Predict the next-generation!

so Chess will miss the ps3 launch

 

September 2005

before PS3 launches, SCEI announces that they are working on Playstation4 and it will have 10,000 times the power of PS3.

 

Lord... let the PS4 hype begin....

 

Hey, Sony already started PS9 hype some time ago, so why not.

Fredi

 

I predict....

Xenon releases as expected, Q4 2005 in the US, Q1 2006 in japan and Europe (february for japan, March for EU). Japan sales will be "low", because PS3 is released in March 2006. Xenon will though have time to amass some sales, MS will bite the bullit again and take the loss for every sold HW, but this time it will not be as bad as with the Xbox.

MS will finally buy Rockstar and they will make "GTA:Tokyo" and this game will actually become the best selling western game in Japan.
MS Christmas lineup will have Halo3 and GTA:Tokyo and this will kill all the competition at that time...

Nintendos revolution will sell, but mostly to the already hardcore gamers and nintendo fanboys. NIntendos marketshare has been in decline for the last 10 years and not much can be done to turn this around (unless their revolution is something that REALLY everyone wants to have).
Other problems are that IF Revolution is as innovative as Nintendo proclaims (like they always do with their games, saying that they are revolutionary but when the games comes out.. it turns out to be a water cannon only... , then this could put Nintendo in a rather interesting situation. Third party support is weakest on Gamecube and games that sell the most on a Nintendo plattform are Nintendos own games. Why would thirdparty want to invest time and money on the "innovative" features that exist on Revolution, if the game has a BIG chance of not selling in good numbers? If the features of Revolution, cannot be duplicated on Xbox2/PS3, then I think that many thirdpartys will make games that will be able to be played on all consoles, thus sacrificing the "innovative" features of Rev and thus.. making the Rev "not so very special because the innovative feature are not used". I think NIntendo will struggle...

PS3 will continue to be the best selling console, but this time it will probably sell aprox 2x times as much as Xbox2.....

Salefigures for next gen consoles in 2010-2011 will probably be around..
PS3 - 60-70 million
Xbox2 - 35-45 million
Revolution - ~20-25 million

The question is not who will win next gen, Sony is already positioned to win thanks to userbase, PLaystation-brand and devs-support from every area.

The question is more how much MS will gain on Sony. This time, the difference will not be as huge as it is now. THis will probably make eastern devs see Xbox2 as alternative platform and will probably port more games to Xbox2 or have simultaneous releases on Xbox2/PS3, all to cover devs-cost of making games (which will be higher)

MS will benefit greatly by having the best support to devs, with all their XNA-initiative and "upcoming" stuff that makes developing games faster and more cost-efficient without sacrificing content.

Spec-wise and what you see onscreen will not be a huge difference between consoles. Graphics differences will probably be "less" than this gen. I cannot IMAGINE MS not knowing what they are doing.. of course they will be able to match with XBox2 what PS3 is showing on screen. I mean, MS has some of the biggest names in graphical research and some of the most exciting stuff are being developed in their labs around the world.

The difference will be in software, how much it costs and how fast you can make games without sacrificing content. If MS can offer a solution that is faster, cheaper but still very efficient, then they will truly have the support from developers and more games will come out (or debute) on Xbox2.

Next gen winners:
1. Sony - Thanks to great userbase, brand-name and support BUT this time the sales will decline a bit from PS2-figures
2. Microsoft - Stronger brand-name than before, better Online-service, more aggressive price-tagging, buying of some developers (securing key-franchaises).
3. Nintendo - Might be an innovative hardware, but will not have the power to attract the mainstream-market. Nintendo still fights with its "kiddie-label". Third-party support is already "weak", will be a problem with Revolution as well.

this is what I think though...

 

nice post 8)

 

Your post has nothing to do with the reality of the console market.

 

My prediction is that the PS3 is so technically advanced compared to the other two, that they will get an even bigger maketshare then this gen.

Fredi

 

What launch titles do you expect for the next gen consoles? Well, except for Mario-related title for Revolution (though no Mario-related launch title may be itself revolution for Nintendo)

 

ehhh??
What is the reality of the console market, according to you?

 

and

If they all played PS3 games, that would be sweet! 8) ...If Sony made a 'home server' version of PS3, then the above models from Apple/ Amiga would be a nice choice to have in that entry level 'home computer' market...and then the 'uber' workstation class Cell PC's for the high end visualization market...well we can only wish...

 

...Software Labs. And the results of theirs researchs are publicly available too.

For instance, you can read the papers, MS's Hugues Hoppes, wrote along the years.

