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[Darkkn]

I think it's strange if Sony or MS can not convince people that putting down 499$ for a device that has 7-10(likely really 10 years before next console next time) year life cycle is a decent investment. Consoles are actually very good investments considering how much entertainment and utility you get out of it over the years. Pretty unparalleled in terms of high-end technology devices.

I don't think that the price point is going to be a problem if they market the devices right and continue to have increased functionality outside of gaming. It would be mistake to start out at too low of a price point, because then the device would be more vulnerable down the line to Apple etc. in terms of capability. Price can always go down, but capability is harder to scale up with consoles. It's not really a disaster if new consoles don't set the world on fire in terms of sales day 1. As long as sales are strong enough at the beginning, they can make it more and more and more attractive years to come by dropping prices, continuing the momentum.

 

[SuicideUZI]

Except aren't you restricted to rails with a camera that you can't move around? And you usually don't fight large groups of enemies do you?

Before infinity blade came out epic released a free tech demo for ios called epic citadel that was not on rails. You could freely walk around the environment, granted there were no enemies but it looked pretty damn good and this was before infinity blade even came out

 

[Medalion]

*shrugs* looks about on par to me

Rendered in sub 720p, static camera

Hardly comparable

 

[Smelly Tramp]

you just stand there, swipe and he does things.

the camera never moves, you just walk forward a bit, enter another battle, then swipe some more and hit things.

cant understand why people rated it so well. i found it the most boring game ever.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

An enthusiast forum dedicated to an enthusiast hobby really has you wondering why a good majority on GAF loves the highest end of the spectrum?

You'd expect enthusiasts to realize too hard a tech push will end up with the industry on its deathbed. Because I totally want a market that can only maintain Football, CoD, Mario, Pokemon, and Mario Kart.

 

[mclem]

You'd expect enthusiasts to realize too hard a tech push will end up with the industry on its deathbed. Because I totally want a market that can only maintain Football, CoD, Mario, Pokemon, and Mario Kart.

To be fair, 60% of those have never really thrived on tech pushes anyway

 

[Jonm1010]

Xenoblade. Binary Domain. Kingdoms of Amalur. Ghost Trick. Lollipop Chainsaw.

New IP's turn up when they turn up. Sometimes it's at the start of a gen. But it's not the start of a gen that makes it happen.

But the first couple of years into a new gen is when the largest number of new IP's tend to appear.

He has a point and I'm pretty sure you know what he is saying.

History seems to show that the first couple years sees a lot of new ip's. Then a lot of sequels to those games and to already established franchises. Then toward the end of the life cycle a handful of developers take a few shots on some new ip's again.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

To be fair, 60% of those have never really thrived on tech pushes anyway

I'd say more than 60%.

Madden football would be bought every year regardless of new tech. Look at the PS2 editions edging out the newer tech of the 360 and PS3 for the first two years of the gen. Hell look at CoD now. These games aren't even at 720p.

So my point is basically this tech push is going to kill anything and everything they like that can't absorb hundreds of millions in dev and marketing expenses.

 

[mclem]

But the first couple of years into a new gen is when the largest number of new IP's tend to appear.

He has a point and I'm pretty sure you know what he is saying.

History seems to show that the first couple years sees a lot of new ip's. Then a lot of sequels to those games and to already established franchises. Then toward the end of the life cycle a handful of developers take a few shots on some new ip's again.

There's two environments which produce new IPs:

* For a large company: having new tech which you can use your wealth to exploit.
* For a small company: being financially secure and confident enough with the hardware to take risks

I do not believe that most small companies have reached that point of financial security yet in this gen. Pulling the rug out from under them will be detrimental.

I don't want a games industry that's always trying to benefit the large companies. The little guys deserve to thrive too.

 

[bgassassin]

Odds are, this current generation will probably end up with higher overall userbase than the previous one. People are playing games now more than ever.

You can worry about a crash that's never going to happen, and the "health" of the industry. I'll enjoy playing games

It will happen if they pursued the most power possible over them making sure they have profitability. That's what my statement is based on. There's really not much of a difference between "being profitable" and "how much profit". If the console maker is only making say $100,000 they are profitable, but they don't have the income to grow their business. You mentioned Xbox 360 and PS3 being profitable and said it worked ignoring the fact that PS3 hardware wiped out out PS2 hardware profitability at it's peak. And including the RROD, the division Xbox 360 is under lost over $3B during the first few years of it's life. Focusing on the last few years and hailing it as some sort of achievement is taking a myopic view of what happened this gen. So you won't be sitting there talking about enjoying playing games when hardly anyone is around to make them for you.

