Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

[eastmen]

Don't know about 4K games but probably at least 4K movie playback, at least from streaming services and maybe from 4K Blu Ray discs.

If the companies are smart, they won't try to go all digital. People still like trading discs.

Maybe in the next year or two, HDR video content will catch on so the movie playback may have to include that.

As for VR, any company that tries to include it will get burned like MS did with Kinect 2. Put the BOM into the best performance you can get for a $399 intro price. Any fancy and costly controller just raises the cost. Make the VR available as an optional peripheral.

A 2017 or 18 console would need to support 8k video formats I'd wager. I believe LG is readying the first consumer 8k set for Ces 2016 .

As for VR , I don't think the headset will be included with the next gen consoles but I think its going to become a standard of gaming for next gen

 

[Prophecy2k]

I don't think VR will become a "standard" of gaming for next-gen. Since it's not a technology that really has much benefit for anything other than first person games. It will however be popular, and so i agree that bundling the headset with the console won't happen.

On the other hand I do hope that Sony at least consider bundling the Camera and Move/Nav controller with the PS5. As these will reduce the price of entry for a full VR setup, as well as allowing devs to target full 3D controls and pointer controls even into all non-VR games.

The death of pointer controls for shooters is my biggest dissappointment going from last gen to this one. KZ3 was made fun for me primarily because of the Move controls.

 

[Scott_Arm]

VR isn't just for first person games. One of the best VR demos I tried was for a Starfox type game. I'd love to try something with an isometric view, looking down at the world. I do agree that it won't become the standard way to play games.

 

[Prophecy2k]

How does it work when looking into a 3D world as a floating head in third person?

Do you only have control of camera rotation?

Did that not make you feel sick after a while?

 

[AlNom]

I don't think VR will become a "standard" of gaming for next-gen. Since it's not a technology that really has much benefit for anything other than first person games. It will however be popular, and so i agree that bundling the headset with the console won't happen.

Just wait for COD Personal Ops.

 

[Scott_Arm]

How does it work when looking into a 3D world as a floating head in third person?

Do you only have control of camera rotation?

Did that not make you feel sick after a while?

No, it was pretty awesome. The character moved in the direction you looked. You could look straight up, straight down, and straight to the sides, so the playing area was huge. You'd have these giant objects that you'd have to dodge by looking way off to the sides.

This is the demo. It's not a finished product at all, but as a demo, the control was great, and I thought it was very well-suited to VR.

 

[London Geezer]

Isn't that Jehuty from the ZOE games?

 

[Persistantthug]

I know I'll sound like one of those 16Kb is enough kind of guys from the 80's. But seeing this number thrown around a lot, what exactly do we need 128GB of RAM for, especially in a console, even three or four years from today?

Surely our past issues with limited amounts of RAM were driven by the actual size of the applications being run on a platform. On PS1/PS2/PS3 the size of the games discs was at least an order of magnitude larger than the available RAM. Nowadays I can download a game that fits entirely in a PS4 RAM, and the largest ones are, at most, 5-8 times larger than the available RAM.

More RAM is always better, but only until we get to a point where the program running on it can fit comfortably. 128GB is at least three times the total size of some of the largest game out today, so unless our new consoles (and even new PCs) will be asked to run multiple games and applications at once, I don't see how loading them with unnecessary RAM would be an efficient way to budget for a new platform.

I don't see game size increasing much over the capacity of a Bluray disc, and seeing how we're all going digital more and more, size will be even more important. Not many people will want to download a 100/200GB game any time soon.

Just out of curiosity,


Why do you feel the 8th generation will last only 5-6 years when the 7th gen lasted 7-8 years?

 

[London Geezer]

Just out of curiosity,


Why do you feel the 8th generation will last only 5-6 years when the 7th gen lasted 7-8 years?

No reason. I can't count. Actually, this is the second year already so 4 years would make it 6. Not unreasonable.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Why do you feel the 8th generation will last only 5-6 years when the 7th gen lasted 7-8 years?

Launching new consoles earlier (2011-12), in line with the previous console cycles, would have been incredibly risky. I'm sure both Microsoft and Sony were aware that was an ongoing global recession and consumer spending was at all an time low.

 

[Persistantthug]

No reason. I can't count. Actually, this is the second year already so 4 years would make it 6. Not unreasonable.

