Death of Next-Gen: The Case Against PS4, Xbox 720, and Wii 2
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by Shaun El-Ters on April 29, 2010 at 3:28 am under A&E, Press Start, Uncategorized
For whatever reason, I often find myself thinking about the next generation of consoles. I consider new designs of the systems, unique control schemes, capabilities, and names (I’ve decided on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Wii 2, and the Sex-Box Three-Sexy. Or Xbox 720). People ask me why I don’t have things to better occupy my time, but then I tell them I am a videogame columnist and they leave me alone. Sometimes they give me loose change.
As time goes on, however, I find myself thinking about future consoles less and less. The reason is simple: it is no longer viable for gaming companies to consider the next generation of consoles because the previous plan of churning out new systems every four to five years is no longer viable. The current generation of consoles possesses a longevity that is unprecedented, rendering another generation of platforms not only completely unnecessary, but relatively useless, as well.
There are many factors that support this idea. First of all, we are reaching a limit of what graphics are capable of. Our society is one of graphical whores who only care about shiny renders and high def, but the further along visually we progress, the less difference consumers are going to be able to see in their games. According to some study I heard about a few years ago, the average consumer will tell you they can’t see the difference between Ratchet and Clank and something like Toy Story; however, the technological discrepancies are astronomical. In order to truly stand apart now, it’s more about art style than sheer horsepower. Do companies go for a colorful, bold animation direction like Wind Waker, or stark realism and grit like Gears of War 2? Spending millions of dollars to improve visuals is impractical when the average consumer can’t tell either way.
Okay, enough with the boring graphics discussion; gaming has been, and always will be, defined more for its gameplay than anything else. While new releases in hardware will sometimes see shifts in how games can be played, the industry has sort of settled on one basic setup for standard controls (two analog sticks, four main face buttons, two trigger buttons on top). Unlike the past, where the SNES introduced two new face buttons and shoulder buttons, or the N64 debuted with a ridiculously designed controller that looked like a cross between a joystick and a jet plane and must have had zero consumer testing, developers have pretty much determined what setup works best for their titles, and more importantly, customers seem to agree.
The fascinating aspect is that developers are looking for new way to play games, and yet none of these rely on hardware that current consoles cannot currently support. Natal, Microsoft’s motion sensing technology, runs off of Xbox 360s, as will the games that are compatible with them. Same goes for the PS3’s Move. Even the next hyped gaming format being pushed by Sony, 3D titles, is compatible with existing hardware. All of these elements beg the question that if so many new and innovative game experiences can be supported by the current generation of consoles, why should companies push to release the next batch, especially in the current economic climate. The industry has done well considering the downturn, but is far from recession proof (despite my previous article that states that the industry is, in fact, recession proof). Throw this in with the fact that consoles don’t even see profit for the first few years they are released (unless their name is the Wii), combined with the issue of garnering developers’ support despite forfeiting a viable installation base to try to build a new one, and this idea just reeks of bad news. As exciting as it is to think of what the Sex Box could have offered, it’s much more important that developers try to maximize what the current generation is capable of. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
13 Comments
While it may be true that the average gamer may not be able to tell the difference between graphicly between certain games in this gen, there is alot room fro performance improvement. I belive that as soon as the major companies (ie: Microsoft, Sony, and to a lesser extent Nintendo) can produce a console with as much grapical power as current gaming P.C.s, and keep the price under $400 then we will see the next gen. Many living rooms now have HDTVs and the current gen barely scratches the surface of what these tvs can poduce in terms of visuals. When the hardware is cheap enough there will be an XBOX capable of rendering Halo 4 in 1080p @60hz, in high detail. It looks like the best we will see this gen will be a slightly higher detail in Halo Reach in 640 @60hz. If this game came out on P.C. it would easily be rendered in 1080p or more. I am not a P.C. gamer due to the cost of a good gaming rig, but i can’t wait till Microsoft comes out with somthing that will push the limits of my HDTV.
