This may be a separate thread, but bear with me. This relates directly to potential hardware choices the Big 3 would make. I was mulling much of this thread over in my mind recently when something occured to me. With all the talk of problems arising with cost/process reductions potentially holding everyone back, not to mention the higher entry prices for the 360 and PS3, the success of the Wii (in a certain demographic anyway), MS's problems with getting a reliable product, etc, is the next gen going to see a very different shift? Not necessarily away from graphics, but to a different kind of game.
We've seen single player campaigns get shorter and shorter. We can argue over the reasons for this, art and overall development costs increasing vs. the PvP interest online, but it has appeared to take place. COD4 may be the best example. Whether you liked the Single Player Campaign or not, it was the shortest experience I have ever had (assuming I actually played it all the way through.)
The PSN "Home", the success of WoW, Xbox Live Arcade and then you have all the little "free/pay" MMO's online like Puzzle Pirates or Eve Online all say to me that is where the "traditional style" of play is going to go. Limited user created content (like character appearance, home/ship/car appearance, etc) and a single engine with expansion packs like so many now have (downloadable or through physical media distribution.)
There appears to be both a huge (relatively untapped on the console side) market and an infrastructure (in game for Live like your cars appearance in Forza, or the upcoming PSN Home) already heading towards MMO games of all kinds of types. Suppose this is where a lot of the money is seen to be in the next-generation. I say next-generation since there appears to be little to no MMO style play available on consoles currently. Just vs. multiplayer and some co-op. MMO's have both. What if that drives the hardware choices for the next generation of "traditional style" play? This wouldn't preclude the Guitar Heroes/Rock Band or Wii type controller games still coming around, but they are not graphic intensive.
Say you are MS. When you buy the Xbox 3 AND subscribe to a GOLD membership, you get to pick 1 of say a half-dozen different themed kind of MMO's to download and play while you maintain your subscription. Say they have a fantasy, a sci-fi, a current time line, hell you probably know more about what already exists than I do. Maybe it costs more, maybe they mini-transaction you, maybe both - who knows.
Assume all will have a hdd (with the possible exception of the Wii2.) I would consider that a fair assumption given the media distribution market both Sony and MS want. So a hdd is not a problem. What holds the system back from these kinds of games. I believe it is RAM. System and Video. I've not played WoW, but I have seen it. Not exactly visually impressive and often the footage I have seen involved massive framerate issues in large battles. IF you were going to head this route, thinking the subscription money (either Live or pay for individual games, or whatever route you choose to go for) is a gold mine, how would YOU design the system? What do you need to render in? What do you need for memory? Could not this kind of direction have an effect on the hardware choices the manufacturers make? They would be less concerned about pushing the CPU and GPU power right to the edge, something which has seemed to cause no end of headaches this gen (yes, I realize some of those problems were not really a choice of Sony or MS, but a shift in the way computing power has had to advance.)
Think about it. While I doubt this would see the end of the SP campaign, it already appears to be dying anyway. The PSN is free to use, MS requires a subscription fee. Instead of selling, or just selling the games, you run it as a subscription service. Continuous revenue throughout the time people play. Then you get the effect that people tend to get attached to their characters and objects and are loathe to give them up, even if they do not play as often as they used to. Instead of $60 once, and maybe a Live fee IF they are online vs. players, you get a revolving income and a potentially captive audience.
I don't know what an MMO costs to develop. It probably runs the board just like other games with something like Puzzle Pirates being relatively cheap and WoW being expensive. My question still stands though. This must look really attractive to the Big 3 and the developers. So what would this desire change in the next gen hardware race? Would sacrificing a bit of overall CPU/GPU prowess for more RAM and MMO's be worth it? Would it help with the process shrink wall that some here have said is coming? I know the process shrinks affect RAM as well, but it always seems like RAM prices fall fast. So, what do you need and is it worth it?
