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[RedSwirl]

A lot of GAF seems to believe this console generation started about two yeas too late by pointing out how quickly early adopters upgraded and simply expressing disappointment at eight-year-old hardware. I think one sign is that a lot of third parties basically seemed to be ready for next-gen hardware around 2011. That's when you started getting games like Crysis 2, Battlefield 3, Far Cry 3, or The Witcher 2 that were really designed for a higher spec and really had no business trying to run on PS3 and Xbox 360.

The issue I see with this is that a PS4 and Xbox One designed for release two years earlier would probably be noticeably less powerful than what we got. People would probably see less of a next-gen leap than what we got, and we might even still be complaining about too many games running at 720p and 30fps.

I actually think the real problem is the PS3/360 generation started a year or two too early. Microsoft's hand was kind of forced due to not being able to manufacture any more GPUs for the original Xbox, but the PS2 was perfectly healthy in 2005. Part of the reason this generation lasted so long was because a lot of people were slow to adopt it (Japan especially). Console technology also wasn't quite ready for real HD gaming.

 

[caustictoast]

The PS4 would have significantly less memory. I probably wouldn't have one right now

 

[SwiftDeath]

The Wii U damn well should've released in 2011

 

[Phediuk]

The PS3 and 360 would have had a considerably longer post-gen lives and the next-gen consoles would have been less powerful.

 

[xDUMPWEEDx]

The PS4/XB1 would certainly have 4GB of total RAM, and slightly weaker GPUs. 1080/60 would have been far out of reach. Even with the new consoles now, 1080/60 might be too far in most cases.

 

[oSoLucky]

As others have said, they would all be weaker and we would already be clamoring for the next Gen. There would have been a much less noticeable leap and I may have given up on console gaming for a while to go purely PC, as there would be a much bigger difference.

The systems would be completely different from a design perspective since features such as Twitch wouldn't have been as huge, probably not big enough to have integrated streaming. XB1 would have Kinect 1 as they probably wouldn't have released it for the 360. The Move would probably still be getting pushed by Sony(not sure why it isn't for non-competitive games). UMvC3 SF4aE, SFxT, TTT2, etc. would be on current Consoles and we would have reasonable sticks soon after launch.

I think the net effect would have been fewer sales and less consumer confidence with the Consoles being smaller upgrades which may have hurt sales and pushed game development to PC and mobile even more.