Derek Pietz has it right. There is a great deal of room for improvement in regards to performance. Sure the visuals in games these days are starting to get very pretty and can be extraordinarily detailed, but it comes at the cost of general performance of the machine. In this I refer mostly to a drastic drop in the frame rate when too many things happen in the game all at once. A classic example is the explosions in shooting games like Gears of War and Call of Duty where all movement slows down for a second while the machine processes what textures require remapping, where the light sourcing must change etc etc etc. I’m no tech guru, but it seems obvious that games have begun to move far ahead of the powers of the video graphics cards and of course the RAM that consoles currently possess. And it would be foolish of either Sony or Microsoft to replicate the mistakes of Sega with the Mega-CD and 32x used on the Megadrive/Genesis. Even Nintendo’s 4mb RAM upgrade that was completely planned didn’t really work too well. In short, add-ons just aren’t feasible with consoles.
Yet, I must say that I do feel the next generation of consoles, should they come, will go very close to being the last for quite a bit longer than normal if they are done right with a solid future in mind. Hint… I have been waiting for a proper application of Virtual Reality since I was 12 years old and I am pushing 30 now. Surely the technology is there somewhere. Just imagine playing a racing game and being able to turn your head to the left or right and see a friend trying to overtake you. As opposed to fiddling with the analog stick while you try to navigate the next hairpin turn.
With the lessons learned about the PS2’s 10+year longevity and Gamecube 1.5 a.k.a. the Wii, its a win-win situation for Sony not to replace the PS3 anytime soon as it has the potential to span two generations of consoles within 10 year life cycle.
Regarding the Wii and Xbox360 these guys unfortunately have to upgrade themselves.
If there wasn’t a next gen I would feel very dissapointed. The graphics of today’s machines are no where near the level that I’m happy with. Take for instance gta 4, pop up, poor textures close up, cut sences that look like the have been drawn by a 8 year old, poor voice syncing, very basic AI, lack of objects on screen such as people and cars due to performace limitations, weather looks rubbish, lack of gameplay scope, poor interior shaders ect ect ect. This can be said of all games. If you feel we’ve reach a grapical peak you need to go to specsavers.
Ultimately the premise that there will not be (or will not be a need for) another generation of consoles is as of absurd as saying technology has stopped progressing. Those with Computer Science background will be familiar with Moores Law which is expected to continue through 2029. Having said that the author does make some good points, but also misses several.
As with anything the potential for profits is the only factor that drives new products to market. With the current generation we have a split… The Nintendo Wii a niche product marketed as kid-friendly and family-friendly… A system for a generation of kids that grew up in the 1980s to give to their children. In this regard Nintendo made a decision not to compete on the graphics front (a decision they really made long ago starting with the N64 as they struggled to distinguish themselves). So lets put the number of units sold aside and look at the high-end consoles. With the XBox 360 Microsoft enjoyed a good heart start on Sonys PS3. Sonys price point and lack of exclusive titles and late to the game on-line network have helped keep Microsoft in ahead in the United States.
Do not forget that profits in this industry are made on software not hardware. With Microsoft enjoying the highest volume of software sales they have no motivation to bring out a new console at this time. SONY took a huge gamble on bundling a Blu-Ray player in with PS3 and part of that strategy was taking loss on PS3 hardware for several years but eventually breaking through as the more attractive console as Blu-Ray adoption moved forward. In 2010 SONY is just now beginning to see the fruit of that strategy and with with the success of AVATAR and a firmware update that turns the PS3 into a Blu-Ray 3D player its clear SONY has not given up on PS3 as they have revealed plans on technologies that will make it more competitive.
My prediction is that Christmas 2010 will be the year of discounted consoles ($249 PS3, $149 360 and Wii) and we will see new controlers and interfaces… Full body sensors for XBox 360 and Stereoscopic 3D games for PS3 that support Blu-Ray 3D standards and glasses, etc… Nintendos next move is unknown and if it wont be a new console in 2010..)
Beyond 2010 (and probably before the end of 2012) I see Nintendo being the first to bring out a new console. Being a nihce product, the Wii has no real competition, but the number of units sold has dropped, they need to revive consume interest and if you look at how quickly they change out handheld console designs you can see they are a believer in offering new hardware to accomplish that. When that happens you can expect it to stay within their niche, being more powerful than the Wii, but with the focus on play experience and best use of first-party trademarks and licenses over everything else.
