Motion Control To Lengthen Console Hardware Cycles

With the recent E3 demonstrations of new motion-based control for consoles — Microsoft's Natal, Sony's Motion Controller, and Ubisoft's camera-based system for the Wii — analysts now expect the current console generation to last longer than normal. Microsoft exec Shane Kim said he expects the Xbox 360 to last until around 2015, in part due to Natal and new services available through Xbox Live. Signal Hill's Todd Greenwald thinks this cycle may not need to end at all: "Microsoft and Sony have invested so much in their current hardware line, as have third party publishers, that we don't think any party is seriously interested in throwing away these investments and starting over from scratch. For all of these reasons, we think this cycle will last longer than those in the past, and don't see new hardware coming until 2011 at the earliest, and 2012 to 2013 more likely (if at all — if new services like OnLive take off, or if Xbox Live and PlayStation Network become more and more robust, there may not be a need for another console cycle).'"

Comments

2015?

[Starcom8826]

An xbox wouldn't even last until 2015...

Re:2015?

[Lord Ender]

Well, console graphics already look dated. Waiting until 2015 for the next version would be a big boost to PC gaming. NVIDIA and AMD sure aren't going to stop releasing graphics hardware, so people who want a modern gaming experience will have no choice but to go to the PC.

Re:2015?

[kalirion]

Dated? Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix doesn't look that dated to me. Then again, I can see how the attempted realistic graphics would be dated though - those are always the first ones to start looking bad. Team Fortress 2 will keep looking good long after Counter-Strike: Source becomes painful to the eyes.

Good enough is?

[Canazza]

Have we really reached the point where "Good enough is"
Is the XBox 360/PS3 really the pinnacle of console gaming for the next 5 years?
With the Wii selling bucketloads more initially than anything else, despite having inferior graphics hardware, have the other two finally realised that Faster chips, bigger numbers and impressive specs are really just nothing more than macho posturing?

Re:Good enough is?

[Tom]

The hardware is good enough for good games. It has been since the Commodore 64. The problem is, games are more and more boring.

Actually, I disagree in part.

Some really good games have only become possible with better hardware. Except that graphics hardware comes last in that list. But more memory and CPU speed have allowed for more complex games. A game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 would not have been technically possible on the C64, even if you would've been happy with Bards Tale style graphics.

Re:Good enough is?

[Balinares]

> Have we really reached the point where "Good enough is"

No. I'd say we reached it one generation ago. More precisely: one generation ago is when we've reached the point where style matters more than polycount. Not saying that next-gen games aren't awfully pretty: some are. What I'm saying, though, is that there are many ways to go for pretty, and polycount and high-resolution aren't fundamental to a good number of those. See Okami, for instance.

I suspect this is the lesson Nintendo learned. Last generation, they had (arguably) the best hardware, and while they made the most money of all three console hardware makers (owing to their policy not to sell at a loss), the GameCube is not a terribly big commercial success. So they went a different road this time.

Re:Good enough is?

[Nursie]

Sorry, it's a hell of a lot more than macho posturing.

The GFX on the Wii look pretty poor on a decent sized 1080p capable panel. The Wii is sorely underpowered for today's display tech.

Now, it's still good fun, but I really don't buy into this horrible fanboyish meme that seems to hae taken hold, that the two are somehow exclusive. You CAN have both. There is no reason that bad graphics make good games. A Wii or other machine with Wii-like controllers and Wii-like games but with and updated GFX hardware would be great.

Re:Good enough is?

[MoonBuggy]

The problem is that the two often are exclusive. Games cost a lot to make and it's easy to blow the entire budget making something look spectacular and then realise there's nothing left to actually make it fun. Similarly, when you're restricted on the graphics front by less powerful hardware, you're forced into making games with selling points other than how they look.

Obviously it's not always the case, there are exceptions to both rules and I would never be one to argue against better looking games as long as they are still fun to play, but there is a somewhat sensible reason behind the 'bad graphics' argument.

Re:Good enough is?

[CoccoBill]

Have we really reached the point where "Good enough is"

No, we haven't. As we know, both the PS3 and the Xbox360 are struggling with true 1080p content, most games advertized as 1080p actually run at a horizontal resolution lower than 1920. We need faster consoles still to take full advantage of the current FullHD displays.

Obviously none of this has anything to do with how good the actual games are, and as Nintendo has shown quite vividly, the actual playability of the games matter more than eye candy. However, I don't see these two issues to contradict each other one bit, why can't we have games that are creative, fun AND look good?

Re:Good enough is?

[bwalling]

Two thoughts: First, it's not 720 or 1080, but the Wii really doesn't look that bad. Outside of the first 10 minutes of playing any game, I generally forget completely about the quality of the graphics. It's a first impression that doesn't mean much. The same actually goes for the motion controls - they make it easier to learn, but that only matters for a short period. After that, I'm just playing the game. Second, both paradigms have their problems. With the Wii, sometimes going ga-ga over motion controls leads to crappy games. With the PS3/360, sometimes going ga-ga over graphics leads to crappy games.

Re:Good enough is?

[Deag]

Well "Good enough" for now. The last update to consoles brought HD compatibility with the now standard HD TV, and good use of internet connection. Without both of those consoles would look like backward technology.

But we certainly haven't reached good enough for gaming in general. Games do look good enough, but the worlds they simulate need more power.
For example, go to the top of a building in GTA IV and look into a street in the distance, it is empty. That game does a good job of having an illusion of a busy city, but it really is just that. Four blocks away from you there is nothing.

