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Ubisoft Expecting New Consoles By 2012
GamesIndustry is running a brief story about comments from Ubisoft's CEO indicating that the company is gearing up for a new generation of consoles within two to three years. "The French publisher is increasing headcount to work on future technology, with mergers also on the cards to increase development and technology resources. 'We want to take advantage of a company that could bring more technology to us, or new brands,' said CEO Yves Guillemot. 'So we have now enough to help us to grow the company for not only next year but to get ready for the coming of the next generation consoles that are probably going to happen 2011, 2012.'" Guillemot also provided some details about the release plans for some of their upcoming games.
1 - Release a teaser of someone playing Prince of Persia Ultimate in a perfect virtual world.
2 - Accept preorders while you wait.
3 - Blame the consoles for not fulfilling expectations.
4 - ???
5 - Profit!
Seems to make sense seeing as consoles are usually on a 5 year cycle, which means we could see the next XBox released in late 2010, but maybe Microsoft will want to get an extra year out of it instead of launching early with dodgy hardware again. The PS4 in late 2011 also seems likely. The Wii is an unknown. Surely the next version will have HD capability, but only at a certain price point and Nintendo will want to make a profit from launch. So "Wii Too" will be less powerful than its competitors, but more powerful than the PS3 or 360. 32nm process is probably going to be used, with a rapid shrink in 2013 to 22nm.
With the next gen of consoles presumably still limited to 1080p resolutions (unlike PC games), will there really be much of an incentive to upgrade again so soon? Sure, they can throw a lot more polygons on the screen, but it won't be anything like the difference between the last gen and current gen consoles.
Well I definitely think the xbox 720 is miles better than the nintendo poo or the playstation 4.
Sure the poo has a nifty vr helmet and the playstation 4 can simulate every atom in the universe, but the xbox 720 has Halo 5, so there!
Wasn't snes faster than megadrive?
Super NES had a 3.6 MHz 16-bit 65C816 CPU on an 8-bit data bus that most games used in 2.7 MHz mode to be able to use cheaper ROM chips. It had no 16x16 multiply instruction. Sega Genesis had a 7.7 MHz 32-bit MC68000 CPU on a 16-bit data bus, the same as the black-and-white Macintosh computers, but the 68000 did take more cycles for each instruction. Each system had an additional CPU used to run the game's music engine.
But what the Super NES lacked in CPU it made up for in video: four times as many 16-color palettes for backgrounds and sprites, a 5-bit-per-channel video DAC (compare the Genesis's 3-bit DAC), an additional layer of tiles in the most common background mode, and a separate texture-mapped background mode called "Mode 7" that allowed rotation and scaling of each scanline. The audio was also sampled instead of FM-synthesized. Genesis wouldn't get features like these until the expensive Sega CD accessory.
So maybe I'll be able to find a store that actually has Wiis in stock by 2011, since they'll be obsolete by then?
Seriously, of the 3 - Playstation, XBox, Wii - only Nintendo hasn't made any price cuts, and they still can't keep them on the shelves for more than a day or two.
A bet a lot of people might start selling back Wiis to stores eventually. After the great opening games like Metroid and Zelda, there hasn't really been anything worth buying recently for the Wii. Have you seen this selection? http://www.gamestop.com/Browse/Search.aspx?N=138+106 - It's really quite sad. I'm thinking about getting an Xbox 360 as a 2nd system, but I'd probably keep my Wii just in case something comes out later on.
Morphing Software
Sony is betting on it, actually. They've repeated said that the PS2 will last 10 years (1 more year to go, and it's all but dead in the US apparently) and the PS3 will also last 10 years.
But since Microsoft is more on a 5 or 6 year cycle o far, MS's next console is going to beat the crap out of the PS3. Look at what a single year did with 360 vs PS3. The PS3 is -still- working to gain ground on the 360, despite it being a 'better' console.
I think Sony would be much better off giving the PS3 a minor upgrade in a few years and calling it a PS4, and then having a real change for the PS5. Kind of like Nintendo just did with the DS/DSi.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
New consoles by 2012? Maybe. But I doubt it. We're in the middle of a recession with layoffs happening in lots of places, and let's face it - the current gen of consoles is really pushing the limits of what can be done on HD TV. Anything beyond this is going to be staring the law of diminishing returns hard in the face... and I get the feeling that a lot of people won't think it's worthwhile to upgrade that soon, especially to a system that doesn't offer that much more.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
People said the same things about Nintendo and Sega before the PS1 came out. I think the real thing to take away is that success in one console generation does not guarantee success in successive generations.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
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