On the high-end side. There was at first the possibility of PS3 being such a failure that SONY would quickly wipe it under the rug and bring out PS4 (as Sega did with the Dreamcast on Saturns failure). But with Blu-Ray winning the format war, SONYs long-term vision looks like it will play out, meaning no PS4 anytime soon… Having said that, the war with PS3 and XBox 360 will get more intense. With the next price drop combined with Blu-Rays continued success, PS3 will gain ground and put Microsoft in a situation where it would be to their advantage to release new hardware. Its documented Microsofts XBox division has been working on a new console for at least the past year and a half. No doubt this design continues to be tweaked and the price of processing power decreases. They will be ready when the market is ready and once they make a move, you can expect SONY to follow within 12-18 months.
Its just a matter of time really and its all driven my profitability.
(Still laughing at the sexbox three sexy)
I think that we will see a new console in less then 2 years. Hardware has come a long way over the last 5 years. If the existing Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony become complacent and decide to just ride their current platforms for much longer I expect a 4th player to enter the market. Maybe Apple?
Until photo-realistic graphcs are achieved, there is still a lot of headroom for improvement.
you guys should really play some of the better looking and performing games of this generation mostly god of war killzone 3 uncharted 2 i say these games because there the best looking at a high resolution god of war uses mlaa killzone has some of the best lighting and character models uncharted was the first to use the whole cpu of the ps3 without having an spe become idle
This article has it all wrong. The author suggests that videogames have reached some sort of technological pinnacle and few challenges remaine. The truth is just the opposite. To take videogames to the next level of realism will require revolutionary changes in the way games are designed and decades or longer to achieve.
Most of the article and the responses to it focused on debating whether graphics had reached near their full potential or had much more room for improvement. Yes, I agree with the responses who see today’s graphics still falling far short of videorealism. These deficiencies, however, are being addressed and within 10-15 years hardware and software will allow the kind of visual fidelity we all desire.
The real problem with videogames today is freedom or more precisely the lack of freedom. In terms of offering the player real choice or freedom, current games are stuck in the stone ages. Every event that happens in these games is predetermined, scripted, and storylined. The reliance on scripted events, within today’s games, undermines player immersion and only serves to bring attention to the game designers and their games limitations. Even a game like GTA 4 which purports to offer the player freedom in an “open world” really only offers the player bigger corridors into which he is repetitively funneled. Compare New York City to Liberty City (which is basically a videogame version of New York City) in GTA 4. Imagine all the possible permutations and combinations of things you could do, people you meet and interact with, and places you could go if you visited New York City. The possibile choices you could make are infinite. Now, compare that to playing in Liberty City. In Liberty City, only events that have been pre-rendered by the games designers can happen within the game world. The player can’t go anywhere or do anything the designers haven’t allowed the players to go to or do. This is a major limitations that takes the player out of the game world and quickly becomes repetitive and boring. Imagine how much more fun it would be to play a videogame that had even a fraction of the freedom you have in the real world.
To achieve this level of freedom would require games to be designed in a totally different way. Real freedom in a game would mean infinite possiblities. Infinity can’t fit on a disc if it needs to be pre-rendered. The game would need to be designed to be smart enough to respond spontaneously to the players actions and not rely on pre-rendered visuals and scripted dialogue. Ultimately, for videogames to achieve the “holy grail” of immersive, seamless “virtual reality” these problems will need to be overcome.
The challenges ahead for videogames to reach their full potential are not too few but too many.
It seems that quite a few people are ignorant about technology, programming and hardware. Most of what is being championed here in both the article and the comments section is wishful thinking from people who only play games and do not create them. Jeremy at least has the correct idea and approach.
Now don’t get me wrong, game programming is not what I want to do in life, but it has influenced CS in a major way. I have not taken Virtual Worlds or Game Programming that NAU offers in their upper divisions, but I have friends who have and have seen the amount of work they put into a basic game. It is not easy to program a game in a limited time to meet or exceed expectations.
