media systems and the catering to casual gamers. But that's how costs tend to make a head, and a new crowd had to be aimed for.

 

Economics are more powerful than your expectations. The manufacturers haven't got their investments back yet by far and there's absolutely no urge to come out with new hardware either. Expect the generation to last even longer then usual.

 

The 360 came out when times were still "good". There is no telling how the economic climate will look in 2011 but the thought of releasing another 400 dollar system anytime soon seems out of the question.

 

Uuuuhhh....... I don't suppose you've heard of Wii.

 

Prepare to be embarrassed then.

 

While this point is true, it is also true that Wii was (and still is) the only way to get your hands on motion controls. When that changes next year, consumers will have a choice. Two machines will look markedly better and will have the new "buzz" which is already starting to fizzle out of Wii.

Granted, price will play a role in how this plays out, but all things being equal, people will chose the product that displays a prettier picture.



I hope that by 2011 we have new machines available, but I fear we won't... due to this new found competition in motion controls.

 

I don't think it will have much to do with motion controls and more to do with the slowing down of process shrinkage and the economy being bad and may not recover till 2011 or later

 

Those also play a role, but people want something new and different after a while. Normally, gamers have a new box to look forward to after 6 years. Well, in this case, MS and Sony are probably hoping Wii users will look to their offerings as a "nextgen" box with improved controls and graphics ... along with more mature software.

For existing xb360 and ps3 gamers, we get mocon offerings to enhance the experience.

For the strictly graphic whore audience, well ... there's always PC!

 

That didn't stop MS from releasing 360.

 

Come on. You have to know that that was a completely different situation. The original XBOX was a money-pit for MS and they felt they needed to get the jump on Sony in order to compete this generation. At this point 360's only scratching the surface of it's revenue-generating potential and the PS3 is looking like it could turn a corner as well.

 

That only means there is more to decision making regarding launching next-generation console than having lost money early on.

 

They released 360 because as Laa Yosh said, they decided the fundamental hardware royalty model Xbox was based on doomed it to be a money pit forever (they should have known this BEFORE the gen, of course).

Currently I dont see ANY next gen hardware on the horizon for a long time. Sony is trying to amortize PS3 over who knows how long, and MS by all intents and purposes appears to be aiming at Natal as their "next gen console" for the forseeable future as well. Natal doesn't even debut until fall 2010.

Personally, I'm afraid. The longer we wait for next gen, the fewer process shrinks are left, the more shrinks we use up. We are already on 65/45. 32 and 22nm are about all the sure bets left then. Maybe there is another after 22, maybe.

So basically, I dont see a way to cut silicon costs in post-PS360 hardware, so I think they might have to pull way back on power. They may be designing Xbox3/PS4 on the last die shrink, no further shrinks will be possible for the life of those systems. Which is pretty drastic.

Whereas if you debuted a new system right now, youd probably do it on 65nm. You'd be able to cut it's costs in steps all the way down to 22. In 2013, you may start at 22, or 32 at least. There will be nowhere to go down.

 

Sony's position isn't going to improve, especially with the high yen.

So even with cost reductions, they could be subsidizing or barely breaking even.

Is GT5 or GOW3 going to be the big blockbusters that MGS4 and KZ2 failed to be?

They may realize resetting sooner than later is a better strategy, cut their losses, try to change perception of the PS3 relative to the competition.

 

Heh. I seem to remember back in the N64 days that they did this a lot with "high res" mode. High res mode of course ran at like 10-15 fps in various games and was often unplayable. What a tease. Some N64 games even have options to adjust texture filtering type to replace the ultra-blur with pixelation.

30 fps is good enough for me. I think the only people that really care about getting more are the competitive multiplayer folks.