[mugurumakensei]

If graphics don't get a huge improvement in the next gen consoles, then what the fuck is the point of making them? We may as well stay with our current gen until Sony and MS find it economically viable to make consoles with vastly improved graphics. Why are there people in this thread actively rooting for a new gen with marginal graphical improvement?

There's something between quantum leap and no leap called a leap. Quantum leap means gigantic costs.

[VOOK]

Epic are just the most hardcore of the hardcore. Moar graphics? No matter the cost? GIVE IT TO US me needs the resolutions!

[djSyndrome]

When they are priced $400+ people know now who to direct the hate toward. :(

People here? Sure. But the average consumer is not going to walk into Best Buy, see the outrageous price of a new console, and immediately shake the proverbial fist at a third party engine developer.

[shinobi602]

No thanks, Epic.

Huh?

[Ezio]

WTB beast console.

[Meisadragon]

Epic Games <3

[Taker666]

Who's ready for $700 consoles with higher failure rates than the first generation of Xbox 360? Aren't you guys excited? Doesn't it feel great to be a hardcore gamer?

Wrong.....they'll be a bargain at only $99...



.....with a $30 per month contract for the next 2 years.

[Father_Brain]

Yeah, better development tools reducing costs. What a ridiculous notion!

Better development tools certainly can reduce (and have reduced) costs, but not to a degree that's likely to outweigh the increased complexity of asset creation, animation, etc.

There was a pretty good post from a developer a few months back outlining exactly where and why costs are likely to increase next gen. Wish I could find it.

EDIT: Ah, it was this post. Also this one.

[MThanded]

Leave it to the software guys to not understand cost benefit tradeoffs at the hardware level.

[mugurumakensei]

Wrong.....they'll be a bargain at only $99... .....with a $30 per month contract for the next 2 years.

nah 60 with required data plan. You are allotted only so many hours of online gaming.

[scitek]

What if we saw a 3-4 year console generation this time instead of a 6-8 year one?

[Ooccoo]

I don't want Avatar in real time. I want great experiences, not a graphics showoff.

[1-D_FTW]

He's gonna take a lot of hate for it, but he's right in one very important sense: If 60 dollar games can't outclass tablets in the coming years, the console market is going to die. It's probably going to die regardless, but this is the easiest way for it to occur.

We can bitch and moan all we want about the ills of the industry, but this is the foundation they've built things upon. And if they want to continue with this premium pricing model, the one element that people will judge as worthy of 60 dollars is graphics. You want Porsche 911 MSRPs, you better have a Porsche engine under the hood.

[Thunder Monkey]

If you NEED 8 gigs of RAM to make a pretty game you are a failure of the highest order.

He's gonna take a lot of hate for it, but he's right in one very important sense: If 60 dollar games can't outclass tablets in the coming years, the console market is going to die. It's probably going to die regardless, but this is the easiest way for it to occur. We can bitch and moan all we want about the ills of the industry, but this is the foundation they've built things upon. And if they want to continue with this premium pricing model, the one element that people will judge as worthy of 60 dollars is graphics. You want Porsche 911 MSRPs, you better have a Porsche engine under the hood.

A quicker way to kill the industry is to price it outside of market expectations.

We can't have another slow gen like this one. Where all devs shoot for the moon, while the market takes four years to even notice what they are doing.

[Jibbed]

What if we saw a 3-4 year console generation this time instead of a 6-8 year one?

I wouldn't buy one.

KEEP GOING EPIC, I don't care if they all have to do a Sony and sell at a loss.

[Ultimadrago]

Who's ready for $700 consoles with higher failure rates than the first generation of Xbox 360? Aren't you guys excited? Doesn't it feel great to be a hardcore gamer?

Naah, I'll stick with being "Core."

[BurntPork]

What did you say ? :D

I thought that Epic was lying about UE4 not being scalable and that there was a good chance that it would be ported to mobiles and Wii U six months to a year after the engine is completed. Now I see that they were serious and that Wii U will probably never run any form of it. Sorry, I'm a deluded fanboy.

