Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

True, but if the PS3 did not have the playstation name it would have been far worse off than it is. A new company bringing the ps3 to market would have been dead on arrival.

 

Exactly.

The success Nintendo is having will be long forgotten if there is a more compelling option for gamers/consumers to chose.


I seriously don't see an avenue for them to travel. I certainly didn't feel better about their chances when they showed off the "vitality sensor".

They seem to be losing track of what made Wii successful in the first place.

IMO, Natal captures that "ease of use" and turns the dial up to ten.

I'm having flashbacks to 2005 when another Japanese giant was ruling the roost only to lose track of what brought their success in the 1st place.

 

I think that's a bit simplistic view of things, though. You're overlooking the kiddy aspect which I think is really, really important when it comes to consoles. Nintendo has always skewed kiddy, and it's served them really well. The Wii is just the console that has something for mom as well. Not to mention the fact that Nintendo is in a category of its own when it comes to first-party software - MS' main IP is exactly the one you've mentioned MS should distance itself from.

 

Nintendo doesn't really need to do much nextgen maybe a small bump in graphics and some new addition to the controller featureset. Most people who are buying Nintendo system don't really care about tech ie they are casual gamers. They may fall to 2nd or 3rd place but they'll still sell hardware with a profit.

 

Some valid points but Nintendo would care about falling from its leader spot as currently they are creaming it. It is like arguing what is better £100 million profit or £1 billion?

I have to agree though Nintendo's business model of not selling hardware at a loss has served them very well in the past and I doubt they will stray from this model. Even by selling their next console at a profit I believe Nintendo can push their console further on the hardware side - Moore's law has taken care of that. It would be a shame if they do not as at the moment they are missing the hardcore gamer from their demographic - and this group tends to buy a lot of games (see Xbox360). More money for Nintendo!

 

I think the Wii has shown that when you go with something so innovative, in that the control scheme was so unlike anything that came before it, that this can catch third parties on the hop.

There's no denying that Nintendo really sat down and thought about great uses for the Wiimote, indeed games new and old have had well thought out controls, but I'm struggling to think of more than a handful of third party offerings which really work for me and consequently the Wii has a, well deserved in opinion, high ratio of dross:quality games. I'm wondering whether Nintendo offer any kind of mentoring expertise to third party developers in the same way that Microsoft and Sony have trouble shooter expertise to deploy to third parties and if not, maybe they need to consider this because many Wii games seem to falter on poorly implemented or badly thought out controls - something that Nintendo games really excel at, control being a design discipline in itself.

 

That still doesn't mean they shouldn't upgrade the Wii to whatever their company beliefs on system footprint/cost allow. I suspect that the technical issues for a lot of people were secondary to the control issues they experienced with the old style controls.

 

I think it is safe to assume Sony and Microsoft are bringing their recently demonstrated motion controll schemes to the next-gen of consoles. Transistor budgets for CPU/GPU are going to get hit. Maybe Sony/MS are forced to go Wii like upgrade next-gen.

 

It's impossible to call either the next PlayStation or Xbox CPU or GPU, either in terms of transistor counts, fabrication processes or capabilities. I'm sure Sony were sincere with their ten year life cycle for PS3, they've done it before - twice - and I'm sure a lengthy cycle is equally appealing to Microsoft. Both companies have invested a lot of cold, hard cash in their current consoles and it's in both their interests for the consoles to be around as long as possible.

So if we are looking at a 2015/2016 for the nextgen consoles, then both Microsoft and Sony will be tracking emergent technologies for another three or four years before committing to hardware and in three or four years, fabrication processes and transistor counts will likely be markedly different, Moore's Law accepted.

If we go ultra conservatist and assume Microsoft and Sony want lower-priced consoles, I think we can expect Sony at least to pickup significant performance improvements from going to a unified shader model - assuming there's not some new architecture paradigm (Larrabe + ?) - pus both companies will likely have smaller, cooler, faster GPUs with more shaders (and we're still using rasterized-graphics) and more importantly, more RAM. Perhaps we won't see the exponential leaps in performance we saw from PSone to PS2 and PS2 to PS3 but I can imagine we'll see console graphics improve to a degree, probably beyond what we can foresee changing in PC 'space' in the next year or two.

 

Wow, 2015-16 now. I don't know, I expect some overlap between current gen and then next gen taking a foothold.

I am sure sales will reach a plateau and then decline before 2012 with the Xbox360 and PS3 and would indicate a good time to introduce a new console.

