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Next-Gen Game Consoles Still Years Off
jfruhlinger writes "Gamers who have grown bored with the current generation of game hardware will have to sit tight a bit longer. Word on the street has it that the next PlayStation won't be ready until 2014, and the next Xbox won't appear until Christmas 2013 at the earliest."
>bored with the current generation of game hardware
If the gamers are bored with the game hardware, they may find it immensely more interesting to start playing games on it.
Yea, what you're looking for is not a game console, I believe it's called a com pew tur or something like that.
They're already past the 5-year traditional console lifespan (a tradition that's been sacrosanct since the Atari days). And with Playstation gaining ground every day, they're looking real long-in-the-tooth of late. PS3 has MMO's now, user-created content, games that don't have to span several discs (because of the blu-ray drive), blu-ray movie playing capability, etc. The 360 was in the lead for a long time (in the U.S. at least) and MS could have easily secured that lead if they had followed the 5-year lifecyle and bitch-slapped Sony with a next-gen console in Christmas 2010. Instead we got the Kinect, their Wii knockoff that came years after the Wii novelty had worn off (my Wii is sitting in my closet if anyone wants to buy it).
It's a real shame too. Call me a nationalist if you like, but MS was the first American company to compete in the console industry since Atari. And it was nice to not have to wait until a title had been released in Japan for several months to finally get it in the U.S. Sony and Nintendo always treated the west like they were doing us a favor by lowering themselves to even release a game outside of Japan. MS was the first company in a long time to treat the U.S. and Europe as a first-class market instead of an afterthought. And they actually gave us Western-centric games instead of just poorly-translated JRPG's to boot.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The Wii-U is due out next year.
I know there'll be people saying it's not a next-gen console because it's graphics aren't much if any better than a PS3, but I would say it is, because it is one that has been designed after seeing the results of the current gen. Like the Wii, Nintendo decided the key to advancement was not pushing graphics, but other aspects of the user experience.
What? They are most certainly being used to a very high caliber. There's only so much optimization and CPU-centric tasks you can do, and the ones that would benefit most (AI and similar) aren't being targeted at all as a primary concern for future (and Kinect/Move) games. One of the largest limits on these systems is their low RAM size. And compression can only take you so far; eventually, there's a point where you simply don't have enough.
The Wii-U is Nintendo's PS3/360. The Wii is the same generation as the original XBOX.
You could argue that console generations are split solely by years, and not by console power, but if you do make that argument you will have to also agree that there have been a ton of different console generations, since the consoles often release one or two years apart.
If you claim that time is the only determining factor for console generation then the PS2 would be part of generation x, and the gamecube and XBOX would be generation x+1, since they came out a year after the PS2.
As a former game dev I'll tell you.
both consoles have 512MB total memory.
360 has shared memory, the OS takes 32MB. The 360 GPU has a 10MB embedded frame buffer. MSAA becomes memory-free under most circumstances.
PS3 has 256MB main memory, 256MB vram. OS takes up 40MB main memory, 7MB vram. No embedded frame buffer, Nx MSAA takes N times more memory for the color buffer PLUS you still need two non-MSAA color buffers for display. So on a 1280x720 2xMSAA game you loose 15MB for the OS and an additional 7.2MB for the MSAA color buffer, plus an additional 3.6MB for the Z buffer (which lives in the embedded frame buffer on the 360.) All in you're looking at a little under 26MB additional memory used just for graphics. There are additional penalties on the PS3 as well. The ABI used by the OS causes code bloat, measured around 1-3 MB per large game. They may have fixed it now, it's been a couple of years since I did that for a living. Also if you want to use many of the OS built-in menus (not all of them) you have to give MORE memory back to the OS.
How many times do we fall for that line?
"The (next generation of console) will offer graphics comparable to (the latest Hollywood CGI-laden blockbuster)". No. No it won't. It never has, and won't until our computers are so powerful that real-time photo-realism with nearly unlimited levels of detail becomes trivial. As good as current hardware is, it's still nowhere near that point, unless you're content with rendering a very limited scene, which is what all those impressive tech demos do.
Movie graphics are pre-rendered, of course. They take anywhere from minutes to hours per frame to render, and they can use high-end server farms to do this. Consoles are real-time systems. They must render their scene using commodity hardware in 1/30 to 1/60th of a second, in addition to computing everything else a game requires (physics, animation, audio, AI, etc).
I'm guessing some people would be pretty surprised at how much smoke and mirrors are still used, even on modern systems, in order to keep the frame rate reasonable with decent graphical fidelity. If we (speaking as a game developer here) want to be able to run on a reasonable range of systems, we have to do crazy amounts of optimization work. Our artists still have to reuse textures, conserve memory, reduce polygons, use LODs, and simplify shaders. If that's still not enough, then we're forced to cut content out (simplifying models or geometry) until we CAN run in real-time.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Very good point! I remember buying the N64 upgrade cart or whatever they called it for Donkey Kong 64 which if memory serves required it. Nintendo's always been much more open to that sort of thing than Nintendo or Sony. They've had ports for expansions (SNES floppy disk, N64DD, etc.) that often don't even end up getting used. The original gameboy had an infrared port; did ANY game ever actually use it? You had to use a link cable for everything. But they tried.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
For those saying that there is no need for a new generation of hardware, realize that most AAA console titles can't even hit 720p at 30FPS on the 360 (See Halo), let alone 1080p30 or better yet, 1080p60. With the same assets and amount of effort on the developer's part, a new hardware generation would easily allow for 1080p60 as the default, with anti-aliasing. That's aside from much more robust programmable shaders, faster Blu-ray drives, hopefully 16-32GB of solid state storage for texture/asset caching, and in the case of MS, integrated 802.11N and finally eliminating their "core" version from the marketplace so that developers will be able to rely on all users having secondary storage, expanding the market for DLC and on-line features significantly. 6 years ago very few consumers could afford HD screens, certainly not above 42",and 1080p wasn't yet ubiquitous. Today we can buy 50+ inch 1080p 120hz LCDs or Plasmas for well under $2k USD. I think it's definitely time for a new cycle.