As for the user base, I expect it to shrink. The influx of the non-gamer is what helped this gen. Next gen I do not expect that to increase or even remain steady. I also expect some gaming enthusiasts to convert to PC gaming.

 

[Lazy8s]

Criticizing a game's graphics engine while not knowing much about it doesn't end well...

The camera is controllable in the Infinity Blade games.

Both the first and second game have scenes displaying more than two characters. Infinity Blade II has a scene with at least four fully detailed characters.

Like any well designed mobile game, progress is rewarded even in short play intervals, so the gameplay is focused on fighting duels in this series and not adventuring through the game world. The character's movement through the environment from one fight to the next is handled with cut scenes for that reason alone.

 

[squidyj]

Some people actually care about the health of the home console market and would rather not see another crash happen.

buy dlc. buy new. don't borrow. Ever.

 

[Raide]

Criticizing a game's graphics engine while not knowing much about it doesn't end well...

The camera is controllable in the Infinity Blade games.

Both the first and second game have scenes displaying more than two characters. Infinity Blade II has a scene with at least four fully detailed characters.

Like any well designed mobile game, progress is rewarded even in short play intervals, so the gameplay is focused on fighting duels in this series and not adventuring through the game world. The character's movement through the environment from one fight to the next is handled with cut scenes for that reason alone.

Agreed but comparing that to Gears 3 and all of the action going on, the detailed environments, loads of enemies on-screen, in-depth MP modes etc, does not really match up.

You would have to find something similar to IB on a console to have a more direct comparison.

Whatever the case, UE4 is going to be used by plenty of developer next-gen, so it makes sense for MS and Sony to prep their next consoles in-line with what makes UE4 work well.

 

[njean777]

He's dead on, consoles have to be bleeding edge tech otherwise it will be blown away by smartphones in a few years


Most people don't understand that the rate of tech growth for phones and tablets is only to grow

What about PC's?

 

[kevinski]

I wish some company would develop a low-spec, low-cost console that'd attract indie developers who create retro-style games. I don't mind having high-spec consoles, but it kinda blows paying out the ass for hardware when you almost exclusively use them to play games that could've existed in some form on 16-bit consoles.

 

[Blizzard]

I wish some company would develop a low-spec, low-cost console that'd attract indie developers who create retro-style games. I don't mind having high-spec consoles, but it kinda blows paying out the ass for hardware when you almost exclusively use them to play games that could've existed in some form on 16-bit consoles.

Bob's handheld will

Spoiler

never

come out and fill this gap!

I think I'd be for that if it actually existed in a reasonably priced and mass-produced form, actually.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

The new iPad is more powerful than an Xbox360 or a Playstation 3. It's more powerful than a Vita, has a bigger screen, and more than triple the battery life. They also come out with a new one every year, instead of in huge 7 year cycles.

Yeah! $500 a year is an awesome feature.

 

[Blizzard]

Yeah! $500 a year is an awesome feature.

Can't you sometimes trade in/sell a previous one to get a discount? (I don't own one and don't actually know)

 

[clutch.as.it.gets.]

Epic is right. If the advancements are not big enough i wouldn`t buy the new consoles.

 

[Mooreberg]

Yeah! $500 a year is an awesome feature.

That doesn't stop them from selling, but I understand the sentiment. Trying to do that without the ridiculous brand devotion would never work.

The app store model still seems like an enormous bottleneck though. With all the hardware that is being sold, I think you'd have seen more AAA developers shift away from consoles if they thought they could sell the games for anything more than a few dollars on iOS. I don't really see what would improve the situation either. There is very little motivation for Apple to change it - 30% is 30% and it doesn't matter to them whether it is spent on games or something else.

 

[i-Lo]

Epic is right. If the advancements are not big enough i wouldn`t buy the new consoles.

Even though I completely understand and empathize with that sentiment to an extent, I believe there is a better food for thought: The proof is in the pudding.

Base your judgement on what the software has to offer.

 

[Globox_82]

Even though I completely understand and empathize with that sentiment to an extent, I believe there is a better food for thought: The proof is the pudding.

Base your judgement on what the software has to offer.

Agreed it all comes down to software.