Wouldn't it be great if every brick in every building was simulated, and having ten million entities walking around the city with you, rather than the 50 odd that follow you around at the moment.

Of course you don't need all this to have a fun game, some of the better games on the 360 are geometry wars and braid, both of which are 2D. And the success of the Wii speaks for itself.

But I think it would be sad if the development of more immersive environments stalled here.

Re:Blu-Ray...

[GreenTech11]

The life blood of gaming, less casual, more hardcore gamers, are the ones who play games like Oblivion, Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, Diablo, etc.

Hardcore gamers the lifeblood of gaming! The wii has been incredibly sucessful because it allows people to pick up a controller and play. By being the cheapest console, Nintendo sacrificed hardcore gaming for casual gamers, and earned bucketloads off it.

such an industry so many problems

[CheshireFerk-o]

you dont seem to understand that about 70% of households do not have a hdtv. that entire arguement is moot. my wii is hooked up thru an rf modulator still. not everyone has the kind of cash for the newest hardware(consoles) and displays to keep up with their shinyness. what it comes down to is gameplay and fun. sure the ps3 is real slick hardware, but i cant afford one, and i dont really see more than a handful of games i'd really be interested in. the 360... well its a m$ product and i wouldnt play it if you gave me one, the controller is awkward and they charge you to play online. sure they have a bunch of great titles but 70% of those have pc versions, which is always the best platform. if someone would/could settle on a good hardware system for the consoles then there would be a no-brainer must have. but using the special chips they produce for these things like they are now is crazy costly. they(360) might have had it right this time around, if they didnt take cost cutting measures and put out crap hardware. the ideal console would be 100% backwards compatible because it is just updated hardware to the previous generation, like gc/wii. instead of spending millions making some weird propriety code/chip every 7-8years upgrading a building ontop of what you have would keep costs down and the players happy. but what do i know ive only been gaming for 24 of my 26years on earth.

why m$ and sony think their rabid consumers would go for motion control, i havent a clue. wouldnt those people already own a wii?

Re:Blu-Ray...

[grumbel]

That claim comes up every now and then, but at this point in time its really kind of baseless. The major failure of the Wiimote is simply that it just doesn't work the people expected it. It doesn't give you 1:1 mapping and thus your movement on the screen ends up having little or even nothing to do with your actual motion. Its not even a matter of precision, its simply not enough sensory data to do any kind of real 3d tracking. That's the sole reason why the experience ends up a little flat, as you end up performing the same game moves as always in games, just triggered by a different mechanism.

The PS3 and Xbox360 solutions are very different in that they give you real 1:1 mapping. There is no longer a need for waggle-replacing-a-button style gameplay. Those things can give you completly new gameplay possibilities, as they allow you to directly manipulate the gaming world and get rid of a lot of limitions current games have. Weird example: Try to shoot yourself in the head in any shooter, doesn't work, because you can't target that spot with current day game controllers. Its one of the many blind spots todays games have where you simply can't do things that your character should be able to do with ease. With 1:1 on the other side those things become trivial.

Now of course having haptic in addition would be great, but it really isn't needed for a lot of things. You don't need haptic to aim a gun or shoot a crossbow. You don't need it to throw a grenade either. And even for things like sword fighting being able to precisely decide how a sword stab would work would be big.

I think the hardest part of motion sensing is really the game design at this point. Games will need to change a lot if motion sensing gets a central part of gaming and a lot of todays mechanics will need to be replaced with other different ones. Gaming pretty much needs to be reinvented the way it did from 2D to 3D.

An as a side note: Microsofts solution, as cool as it looks, seems a little useless without an addition controller, you can do casual stuff with it, but pulling a trigger on a gun kind of needs a button and I don't think it can track hand movement either, so being limited to your arms and legs is kind of a big issue. Sonys solution on the other side looks spot on, it looks basically like a Wiimote done right and I can see huge potential for that in normal non-casual games.

Re:Blu-Ray...

[zehaeva]

maybe you missed some key words in the analysis like

So for the Wii, excluding Wii Sports, that's 87 million top 10 games for 50 million consoles: 1.7 games per console

or

So that's 4.4 games per PS3 and 7 games per Wii (6 excluding Wii Sports).

It pays to read the whole comment, its not like we're asking you to read TFA or TFS.

Re:Longer console lifecycle will kill them

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only really true for Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo has made a business model that allows for big profits out of the gate. As sales begin to trail off, it makes financial sense for Nintendo to release new hardware, because their investment has already paid off. The give-away-the-razor strategy of Sony and MS means that their profits peak later in the cycle. This leaves them far less flexibility.

I mean look at Sony touting PS2 sales numbers. They are desperate for something to turn a profit.

Re:Have we really accepted that?

[AuMatar]

Because Wii games are more fun. I don't like FPSes, I find them the most boring genre ever invented. And even the non-FPS games- it's the same damn thing I've been playing for the past 20 years. I'm tired of that. Wii games tend to have more new material. Even the games that are old genres have motion controls which give it a nice change. And of course the Nintendo first party games are polished to hell and back.

As a gamer of over 20 years, someone who uses to spend 8 hours a day gaming- I can't think of a single 360 or PS3 game I'd even want to buy. I can think of a dozen Wii games I would if I had time. I'm not interested in the MS/Sony more of the same with prettier graphics.