No, 6 years is certainly not unreasonable, but I do believe we will be looking at another 7-8 years for Microsoft and/or Sony.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What's also interesting with retrospection are that some were suggesting they hold out this gen for the latest, greatest techs like stacked RAM. Aren't these a year late already, and no release date in sight? Can you imagine what this gen would be like if one of the players hadn't released a console yet and wasn't going to until end of this year at the earliest? Imagine XB1 or PS4 having the whole next-gen market to itself for two years and the other one dragging truly 10 years old hardware along. And then what would software be like with one console being substantially faster yet more expensive and massively behind in numbers? Let's say Sony released PS4, MS waited. We'd be looking at 30 million PS4's in the wild when the new XB launches in late 2015 with way better specs. That'd be a pretty bonkers market. I suppose middleware engine scaling could make it a non-issue.

 

[London Geezer]

That's the PS2/Xbox generation, more or less

 

[Karamazov]

with their actual architecture, why wouldn't they do, say, hadware revision every 2-3 years like phones, with compatibility between gens, but games on the newest console would have more effetcs/resolution/framerate. I would buy a new console every 3 years.

 

[Persistantthug]

Launching new consoles earlier (2011-12), in line with the previous console cycles, would have been incredibly risky. I'm sure both Microsoft and Sony were aware that was an ongoing global recession and consumer spending was at all an time low.

The worst of the recession had dissipated by then, I believe. Sure, there was still some fallout, but if I recall correctly, the worst was over.

Also in that timeframe, didn't the 3DS, VITA and Wii U get launched. Not all entirely great examples........but still.

 

[BRiT]

What's also interesting with retrospection are that some were suggesting they hold out this gen for the latest, greatest techs like stacked RAM. Aren't these a year late already, and no release date in sight? Can you imagine what this gen would be like if one of the players hadn't released a console yet and wasn't going to until end of this year at the earliest? Imagine XB1 or PS4 having the whole next-gen market to itself for two years and the other one dragging truly 10 years old hardware along. And then what would software be like with one console being substantially faster yet more expensive and massively behind in numbers? Let's say Sony released PS4, MS waited. We'd be looking at 30 million PS4's in the wild when the new XB launches in late 2015 with way better specs. That'd be a pretty bonkers market. I suppose middleware engine scaling could make it a non-issue.

Just imagine one of Sony or Microsoft, whoever didn't release hardware, playing the part of Nintendo!

 

[Persistantthug]

with their actual architecture, why wouldn't they do, say, hadware revision every 2-3 years like phones, with compatibility between gens, but games on the newest console would have more effetcs/resolution/framerate. I would buy a new console every 3 years.

I think that would be too disruptive for the standard console business model.

I think it would also be potentially more cumbersome from a developmental standpoint. I mean, one of a console's strength is that it's static........something you know and can count on. You take that away and you risk going the route of a PC where there's a clusterf&*% of different products to worry about.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The worst of the recession had dissipated by then, I believe. Sure, there was still some fallout, but if I recall correctly, the worst was over.

Perhaps a few insignificant markets but not the EU, Asia or the USA. Average consumer spend has only returned to pre-recession levels in the last 12-18 months.

 

[Persistantthug]

What's also interesting with retrospection are that some were suggesting they hold out this gen for the latest, greatest techs like stacked RAM. Aren't these a year late already, and no release date in sight? Can you imagine what this gen would be like if one of the players hadn't released a console yet and wasn't going to until end of this year at the earliest? Imagine XB1 or PS4 having the whole next-gen market to itself for two years and the other one dragging truly 10 years old hardware along. And then what would software be like with one console being substantially faster yet more expensive and massively behind in numbers? Let's say Sony released PS4, MS waited. We'd be looking at 30 million PS4's in the wild when the new XB launches in late 2015 with way better specs. That'd be a pretty bonkers market. I suppose middleware engine scaling could make it a non-issue.

I was one that wanted a holiday 2014 -2015 MS and Sony launch. I just felt that for the consoles to truly be able to maintain a 1080p/60 fps threshold, a longer wait was in order. I was right, but it can't be underscored more that it was even more important, especially in Sony's case, that they launch at the same time in the 8th generation vs a year behind as they did with the PS3.

Tech is nice and all, but marketing is what keeps it all alive........That's what I learned, anyways.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the PS2/Xbox generation, more or less

Cross platform was much harder back then though, so PS2's lead and brand strength counted a lot more to its accelerated growth. I don't suppose this is really the thread for the theoretical fallout. Take home point is more about the risks of waiting for better tech. It's unreliable, a significant gamble. If you're lucky, it can give you a great advantage, but you also risk wasting your turn in the market for a generation.

Hence my mind-bogglingly outrageous prediction - next gen consoles will be technically conservative.