The Next Generation of Consoles

[Zetetic]

Arma II's mechanics aren't not bad at simulating the effects of gun wounds, but that's probably not quite what you're looking for: Incapacitating or being incapacitated happens very quickly. There's no great graphical fidelity or anything, but in terms of "get shot" leading to "can't do anything", it's ace.

(Although the healing system isn't at all realistic.)

[Jemble Fred]

Unbelievable that people are saying 'what the point of next gen, surely graphics are as good as you can get'.

This would surely be people who have literally never played a single game this generation. No matter how good some graphics on the PS3 and 360 have been in a few games, there isn't one title which I couldn't immediately envisage seeming – within a generation – as clunky and basic as any Sega Saturn title does today. Red Dead Redemption has some might pretty sunsets, but stop and look around properly and it's still an origami puppet show, like any current gen game.

I have always been a bit idealistic about gaming, though – when I was a kid I expected to be on the holodeck by now, so it's no wonder current gen games always seem to be a few steps behind my expectation.

[Noodle Lizard]

I've never particularly cared about graphics when it comes to gaming.  Sure, it's nice to be wowed by how something looks, but I've found a similar effect was achieved even on Nintendo 64 games, regardless of what year you play them in.  I think imagination and ingenuity will always be more important than graphics capabilities. 

A lot of the games (and films, for that matter) which are touted as being the best from a technological standpoint are actually dull as fuck to me.

[Noodle Lizard]

Arma II's mechanics aren't not bad at simulating the effects of gun wounds, but that's probably not quite what you're looking for: Incapacitating or being incapacitated happens very quickly. There's no great graphical fidelity or anything, but in terms of "get shot" leading to "can't do anything", it's ace.

(Although the healing system isn't at all realistic.)

I understand why most games don't have you crawling around or simply dying on your arse whenever you get wounded, because it would seriously hamper gameplay, but I don't know if the same applies to enemy AI, which is what I was talking about (mostly).  I could even understand them being more resilient than in reality, I'm talking more from a visual standpoint.

I'm not really "looking for" it either, it's just something I've always wondered about.

[Zetetic]

I think imagination and ingenuity will always be more important than graphics capabilities.

Greater graphical capabilities don't have to put towards the (perhaps dull) end of photorealism. It can be a tool for the imaginative.

[Zetetic]

I could even understand them being more resilient than in reality, I'm talking more from a visual standpoint.

I guess it's quite difficult to do sensible deformation of human bodies. I mainly just remember being able to blast bits off in Solider of Fortune!

[I accept the terms of the]

It just looks like Poser if things don't move properly, anyway. It's all about the movement. It's amazing how much better a game looks when they move the camera like a real-life camera, for example (can't think of a concrete example, pissssss).

[Noodle Lizard]

Greater graphical capabilities don't have to put towards the (perhaps dull) end of photorealism. It can be a tool for the imaginative.

Can be, isn't necessarily and isn't often.  From what I can see, most of the "insane graphics" have been given to war games and incomprehensibly overrated (IMO etc.) ones like Uncharted 3.  The really creative ones (like Portal or the sort of underrated Mario Galaxy for instance) have settled for fairly low-key graphics.

[vrailaine]

Greater graphical capabilities seem to go hand in hand with higher development costs, games which focus primarily on innovation dont tend to sell as much as the shiny shooter of the moment, so the money is all pushed towards those ones for the early part of the machines life. Maybe there'll be more effort made to accommodate smaller developers in the next generation though, probably a fair chance that at least one of them will try to win them all to their machine, anyways.

[VegaLA]

No PS4 for E3

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/sonys-kaz-hirai-no-playstation-4-at-e3/

To be honest I thought it was a bit too early for Sony, and if the XBox rumours are true then we wil only have the new Nintendo Console to coo* at.

*

Spoiler alert

Or not.

[close]

[mobias]

Yeah both Sony and MS are playing things down but both did so in a similar way right up to the launch of the 360 and PS3. The guy from Sony is still playing the '10 year life span' of the PS3 card but is anyone really seriously thinking Sony aren't going to bring out another console until 2016? Sony have apparently promised third party games developers (or so I've been told by people I know who work in the games industry)  that they will not let them down this time by releasing a console a full year to 18 months too late this time around. That means Sony are utterly tied to doing whatever MS does.

[Dark Sky]

Unbelievable that people are saying 'what the point of next gen, surely graphics are as good as you can get'.

I was chatting last night with the better half about how simplistic and crappy games from ten years ago look now, yet at the time we all thought it was the height of photorealistic graphics.

Weird to think that even the best looking stuff of NOW (let's say...Rage) will look blocky and simplistic in a decade's time.  Or less!