 

Yeah 2015-2016 is too much. I'd say E3 announcements in 2011 and launch in 2012. This, unless Nintendo decides to announce on 2010, but they're still selling so much, and one year isn't enough time for Sony and MS's motion technologies to start competing seriously with Nintendo.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see parallel console launches for both Sony and MS where a mocon interface is standard on one and a traditional controller is standard on the other, leaving the hardware between the two largely unchanged.

ie:
natal 720 & xb720
Sony ps4 & Sony mocon

This follows the multi sku offerings that currently exist by both ms and sony, but puts a stronger brand on these different sku's.

price structure being:

core model (wired controller?)
core + mocon (natal, sd cables)
core + hardcore gamer (regular wireless controller, hd cables, HDD, wifi)

Still leaving the option for anyone to buy specific pieces they need, but saving the consumer a bit on packaged deals.

This would enable manufacturers and developers to get significant push for mocon interfaces into homes and a large enough base to dev on just as Wii has.

It would also enable them to not dilute the traditional markets they've been selling to and even stock in areas and stores that typically wouldn't stock an xb360 or ps3.

These mocon sku's would have their own games and advertising and essentially be treated as separate platforms even though they share the same core hardware. This is cheaper for devs, cheaper for manufacturers, and cheaper for consumers if they want to cross over from mocon to traditional or traditional to mocon.


They really are two separate ways to play games and game types will differ significantly. Once in a while a game may take advantage of both, but if they can't pack BOTH control interfaces in the box, the best avenue is to treat them as separate platforms.


With this approach, manufacturers will have to offer something significant enough for hardcore gamers to upgrade. They will also have to take into account Wii's smaller attach rate. The mocon packages cannot have significant losses per console expecting them to make up the difference in software.

A Wii type approach would work for the mocon platforms as the star of the show isn't the graphics, but don't expect hardcore gamers to jump onboard with a faster clocked xb360/ps3. These are the gamers that are buying software en masse so they should not be overlooked.


One thing to keep in mind also is the deteriorating rate at which these consoles will easily show improvement on their predecessor. When xb360 first came out, most looked at the wares and saw what looked to be xbox1 games. When xb720/ps4 come out, what could they possibly have to show an immediate impact that differentiates themselves from ps3/xb360?

1080p?
4xaa?
16xaf?

It will be very difficult to make an immediate case unless the hardware is SIGNIFICANTLY better than what we have today. The interesting thing is as we move forward in graphics tech, the existing standard becomes more and more acceptable as "good enough" to consumers.

We are very close to this point now IMO. I think this factor alone makes the longer cycle more bearable.

Another interesting thing about this longer cycle is it allows technology to step forward in other ways. As has been mentioned, die sizes get smaller, but also internet bandwidth and latency issues will get better also which may allow enough time for an onlive type system to take foot.



In summary, we've seen how difficult it's been for Nintendo (and 3rd parties) to produce traditional games on Wii. To assume these game types and the desire to play them will go away is foolish at this time. This market needs to be addressed. In addition, Nintendo has proven there is another market that can be tapped. In some cases these two factions can be brought together on a game or two, but they are mostly different tastes with different hardware requirements.



Two platforms is the best way to address these differing tastes. I hope MS and Sony realize this moving forward.

 

Question is does Joe Public know the difference between a game with AF and AA and one without? Does he care?

We are the "connoisseurs of 3D graphics" - not the norm. Don't mean to sound we are better than the rest but that we are a different breed to the majority of the mases.

What about?
1080p
2xaa
8xaf

I would not be too surprised if people could not tell the difference on this board without getting the magnifying glass out.

Howabout?
720p
4xaa
8xaf

I think I would possibly prefer the 720p resolution with increased Anti Aliasing.

 

Exactly.

That was my point (perhaps I could explain myself better). Hardware will have to take bigger and bigger leaps to visibly show improvement and it's becoming more and more difficult to attain these improvements.


FTR, I agree 720 is a nice medium and I'd take 720 4xAA over 1080 2xAA ... but of course I won't argue with 1080 4xAA

 

It would not surprise me if "standards" for the neXtbox and the PS4 are something like:

720p 4xAA 60fps

or

1080p 2xAA 30fps

And then if you go above and beyond, great!

AF implementation seems so hit and miss and I'm not sure why. As somebody else said, since the Radeon 9700/9800 series 4xAF has been virtually free. Why do so many devs not bother? IMHO, it is a BIG difference.

 

I would rather have 1080p with 2x aa any day. Higher resolution brings advantages that MSAA doesn't (transparency AA, shader AA, added detail etc..).

 

I expect XB3, PS4 to both be on sale by fall 2012 or fall 2013 at the latest, not 2015/2016, which is far too long.

 

720p with 4xAA, 16af, 60fps and a nice hardware scaler to 1080p would be the ticket. It'll make for pretty and SMOOTH gameplay and you could use the resources for all the bell and whistles for 720 vs straining to hit 1080p just for the sake of resolution.

 

^^
Agreed.

 

Literally, even my mother can see the artifacts caused by lack of AA. Long time ago, I showed her screens of a 360 NBA game and she was bothered by the aliasing artifacts even if she don't what aliasing means.