[Paracelsus]

What if we saw a 3-4 year console generation this time instead of a 6-8 year one?

At 219$@launch per console? Sure, why not.

[yankeehater]

I thought this was worth talking about in itself. Taken from this article, http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...n-game-screens TIM SWEENEY: "There is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of our engine team and our studio to drag this industry into the next generation," said Gears of War design director Cliff Bleszinski. "It is up to Epic, and Tim Sweeney in particular, to motivate Sony and Microsoft not to phone in what these next consoles are going to be. It needs to be a quantum leap. They need to damn near render Avatar in real time, because I want it and gamers want it - even if they don't know they want it." Sweeney added: "We're much more in sync with the console makers than any other developer is. That means we can give detailed recommendations with a complete understanding of what is going to be commercially possible." Apparently Epic has seen the specs of the PS4 and next Xbox and is "actively lobbying" for them to be more powerful. Is this the first actual confirmation that we are to not be TOO excited about next-gen ? Very worrying if true.

I hate that people use quantum leap like this. Anyways I hope that MS and sony listen to Epic and make beast consoles. I doubt they will though.

[SolidSnakex]

Why are there people in this thread actively rooting for a new gen with marginal graphical improvement?

Who's doing that? All people are saying is that there's a big difference between going with specs that will still result in a huge improvement over current gen and going with specs that some devs want. Some devs basically want Sony and MS to put a current gen PC in a box, which would just mean something very expensive to sell to consumers. Sony and MS are the ones that actually have to figure out how to sell these things once they're on the market. Epic can just sit back and pull in all the money that they're going to get through licensing their engine.

[airmangataosenai]

I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times: Better to buy something substantial for $400 than something marginal for $300. People need to get off the Nintendo Kool-Aid on this one.

[Erethian]

Epic are just the most hardcore of the hardcore. Moar graphics? No matter the cost? GIVE IT TO US me needs the resolutions!

Well, Epic are in the business of selling high-end game engines. So they have their own financial impertive to have the leap be as big as possible.

Nobody should be under the delusion that Epic is acting out of anything other than self-interest.

[Majanew]

Well, that one GAF-er was correct about the UE4 demo. He said something along the lines of a demon in front of a volcano.

And keep up the good work, Epic! Thank you.

[Orayn]

If graphics don't get a huge improvement in the next gen consoles, then what the fuck is the point of making them? We may as well stay with our current gen until Sony and MS find it economically viable to make consoles with vastly improved graphics. Why are there people in this thread actively rooting for a new gen with marginal graphical improvement?

The next generation is going to be a huge improvement, I just don't want it to be a needlessly expensive one.

I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times: Better to buy something substantial for $400 than something marginal for $300. People need to get off the Nintendo Kool-Aid on this one.

You're deluded if you think we're just talking about the difference between a $300 console and a $400 one.

[Backfoggen]

Gonna love looking at slightly better than current gen graphics in 7 years.

[mocoworm]

I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times: Better to buy something substantial for $400 than something marginal for $300. People need to get off the Nintendo Kool-Aid on this one.

AMEN brother !

[Genesis Knight]

Well, Epic are in the business of selling high-end game engines. So they have their own financial impertive to have the leap be as big as possible. Nobody should be under the delusion that Epic is acting out of anything other than self-interest.

Luckily their self-interest is my interest as well.

[mugurumakensei]

I wouldn't buy one. KEEP GOING EPIC, I don't care if they all have to do a Sony and sell at a loss.

Microsoft sold at a loss last gen as well. In fact, even with these specs that are underwhelming to Epic, they are likely to sell at a loss even if their prices are in the $300-$350. Quantum leap at this point due to heat generation/dissipation, low yields of 22nm, and retail cut would likely mean either a $600 console, a $250 console with 2 year contract of 30/mo, or a $400 console being sold at a loss of more than $300-400.

[Thunder Monkey]

I've said it once I'll say it a thousand times: Better to buy something substantial for $400 than something marginal for $300. People need to get off the Nintendo Kool-Aid on this one.