Ultimately, though, the design of the game...its look, playability and charm...is far more important than how realistic the graphics are.

[VegaLA]

That means Sony are utterly tied to doing whatever MS does.

And thats what worries me. Would Sony be better off staggering the Next Gen? Wait for at least two years after the new XBox then release something stable that really trumps whats already available?
Yeah it might look like they are missing a Generation but if they make it worth the wait then it will look like the Next-Next Gen has beaten Microsoft.

We need a 3RD contender to mess things up. Sorry I mean 4TH.

[Consignia]

GaiKai reckon that Sony or Microsoft aren't going to bother next gen. Of course, the drunk old man in pub has some strong opinions on the matter, but is only slightly more relevent than Gaikai.

[mobias]

And thats what worries me. Would Sony be better off staggering the Next Gen? Wait for at least two years after the new XBox then release something stable that really trumps whats already available?
Yeah it might look like they are missing a Generation but if they make it worth the wait then it will look like the Next-Next Gen has beaten Microsoft.

We need a 3RD contender to mess things up. Sorry I mean 4TH.

My understanding of it from chatting to friends in the games industry is that a lot of it has to do with the symbiotic relationship between the big third party studios and the two console makers. You can't sell a console without it having great games and you can't have those great games without having a console capable of running them. The relationship has become even more complex in recent years with the massively rising cost of producing games. Publishers need to have confidence that enough consoles are going to be sold to make their investment in game production worth while.

If we take a big triple A third party publisher like Rockstar for example. A game like GTA costs tens of millions to make yet they have to be confident that enough consoles are out there to make it worth while them producing it. Sony got a lot of flack from third party publishers this gen for bringing out a console late, which therefore meant producing cross platform games a more complex investment, and hugely expensive - PS3's didn't really start selling until Sony brought the price well below the 300 quid mark, something which took them an awful long time to do.
So Sony understandably don't want to give their loyal and successful third party developers such a headache this time around. Personally I think we'll see two very similar machines from Sony and MS, perhaps even more similar than this gen. There's already been talk of Sony ditching their cell processor, which was a nightmare to program for with the PS3, and going with something more conventional as MS have with the 360.

I absolutely don't buy anyone who says game streaming like Onlive is the immediate future of gaming. Its definitely the future but not until global networks are capable of streaming mega amounts of data, and we're so far off that. They'll be hardware in the shape of consoles for another couple of generations I think.

A 4th contender to mess things up would probably be Apple. Every now and then you hear rumours that they may enter the games market but if they do it will be an Onlive type service pumped down through Apple TV. I doubt very, very much they would ever release a console. The world can barely support 3. Apple seem to be interestingly trumping Sony in the handheld market via the iPhone and iPad, it'll be interesting to see how that evolves. People want to experience games differently on handhelds, I think Vita misses the point. I suspect it won't be a huge success for Sony.   

[Steve Lampkins]

As long as they can produce games that look at least as good as BF3 on the PC. Seriously, I get killed just admiring the scenery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7NxGzWYlgU

[glitch]

Ultimately, though, the design of the game...its look, playability and charm...is far more important than how realistic the graphics are.

Which is why stylised games like Jet Set/Grind Radio, Rez and Psychonauts still look pretty good despite their age. I wish more developers realised this.

[Jemble Fred]

Well that's why the world in Fable III feels more alive than Skyrim, for all its technical inferiority – it's a stylised, cartoony world, just removed enough from photorealism to not look like it's trying quite so hard. By knowing its limits and not reaching so high, it guarantees that it will age better than any other 360 RPG.

[VegaLA]

Thanks mobias, interesting read.
Can anyone think of any reason why Google wont jump in? I have to admit I was quite shocked when MS joined the race just over ten years ago.

[Consignia]

I don't think Google see it as market that's easy to enter, especially with little capacity for hardware development. I think if they ever were to go that way, we'd see an Android-based media system with games playing ability, either stand-alone or integrated into another device, but not made by themselves.

[MojoJojo]

Google's core business is advertising, and all their expansion has been targeted at opening new advertising opportunities. In desperation at opening new markets to continue growing Google have stretched this pretty far (e.g. giving away a mobile operating system, trying to sell standalone TV boxes), but it's still hard to see how they could justify pushing into gaming to the shareholders without facing a revolt.

I doubt Apple will entire the games market either. They've traditionally been a bit against gaming - apparently something which came from Jobs, and it seems to have weakened in the last few years (when games took off with iOS, Apple quickly added 3D and started talking up the gaming possibilities). There's still a bit of an image problem I think as well.

I was going to say the biggest problem was that the big games publishers make it very hard for a new company to get in. They have no interest in fragmenting the market. Two big players is just how they like it- just enough to avoid a monopoly.