I have to say, this isn't some random comments from EPIC, they clearly know what is going on. I think we won't be disappointed.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Xenoblade. Binary Domain. Kingdoms of Amalur. Ghost Trick. Lollipop Chainsaw.

New IP's turn up when they turn up. Sometimes it's at the start of a gen. But it's not the start of a gen that makes it happen.

You forgot to mention The Last of Us, Metal Gear Rising and Devil's Third much less reboots like Tomb Raider, Halo 4, etc. that are changing the gameplay.

 

[Jonm1010]

There's two environments which produce new IPs:

* For a large company: having new tech which you can use your wealth to exploit.
* For a small company: being financially secure and confident enough with the hardware to take risks

I do not believe that most small companies have reached that point of financial security yet in this gen. Pulling the rug out from under them will be detrimental.

I don't want a games industry that's always trying to benefit the large companies. The little guys deserve to thrive too.

Your second point rests on the assumption that another gen will raise prices exponentially higher. Which I do not think will happen.

Yes costs will go up but not anywhere close to what we saw going from last gen to this.

The other reason new hardware breeds many new IP's is a simple one you ignored, more power and new features mean new opportunities to create new experiences.

 

[SEGAmaniaco]

bleeding edge without beutiful art and criativity doesnt do nothing

 

[mrklaw]

PowerVR mobile tech actually does already have certain advantages in IQ compared to current consoles.

Next year's iPad and iPhone will have higher raw graphics performance than either PS3 or X360.

which won't be utilised because so many people have previous models, plus the OS doesn't let you use everything in the platform.

ipad 2 is a huge leap over ipad 1 in power, but almost nothing really pushes it, other than a few frills here and there

 

[mrklaw]

Yeah but if that was the case, why would he be confident enough to say that he didn't think his nightmare scenario would happen ? I mean we're close enough to next gen, that industry insiders have got to have a pretty decent idea of what they'll be dealing with. The DF leaks and everything out there seems to show the designs are already known within some circles.

This is speculation, but I think they may have an A and B version PS4/Xbox 3 on the drawing board and it's really coming down to the final decision time.
.

I think they're just tryign to put pressure on.

As for cost/power, MS are probably pretty happy Epic pushed them to double the ram in the 360 - if they'd shipped with 256MB they'd be looking pretty tired by now. I'm assuming Epic will be using that to push again on 720

 

[mrklaw]

Criticizing a game's graphics engine while not knowing much about it doesn't end well...

The camera is controllable in the Infinity Blade games.

Both the first and second game have scenes displaying more than two characters. Infinity Blade II has a scene with at least four fully detailed characters.

Like any well designed mobile game, progress is rewarded even in short play intervals, so the gameplay is focused on fighting duels in this series and not adventuring through the game world. The character's movement through the environment from one fight to the next is handled with cut scenes for that reason alone.

doesnt' matter. One game does not make a library, nor does it represent the sort of quality you get in games for that platform. Its a rare exception.

Which is why when ipad 4 finally matches vita specs on paper, it won't mean it suddenly gets vita level games. Or when ipad 5 is released. Maybe by then developers will start usign ipad 2 level performance and start leaving behind ipad 1 though

 

[mclem]

Your second point rests on the assumption that another gen will raise prices exponentially higher. Which I do not think will happen.

The size of jump some people are envisaging? It will happen. Not to the extent that this gen leapt, I'll give you, but it's still a big step up at a time when the industry is still having to search hard for ways to ensure it remains profitable.

The other reason new hardware breeds many new IP's is a simple one you ignored, more power and new features mean new opportunities to create new experiences.

I didn't ignore it:

* For a large company: having new tech which you can use your wealth to exploit.

Doing more costs more; R&D into coding for the new tech will cost money. There's a possibility that the new tech will allow some smart companies to do things *differently* rather than *more*, but that's by no means a given. Design patterns exist for a reason. Take a look at the various "What gameplay differences will new tech offer" threads to see that most things that are asked for are either mostly cosmetic or things which aren't limited by tech.

 

[mclem]

doesnt' matter. One game does not make a library, nor does it represent the sort of quality you get in games for that platform. Its a rare exception.

Which is why when ipad 4 finally matches vita specs on paper, it won't mean it suddenly gets vita level games. Or when ipad 5 is released. Maybe by then developers will start usign ipad 2 level performance and start leaving behind ipad 1 though

A thought: Could you realistically produce a deep game with the production values an iPad 5 would offer in the space of time the iPad 5 is likely to be on the market before it's superseded?