As of the last next gen thread. $400 wasn't even in the running. Some of GAFer's seem content to buy another $599 console that cost the manufacturer $1000. Good way to kill this industry completely.

[KKRT00]

Epic wants the industry to burn it seems.

Yep, recession is killing every hardware company, just look at Nvidia and Apple ...

[shinobi602]

Who's doing that? All people are saying is that there's a big difference between going with specs that will still result in a huge improvement over current gen and going with specs that some devs want. Some devs basically want Sony and MS to put a current gen PC in a box, which would just mean something very expensive to sell to consumers. Sony and MS are the ones that actually have to figure out how to sell these things once they're on the market. Epic can just sit back and pull in all the money that they're going to get through licensing their engine.

And we're to automatically assume that?

[east of eastside]

Is it really in Epic's self interest to see more publishers and studio's go under next gen than are already going to happen, or does Tim Sweeney have his head up his ass?

[bgassassin]

For me it is more the fact that when these consoles hit they have to be good for 6 - 10 years. They can't be obsolete after 12 months. If EPIC are turning out UnrealEngine4 quality in 2012 what is 2022 going to look like ? MS and SONY have to put things in place now to stop them needing a PS5 in 2015. If MS hadn't listened to EPIC when the 360 was launched think of the dire situation they would have been in against the PS3 in the last 2-3 years.

2022? We better be well into a new gen of consoles by then.

The problem with consoles becoming outdated is something that can't be fixed with better hardware. The problem is that their feature sets become outdated and that is something that can't be corrected because a console is a closed system. If you own a PC with a 7970, then in five years you could buy an 11*** (or whatever is available) that has the up to date features.

This is the real issue when people complain about consoles holding PCs back. It's not PS360's power. It's that they are DX9-equivalent consoles and PCs have moved on to DX11.1. And no matter how powerful the hardware is, in six or seven years when PCs are on DX13/OpenGL 6 or whatever, the same thing will apply since the consoles will still be on what's out within the next year. If Sony and MS were smart they would focus on hardware that would allow for shorter gen cycles allowing the consoles to "catch up" quicker. It would be much more financially responsible and IMO the best thing for the console market.

[Father_Brain]

Nobody should be under the delusion that Epic is acting out of anything other than self-interest.

Well, their self-interest is likely to prove extremely damaging to the very industry they need to sell their fancy new engine to - both with respect to escalating budgets and with respect to higher console launch prices slowing adoption of the very hardware that will run their engine - so it seems pretty myopic on their part.

[Paracelsus]

Gonna love looking at slightly better than current gen graphics in 7 years.

I wouldn't mind if they bested their texture work and cleaned the IQ up to absolute perfection.

Unfortunately all they are doing right now is improving lighting that massively stresses the hardware and of which one out of ten people can tell the difference. What's the point of having real world lights if the overall image is a smeared jagged mess, so much for immersion.

[Derrick01]

Get a PC Seriusly, a console is not for you, if you think this way.

Get a PC to play the weaker console games slightly better?

Or hope the console games are already powerful so the PC can make it even better?

[SmokyDave]

As of the last next gen thread. $400 wasn't even in the running. Some of GAFer's seem content to buy another $599 console that cost the manufacturer $1000. Good way to kill this industry completely.

A mediocre upgrade, the same old IP's and a continued insistence upon 'alternate revenue streams' may well do exactly the same thing. Might as well go out looking at nice graphics.

[wrowa]

I don't want consoles that produce Avatar-like graphics. No one is able to finance such graphical fidelity profitably and gaming is dead for me if everything that's being produced is just AAA bullshit I don't care for.

[Perkel]

Pretty much. I don't believe for a second the claims that the new lighting techniques will actually drive costs down.

Hard Reset is curently one of best looking titles today created for a cost of pizza and coffe in other AAA projects.

Problem is only with scale and concept. Technology can only help with cost. Baking stuff is more expensive than real time rendering if you have power.

[derder]

Sony and MS: PLEASE SUPPORT 4K!

