AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I just think that it's impossible that the PS4 will cost less than the PS3 did.

I say that 550 is the ABSOLUTE low point.

Don't Aussies pay like 120$ for games too or something? Not representative of Europe pricing I'd say.

This may be relevant:

The day after the PS4 was announced, Sony's US share prices dropped, and Nintendo's increased.

It wasn't a huge margin (like 2 bucks each way) but it seems to send the message of: "Wow, we thought the WiiU was messed up, look at that guy."

I used to think Nintendo made a bad move unveiling a new console so early, but now I think they can get a lead over Sony if they play up their differences and get some games out the door.

They already have a full list of games to be released this year as public information.

Nintendo did mess up by releasing theirs early. It lets Sony and Microsoft look at them, see what works, and incorporate it into their systems. Doesn't help that WiiU seems to be much less powerful than what's coming. Nintendo is stable, I'll give them that, but they're also the least interesting in my opinion.

Share prices don't mean much at this point considering this conference was specifically for developers, with some tidbits thrown to gamers. Look at the market once the PS4 is released and compare its sales to the WiiU, which have been pretty bad.

I'm going to list some consoles real quick:

NES
Game Boy
PS2
Wii
Nintendo DS
Nintendo 3DS

can you guess what all these things have in common because I think it is PRETTY EASY to figure it out



well now you're clearly fucking with me

Power is less important in handheld systems simply because of their nature. No one's expecting one to have the ability to match a console. For the NES, power wasn't exactly a thing people looked for at that time. The PS2 had plenty of power plus a huge library of incredible games; enough for me to consider it my favorite system even now. As for the Wii...

I honestly cannot name a single title from the Wii I would call AAA must-have despite having owned the system nearly since it released. Power wasn't the main issue there; the issue was a total lack of a reason to even own the system. Some games were good, but nowhere near the levels of what I own for Xbox 360. That's what I mean by Nintendo being the least interesting of the bunch. Stable, some are kind of fun, but zero staying ability.

Power is important to consoles nowadays. They dictate which games can and cannot be played on any particular console. The Wii lacked power so the truly great games went to the PS3 and Xbox. The ones that did see a multiplatform release were cut down heavily on the Wii, to the point of being a crappier game for the same price.

I'm not a console fanboy. I will play any console if the games I want are there. The Xbox 360 does. The PS3 does and I know RPG's gravitate to the PS4 so I anticipate owning it eventually. But I regret owning a Wii and I currently see no possibility of owning a Wii U when the games aren't there.

I feel like power is being overhyped for consoles. Yes, graphics are pretty. But unless you're using the power to do ambient effects (complex lighting, or many subtle visual effects at once) or to do over-the-top physics (think thousands of cheesewheels rolling off a mountain in Skyrim), then there isn't much room for the graphics to be improved.

Most games don't do crazy physics, and there's already some great ambient stuff now. On the wider scale, many developers who are just trying to get a game out the door are not going to innovate on these things, and will just roll with the basics, so to speak. Short of better framerates and such, there won't be much improvement over current games.

Not to say that no one will do these things, and eventually there will be someone willing to build some great stuff with these tools. But expecting every developer to suddenly do these things 100% of the time is not realistic. At least at the initial outset of these new consoles (WiiU and PS4 both), I think most games will be about the same as current ones. It's when developers have had their feet in the water for a while that we'll really start to see these consoles take off.

As for me, I'd like for both consoles to succeed. They don't have to compete directly (though I know they will...) if each one settles in to its own niche.

I agree, Madican; I got burned bad by the Wii just not having games that I was interested in. I got the system three months after it launched and only bought a handful of titles for it over the years while I bought a large quantity for my 360 and PC. I would have LOVED to see titles like Xenoblade Chronicles earlier on in the Wii's lifespan to convince developers that there was a reason to put games on the system, showing them that power isn't everything. But the way things went is that 3rd party devs saw what the Wii could and couldn't do and decided to go with systems that stretched the limits of console power rather than what you could do with the way people interact with the system. Sure, Sony and Microsoft decided that they wanted some of that motion controller market later on but the damage was already done; the developers wanted raw power.

Also Shining, that is true; it's gonna take a while for devs to get acclimated, but there are things that I think (keywords "I think") they can do right away:
-Ability to have more players or enemies or moving objects on the screen. Could open things up for higher console player counts, and that'd be good for games like Battlefield 4 or games where you want to have as many enemies on screen as possible.
-Draw distances won't be horrible - the devs might not be able to make awesome visuals early on for the high-power consoles, but they can substitute that with more scenery on screen at once to make it look better until they get better acclimated. Also, they can use some filters. Filters, specifically, seem to be getting a lot of use lately on the 360 and PS3 to mask the old hardware's limitations. They can use that better hardware to use more filters (or better ones, if that's even a thing) to mask their lack of experience until they get used to working on the consoles.
Again, that's just stuff that I think they'll be able to do right off the bat.