But then Apple somehow managed to successfully introduce a 2G phone at a premium price point successfully, while simultaneously cutting the network out of a revenue stream.
So I don't think the games publishers would put up too much of an obstacle if Apple did decide to get into that market.

But I don't see why they would. The one argument I can see is to get AppleTV into more homes. The entire add-on device for extra TV services already has the problem of having to compete with cable and satellite companies, who already have hardware in people's home and provide the bandwidth. You also have MS/Sony who already have the hardware in peoples homes. So maybe Apple could see gaming as a way in.

That said, in hindsight I don't know why MS entered the games market. At the time I thought it, in combination with the "Games for Windows" brand, was to maintain the advantage in games Windows had over Linux, which was threatening at the time. That all seems a bit mad now. Xbox is making money, but no one cares about Games for Windows, and no one cares about desktop Linux either.

[mobias]

But I don't see why they would. The one argument I can see is to get AppleTV into more homes. The entire add-on device for extra TV services already has the problem of having to compete with cable and satellite companies, who already have hardware in people's home and provide the bandwidth. You also have MS/Sony who already have the hardware in peoples homes. So maybe Apple could see gaming as a way in.

When Onlive type game streaming seriously takes off, and give it 5-10 years and it definitely will then you can guarantee Apple will get into the games industry. Apple have the financial muscle to pay the big third party developers what ever they want to have exclusive rights to pump what ever triple A titles they want down to customers. Sony are in a strong position for live game streaming too as they own a load of incredibly good first party studios. MS are possibly in the weakest position but it'll be interesting to see how gaming distribution is handled once live streaming becomes the norm.

[pk1yen]

I'm just hoping Nintendo don't fuck up the WiiU -- E3 the first time I've seen a new Nintendo console and thought it might be a step backwards for them ...

Is it because they see the potentials of tablet gaming - but only make games for their own consoles? So ... they thought they'd make a tablet?
I'm not sure. Seems a bad idea (though I do quite like the idea of getting round the monopoly on the TV that consoles have - but it's not been thought through enough).

Non-indie tablet games are shit, aren't they? And why not just use the connectivity between the 3DS and the Wii?

Then again - I'm expecting to see a much better, less wishy-washy product when they show it again. I love Nintendo.
I was weirdly relieved when the 3DS sales weren't as low as rumoured. (Still not got one yet though.)

I haven't yet seen one reason to get a PS3.

[I accept the terms of the]

Which is why stylised games like Jet Set/Grind Radio, Rez and Psychonauts still look pretty good despite their age. I wish more developers realised this.

Yep. Rayman will never look rubbish. Broken Sword will always look hot. Stylised 3D stuff that isn't a bad approximation of reality will always look better than Skyrim, which looks shit as soon as you see a boulder is made up of sharp lines and the water only looks right if you don't interact with it (not that Skyrim isn't often pretty, but it is not timeless).

Nobody fucking gets it.

[Hanslow]

My dad went to America and they've already got PS4 out there. He brought one back but you can't come round and play it cos it's in the loft. I've got GTA 5 and it's amazing - you can get a blow job off a hooker and it looks real. You play as Nico's dad back in the 70s, and because it's the 70s it's got Veitnam in it, and you can go there but it takes literally 8 hours to fly there. It's so realistic you have to go through customs and if you forgot your passport you have to go back to your house and get it. Honestly it's well realistic.

God I remember having those conversations myself, 15 years ago, unscratchable rubber discs, the lot.

[Dark Sky]

God I remember having those conversations myself, 15 years ago, unscratchable rubber discs, the lot.

I remember a 'friend' at school going on and on and on about Duke Nukem 3D, and how in it there's a level set in a cinema and you can turn on the projector and it shows a porn film, and there's people you can shoot sitting on the toilet, and there's strippers and you give them money and they flash their tits at you.

I, obviously, didn't believe a word of it.  And then felt slightly guilty when I finally played it last year.

[I accept the terms of the]

My friend told me that in America there was a bubblegum flavoured soda that turned into real bubblegum inside your mouth.

[The Masked Unit]

This thread springs to mind http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=28438.0

[madhair60]

Next year will be the year gaming comes full circle and we enter the Spectrum era again.  Once again gamers - tired of the cinematic likes of Uncharted 3 - will thrill once more to the likes of Knight Lore, Everyone's a Wally and Olli and Lissa.

Complete with full online and headset support so you can hear thirteen-year-olds call you a faggot when you get them with the electric water in Spy Vs Spy.

[VegaLA]

Engadget still think XBox Loop will make it to E3.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/next-xbox-console-to-be-six-times-more-powerful-headed-for-fall/