What it comes down to is simply the fact that hardware has advanced further than software. Software at this moment cannot deal with the hardware power. Most of our algorithms are not meant for multi-core systems and need to be redone for us to take full advantage of what we have. Additionally, most of the hardware has been optimized for computation speed and not I/O throughput; Which means it can crunch numbers real quickly, but it still takes time for certain numbers that need to be crunched to arrive. This also hampers I/O devices such as TV’s and hard drives, though thanks to solid state these seek/load times should decrease. Couple this to new storage mediums that not everyone can take advantage of (Blu-ray vs HD-DVD patent/licensing wars) makes for non-standard systems and proprietary gambits. The CELL processor – a good example of this – is so new to mainstream programmers that not many people can correctly use it to it’s full advantage. Rumor has it that Sony is already thinking of moving back to conventional chips for that sole reason.
Gaming is also a business and is run like one. If Company A can make money by re-releasing the same game over again with minor changes (Here’s looking at you Madden), then the business will not advance because it is profitable. People will be satisfied by what is mediocre instead of supporting a new tech. A game like Mirror’s Edge is good, but it is also priced exceedingly high for what is essentially a beta preview of next-gen ideas, thus pricing it out of the market. I would suggest asking more of the company than I would ask of the creators – the executives and accountants make choices that you do not blame them for.
The above has been cut, stripped and dried out for ease of understanding. I’m sure I could make it more complicated, but I have no desire to. All I want is for people to understand that what they demand is not exactly easy due to limitations beyond peoples control. A basic understanding of what goes on under the surface is all I ask for.
I don’t want the hypocrisy of someone demanding something that we can’t give them, while in the same breath saying “I don’t understand any of this computer stuff, just fix it for me”.
MB does a good job explaining why game development has lagged behind players expectations. The bottlenecks to more rapid game innovation are software limitations and risk averse companies.
The focus of my response was to shift the attention away from graphics and predictions of when/if a new generation of consoles would emerge and towards the more interesting issue of player freedom.
Player freedom is relavant to this discussion because the author of the article was suggesting that games had reached some sort of high-point (in terms of graphics) and because of this there was little need for new consoles. In terms of graphics, maybe videogames are nearing a point of diminishing returns. This is not the case when it comes to the the problem of lack of player freedom. Long after the point graphics haved reached the level of videorealism they will still be struggling to offer the player even a fraction of the freedom we have in the real world.
MB: Get off your high horse and look at the actual picture. You illustrate the point that hardware options far exceed the software options and yet you still fail to understand the issue at hand. That being that the hardware of the current generation of consoles just isn’t capable of meeting the demands of the software which developers want to use and consumers want to experience. Instead, you just carried on with irrelevent drivel and had a go at the consumers who are the driving force behind any market.
No, I am not well versed in the goings on of the technology field. Yes, I am a dreamer waiting for the next best thing. However, I have been watching the industry for over 20 years now. And during that time the relationship between hardware and software, so far as consoles are concerned, has always followed the same basic pattern. Which is essentially a case of new and improved hardware arriving that temporarily exceeds ability of current software. Then software eventually catches up to and overtakes the abilities of the current hardware, which brings us full circle to the release of a new console with better hardware.
I don’t see the xbox 360 or the ps3 going anywhere for a while. nintendo most definitely needs to do something soon if they want to remain competitive. i know that the wii is a niche machine but with sony and microsoft releasing motion based controls to some degree they will need to come with something to remain in the home console market. the next must for a next gen console is the xbox 360. hd-dvd media is starting to become too small to accommodate the demands of the consumers. sony took their time and was smart about their console. wise choice. even though it hurt them initially its starting to pay off. with sony and microsoft coming with the new hardware this year, to me it kinda proves my theory they aren’t going anywhere for a while. personally im happy sitting here with a controller and not having to move anywhere but thats just me. VR is something that should most definitely be explored. i don’t believe that graphics and AI are anywhere near what they can be.
what it all comes down to is people and companies making the right choices to their target audiences. i think that if you are going to write a game for 2 or more platforms you should make it excessible in a multiplayer environment to users of all versions. writing more titles that appeal to the strenghts of each console is a smart idea too.
in the end everything comes down to money and profit. period.