[ElTopo]

I hate that people use quantum leap like this. Anyways I hope that MS and sony listen to Epic and make beast consoles. I doubt they will though.

It's a gamble - what if just one of the two goes "Nintendo" and releases a console that's not too powerful ? Then the last one, let's assume MS just as an example, is stuck with a significantly more powerful (and presumably more expensive) console. Developers would most likely not use their entire resources to use 720 to its fullest potential since they could save money by focussing on the two "lower-end" consoles.

That would be catastrophical for MS (or whoever actually does that). The other scenario is that both go the "full power" route again, trying (desperately ?) to push Nintendo out of the picture again.

[Dorfdad]

What I don't get is Microsoft and Sony are big enough that getting a few extra gigs of ram on board a console at such mass quantities shouldn't be a big thing at all. Almost all of this gens technical issues lie with the memory.

Next Gen consoles could easily increase the GPU and add in 3-4 gigs of dedicated ram standard (hell netbooks do this now) and give 512-1 gig to the OS and we would have massive improvements in the games.

add a slightly faster bluray (at same cost as current one)
Improved CPU's / SPU's based on cost of current specs when the launched.
500gb HD standard (SSD optional) Game installs on both consoles (less heat and noise)
add a modern GPU at same cost of the current ones when you released the system
add in 3-4 gigs of ram and 512-1 gig for OS updates and improvements over time.
use today's same controllers (no cost increase - PS4 please add a stand mic like 360 does) + Option accessories.

If they did this both systems could launch at $299-$350.00 and make a profit from day one.

Gamers would get a major improvement in every aspect of gaming and repeat the cycle in 5 years...

[Ein Bear]

Underpowered consoles? Even worse Online Pass/DLC bullshit than current consoles?

Next gens going to suck, isn't it? =(

[Petrichor]

It doesn't mean Epic hasn't been successful in lobbying MS / Sony, or at least that's how I read it.

This shouldn't be a cause for concern; of course MS / Sony would want to spend as little money as possible on hardware.

[Orayn]

And we're to automatically assume that?

Why wouldn't we? The same amount of money will get you a much more powerful CPU or GPU in 2012 than in 2005/2006.

[1-D_FTW]

A quicker way to kill the industry is to price it outside of market expectations. We can't have another slow gen like this one. Where all devs shoot for the moon, while the market takes four years to even notice what they are doing.

Then it's dead. And there's nothing wrong with it. Consoles have served their purposes and aside from Nintendo exclusives, aren't needed any longer.

I'm just saying I understand where the fear is coming from. 60 dollars games are not a sustainable business. And it's going to get worse with each passing year. The only hope, and it's a miniscule one, is that the graphical leap is so much further than competing platforms, they can pull another generation of premium prices off.

I'm not saying I think it'll work, just that I understand the desperate logic of it.

[Hot Coldman]

Yeah I totally fucked called this.

[EternalGamer]

Do it. I want beast consoles, new generations should have new top of the line tech with games to take advantage of it. I want my jaw to drop if I wanted cheap last-gen tech I could stick with what I already have.

Then you should get a gaming PC. You aren't going to get it from Sony and Microsoft, not in this economy and not with the Wii getting the kind of audience it did last go around with incredibly old hardware.

Hell, even most GAFers seem to not care about really powerful hardware if this thread is any indication.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying amazing visuals now and without cramming it into a tiny box that leads to the kind of overheating problems that caused the huge failure rate last gen.

Up until last year I was a console only gamer, now I don't even know that there is anything either Sony or Microsoft could do to win me back. I've come to love cheap awesome games on Steam and I seriously doubt that whatever the specs end up being, my current PC is probably already more powerful.

[SomeDude]

Not upgrading at all is a good way to stagnate the industry.

[Noisepurge]

Not a good sign. Sounds like they're underpowered right now.

well if those rumors are true that they want to go for a cheap box from the get-go, the specs will have to be in line with the price. i don't think any console manufacturer wants to put out another 599$ box even if the specs would be through the roof. i mean, i would buy another 599$ console sure, but would it be a resounding success? :D