Also a lot of thoses researchs are what they are, researchs, which means that some of them (I'm tempted to say, almost all of them) are totally useless in real world game situations, because there's not enough raw power to use it, or because there's "cheaper" techniques that achieve the same effects, or because the technique eats too much RAM (tons of 3D techs are not used because of that reason only), etc...

Another point, fixed functions hardware seems to be something of the past (except for real basic stuff such as linear filtering, clipping, etc).
The R600 (a.k.a R400) will have an unified shader architecture, which is not that far from the "possible" architecture that the PS3 and its Realizerâ„¢ will have. And Xenon, just like PS3 will be multi processors machines.

In others words, there will/would be really little numbers of techniques that the Xenon could push that the PS3 couldn't.

 

My prediction is that PS3 will be so diffiult to program that other consoles will get more games than ps3.

 

I will only play a relatively small percentage of them anyway, so no problems with that and the PS2 was hard to code and still got by far the most games so ... no worries ... biggest problem next gen will be content creation anyway, on all three consoles.

Fredi

 

Yawn...

And you probably predicted the same for the PS2.

 

No, I didn't.

 

Programmers do program what they're told to do in this industry.
If the suits say Playsation 3, the programmers say Playstation 3... And then they'll curse the hardware on developer's newsgroups/mail.

BTW, the best programmers love challenges, they just hate tight schedules.

 

Nobody sees the irony in my statement?

 

Well, this isn't exactly a prediction, but what'd I'd hope would happen....

ps3... 45nm nigh 32nm... 2-3T... 1GB... FF:AC... 150+M units sold...

MS puts two gpus, 2GBs of ram in a last minute desperate attempt... and achieves significantly better market penetration than the xbox... but in the end they end of selling their gaming division to nintendo.

Nintendo's revolution offers comparable gphx, and has a gimmicky feature or two... beats MS for number two( good console casing design, non-purple color)

TSMC... has problems... and in late 2008-early 2009 achieves 45nm...

In late 2008 a PCgamer finally approaches console h/w by spending several thousand dollars on his rig... still not good enough on the cpu side... it will be years before comparable s/w is released on da'pc.

 

Well, considering how Hurricane Ivan has tortured the Southeast . . .

WEDNESDAY, May 18, 2005 | Opening day at the Electronic Entertainment Expo was like something out of the X-Files. Excited attendees, still palpitating from last year's promise of PlayStation 3, had come to pay homage to the impertinent device, but to their horror found only the demure PlayStation Portable . . . everywhere.

THURSDAY, May 19, 2005 | At Sony's E3 press conference today, SCEA president Kaz Hirai reiterated much of what he had said the previous year, promising to bring a "modern, 3D console experience to a mobile platform." But this time there was a twist: "One of those platforms is the PlayStation 3 Portable, codenamed PSP."

Of course, after that bit of tabloid, the press began to hyperventilate. But the Sony executive wrapped up the event without explanation or fanfare, leaving the audience even more bewildered than they were the day before.

FRIDAY, May 20, 2005 | "CELL Mates" was the motto on today's press pamphlet. And the assemblage of hardened corporate types looked every bit the part.

SONY chief deputy president Ken Katuragi was joined by TOSHIBA Semiconductor vice president Katsuji Fujita, IBM PowerPC & Networking Technology vice president Chekib Akrout, and AMD senior vice president and chief strategy officer William Edwards in what would become a surprisingly candid panel discussion led by SCEA's own Kaz Hirai.

CELL, it seems, is a generic remedy for a laundry list of electronic ailments.

The architecture is malleable enough to fit almost any form factor – from wristwatches to refrigerators to communication satellites – and still perform its chores with breathtaking efficiency.

What's more, mind-boggling leaps in power will coexist with an almost Gandhi-esque need to sustain it. It all seems transcendental, say panelists, in part because of a design renaissance.

The rebirth is a return to simplicity.

CELL architectures, like LEGO® play sets, are an assemblage of lots of basic building blocks. It is a "dumbing down" of hardware that facilitates a "smartening up" of software.

CELL architects will pour most of the brains into software rather than hardware, enabling the former to better orchestrate the latter. The result is a surprisingly coherent system where programs persist despite the dynamics of their environment (i.e., they are more autonomous, being self-organizing, self-maintaining and self-healing).

Not surprising, particularly after yesterday's press event, Sony's PlayStation® brand will not be the only conduit for CELL gaming. According to the group, any CELL device will be capable of running CELL-ular applications.

Of course, not every gadget will have the same production values.

According to the Fab Four, the way that a program "lives" within a CELL (or colony of CELLs) is chiefly determined by the resources available to it. So playing a game like Gran Turismo on a "CELL" phone will be an altogether different experience than one furnished through a bevy of CELL-based home theater components.