Keep in mind, games are becoming higher and higher stakes to companies due to cost. The more they have to invest in graphics and in processing power, the more they have to make in profit to justify the cost. Square Enix put a lot of cheddar into Final Fantasy XIII, and you saw what happened there. Niche genres are going to gravitate to the consoles that expect less out of them, to make cheaper and more profitable games just because the limits keep player expectations within manageable limits.

This is why I think focusing on graphics is ultimately going to hurt the industry. AAA titles nowadays cost in $100M+ to produce, and it not only stifles risk taking, but also risks sinking a developer when sales are below expectations.

How many developers went under or were bought out this past generation, and how much corruption have we seen from companies doing what they can to get journalists to push their games on the players? It isn't about making loads of cheddar all the time, it's now becoming an issue of running aground from the sheer amount of investment that has to be made.

I think something's going to need to change this generation. Something's gotta give, and this notion of "MORE POWER" is just going to drive away new companies that can't afford the investment and force companies to make stupid mistakes to keep up.

Consoles need to find their own niche, like how they used to be "home arcades with interchangeable games". Right now, they're trying their damnedest to be computers without the openness or usability of computers, and it's not going to work.

The thing is that consoles were 7 years behind in hardware. A power upgrade was screechingly necessary, and while the WiiU greatly improves upon the Wii, it only barely outperforms the Xbox 360 and PS3. As for devs getting acclimated, you don't have to worry about that beyond optimisation. The hardware has been there for years and tools have been developed along side for it to make AAA level visuals easier than ever to achieve. Those that think we already reached the limit of performance previous gen will be pleasantly surprised by the PS4.

On development costs rising.

Source?

It's apparently standard for stock to go down after an unveiling, unless the product is guaranteed sales. Nintendo's stock went down too, and it still hasn't recovered.

This.

This right here is why I firmly believe that the PS4 may be Sony's last game console.
It seems to me that both Microsoft and ESPECIALLY Sony are trying to make their gaming consoles more and more like gaming PCs, despite the fact that gaming PCs are
you know
still things that exist. And can clearly do their job better than the console equivalent.

Now Microsoft is clearly a very successful company, but back in 2012 Sony's stock status was downgraded to "junk". something no company has ever recovered from. And unlike Microsoft, Sony is having difficulties in selling even their normal electronics.

If the PS4 doesn't sell significantly better than the PS3 did, it could very well be the end of Sony as a company.

I, like most of you probably, am completely tired of the "graphics wars" that been going on for ages. If your game is shit, doesn't matter how pretty it is. I do really think game companies need to go back to there roots and figure out what made people buy their games in the first place. Nintendo is almost there, but they honestly put out so much crap they can afford to make a more niche game every once and a while. This might be why ATLUS is one of my favorite companies right now, well ATLUS USA at least. They know what their fans like and they listen to them. Their games don't sell as much as others, but they make their fans pop flyin'.

The game industry, I feel, just keeps treading the same ground again and again. It really just needs to take a step back and take some chances every once and a while. Hollywood and the video game industry as a whole are becoming very similar to me. Unwilling to invest in a new IP because they are unwilling to risk it and continue to put out the same crap each year. I really do wish the customers would wise up, but I know they won't.

Also, I am not paying almost 900 bucks for a console. That is way too much. I will wait like I did for the PS3.

Has the price been released already? I thought they were waiting until E3.

While I agree with your sentiment that videogame publishers need to get their shit together, I don't think it's up to the console developers to initiate that shift. They just need to provide the tools.

I was talking about the place holder price that OA posted. I guess you could call that speculation of the price, but still.

The console developers don't help in the whole graphics war thing. Better rendering/lighting/polygon count on the consoles leads to developers needing to invest more time into hardware and better trained people. Which leads to a higher emphasis on those particular aspects of the games, thus leading that being the majority of the development time. Causing other areas, such as story, to be pushed to the sideline or just completely neglected.

They don't need to invest in better-trained people. The level of training doesn't change when the tools do.

Consider this. Prior to Windows XP and the others, there was DOS. DOS was at the heart of businesses and so they trained people to be IT for it. When DOS was made obsolete, IT switched tack to the new OS and dropped what wasn't useful anymore. When the next OS came out, the process repeated. Training didn't become any higher level, they just learned new methods to deal with old problems and dropped what was no longer relevant to remember.