Current consoles are good enough for pushing pixels on to 2d planes with a limited rectangular window. What we really need is a real innovation in display technology, and I'm not talking this stereoscopic, trick of the eyes gimmick. I'm talking the 3d holographic displays you see in science fiction. The ability to project any object anywhere into mid air. Make this possible and then you'll see a real need for better processing power.
How many people can play Brawl on one Wii console at once?
This is why the Wii is the only true console of this generation. It's fundamentally different to PC, ergo it's designed for a different type of game and audience. Historically, consoles have always done well with simple, casual game with a shallow learning curve, PC's have been the home of complex, long drawn out or difficult games.
Ask the same question of a PC and Xbox, Most Xbox and PS3 games are designed for one player per copy the same as PC games. Realistically, they are consoles trying to be PC's which is wrong and why Nintendo is making money hand over fist whilst MS and Sony are struggling just to make it into the black.
PC gamers and console gamers should not be at odds. They should occupy different sections of the gaming market as the Wii and PC do. The PS3 and Xbox are oddities that will be corrected in the next generation or two. Personally I have a PC and Wii, previously I owned a PC, Xbox and PS2 but this generation, I have a PC to game on so I dont need two low powered, limited PC's to game on. If I'm going to play for 4 or more hours on single player or with other gamers I'll hop on my PC and play a bit of CIV or Battlefield, if I'm going to play with non-gamer friends, I'll get the Wii out, this normally lasts 2 or 3 hours at most. Consoles and PC's should be fundamentally different beasts, both enjoyable in their own rights.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Typically one
Can you play all games on a console with 4 players? No.
Can you play some games on a PC with 4 players? Yes.
Is it much harder to find games that can be played with 4 players on a PC than on a console? Yes.
Is it much harder to sell games that can be played with 4 players on a PC than on a console? Yes.
This is the sentiment that I was trying to capture with "Typically one." I understand that there exist exceptions to absolute statements, but compared to the consoles, local multiplayer on PC remains a rounding error.
umm no, any form of split screen has in general been ignored by the industry. Until just recently it was almost no existent. At my home we have 2 ps3s. We bought the second last year after having next to no split screen options. and the ones out there are hastily put together crap,Yea im looking at you borderlands(but hey at least they tried and 2 is supposed to fix some of the problems). decent Coop campaigns are even harder to find split screen these days.(you want to play that awesome campaign with your friend, i think not silly gamer, how about 5 or 6 short easy to accomplish missions that u can blow mabye an hour on before u have raped them into oblivion) Name off a few of these 4 player games u speak of? Shit i challenge you to name a few split screen (2 players)games where it isnt tossed in half hazardously as a afterthought on a ps3 or 360.
If i am not mistaken there have been quite a few articles in gaming media that discuss this in great detail, and basically the move has been to make u buy 2 copies. To say that there is still a focus on getting 2 or more people infront of 1 tv seems laughable when u look at the game market. Reach is the only game i can think of in recent memory that put effort into split screen. and really only because that is their niche and huge selling point for halo franchise has always been multiplayer on one screen.
If this seems a little lengthy, its because i have long been a campaigner of split screen multiplayer. Raping a random over the interwebs is fun but just doesnt compare to raping the person next to you. To have someone say that split screen gets any decent attention these days(much less the focus of the market) makes me a little angry.
You can see it best when you run a console game on a PC, the only taxing thing is when you turn all the options on (in your graphics driver) and raise the resolution because on the same resolution and same options as a console, your PC will fall asleep.
It ain't just GPU or even memory. It is even such a simple thing as HD speed. What game developer would code for the slowest laptop HD out there? A console developer.
Put all the limitations together and you can see why some of the biggest money earners in gaming history have not made their way on to the console. The Sims and WoW. None of the games are visually immidiately impressive but they simply take a LOT of memory and a LOT of random disk access.
Why? Because they are non-linear games. The next time you wonder at the marvel of the graphical complexity of a BF3 or even a Rage, ask yourself this... how much am I seeing at a time? Randomly? The games are on rails, with very old style dark corridors between areas to allow the swapping of areas. They remind me a LOT of theme park rides. Where you have large rooms seperated for sound and sight with dark corners.
The real way to tax a PC is to load up the Sims or Operation Flashpoint and to load up the scene with different models. The makers of F.E.A.R. talked about this, they could choose either to have a room impress with lights or with monsters but not both. Next time you see a "big" area on a console, ask yourself, what is missing. What did they have to cut in Y to make X happen.
With a PC, you can simply do both. That is why custom maps, mods and whatever are often so much more impressive to what the original game developers can do. Because anyone that uses mods KNOWS their PC must exceed the recommended spec, not just meet minimum. But on the console, it is all the same absolute minimum approach.
Remember all those people that thought a PS3 would make a good linux machine? They probably never tried it. When was the last time you where happy with a PC with 256mb memory, the smallest and slowest laptop HD they could find and a power consumption that would make Nvidia blush?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.