What has been the lifespan of consoles over the years?

I think the next generation of consoles will come out when widespread 3D TV adoption allows for 3D gaming. The PS3 and 360 were developed to take advantage of HDTVs, so unless there is something driving a new generation of consoles I don't see the business case for developing one. Graphics are, for the most part, good enough on the PS3 and 360, so a whole new generation at the same resolutions doesn't make much sense (although a move to full 1080p support would be nice).
 
Forceman said:
I think the next generation of consoles will come out when widespread 3D TV adoption allows for 3D gaming. The PS3 and 360 were developed to take advantage of HDTVs, so unless there is something driving a new generation of consoles I don't see the business case for developing one. Graphics are, for the most part, good enough on the PS3 and 360, so a whole new generation at the same resolutions doesn't make much sense (although a move to full 1080p support would be nice).
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so like....2020?
Thats a long time.

The disparity will grow even further. PC gaming is going to grow in the next few years, as long as the current generation is on the market. MS and Sony will max out their install base, just like Nintendo already has. Do they ride (decreasing) game sales, or launch new console? Can they afford it at the time? Guess we will see, but all the while more people will flock to PC games.
 
Forceman said:
I think the next generation of consoles will come out when widespread 3D TV adoption allows for 3D gaming. The PS3 and 360 were developed to take advantage of HDTVs, so unless there is something driving a new generation of consoles I don't see the business case for developing one. Graphics are, for the most part, good enough on the PS3 and 360, so a whole new generation at the same resolutions doesn't make much sense (although a move to full 1080p support would be nice).
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When you say the current generation of console support HD TV you mean that they can put out 1080p signal, but so what? Upscaling to HD resolution looks awful and any console game with graphics more complex than 2D sprites seem to be rendered in very low resolution.

You're lucky if you get 720p out of a decent looking game on any console, games like GTA IV run at 620p on the PS3, which is about 700,000 pixels give or take, to run at full HD you need to push 2,073,600 pixels, no console this generation can hope to do that in anything but the most basic looking games.

The fact is games like GTA IV also run at very low setting to begin with means that ideally to get the most out of these games you need consoles approximately 15-20x faster than current gen. When you see GTA IV decked out in full HD on a PC you'll get a good idea of just how bad the current gen consoles look.
 
I think the next consoles are going to be monsters tbh. And frankly I think the next Xbox will look something like this:

Bulldozer variant
Radeon 6XXX variant
4GB DDR3/5
2TB HD
Wireless N standard
Kinect Standard

Microsoft can technically goto AMD for a whole solution and probably do it at a good deal. Especially since AMD is the king of Price'/Performance and TDP.

If developers had say Bulldozer + 6970 + 4GB and only had to deal with 1920x1080 I'd imagine we would see some pretty amazing stuff.
 
XvMMvX said:
Things have changed, people aren't going to shell out money for updated graphics anymore, we have reach a point where the general consumer (read 95% of the market base) isn't concerned with counting Duke Nukem's ball hairs. They want to kick back on teh couch and have some fun.



Yes it is, but once you realize you are in the minority and there is not a thing you can do about it you might actually start to enjoy some games instead of constantly tweaking your settings to get the best looking sweat drops.
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I think that's part of it. Another problem is that game development budgets have become so huge that the industry wants to milk the current generation for as long as it can before things get completely out of control. AAA developments isn't even a good descriptor for top end releases anymore- its more like sextuple A. That's also been the driving force behind DLC. The money needs to come from somewhere and every game can't sell as well as modern warfare 2 or starcraft 2.
 
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PrincessFrosty said:
When you say the current generation of console support HD TV you mean that they can put out 1080p signal, but so what? Upscaling to HD resolution looks awful and any console game with graphics more complex than 2D sprites seem to be rendered in very low resolution.

You're lucky if you get 720p out of a decent looking game on any console, games like GTA IV run at 620p on the PS3, which is about 700,000 pixels give or take, to run at full HD you need to push 2,073,600 pixels, no console this generation can hope to do that in anything but the most basic looking games.

The fact is games like GTA IV also run at very low setting to begin with means that ideally to get the most out of these games you need consoles approximately 15-20x faster than current gen. When you see GTA IV decked out in full HD on a PC you'll get a good idea of just how bad the current gen consoles look.
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Good point. I wonder how much that matters to the average console buyer though? They probably don't have a high-end PC to compare it to, so they don't know what they are potentially missing. Can you make a case for a new console using "better graphics" as the tagline - especially when you spent the last 5 years marketing "state of the art HD" on your current gen - then again, maybe you can, if you call it "Full HD".
 
Good point. I wonder how much that matters to the average console buyer though? They probably don't have a high-end PC to compare it to, so they don't know what they are potentially missing. Can you make a case for a new console using "better graphics" as the tagline - especially when you spent the last 5 years marketing "state of the art HD" on your current gen - then again, maybe you can, if you call it "Full HD".
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I think TV spots would go a long way towards displaying the capabilities of a new console generation.

Also, you have to think that most of the consoles will have native motion sensing, which is a much better draw than an add on that may or may not be supported.
 
When the 360 was released it looked pretty good but not very long after that we had Core 2s and 8800GTXs that completely blew the 360's graphical capabilities out of the fucking water. Today even an extremely low end PC can keep up with the 360 and a midrange PC rapes the everliving shit out of it. Consoles are obsolete on release compared to PCs because they have to get by with mediocre parts to ensure low prices. Sure the next gen consoles' first games will be able to run at full 1080p but it's all downhill from there. Games will slowly improve graphically and the resolution will once again have to be lowered and scaled back up to 1080p while the glorious PC gaming gods are sitting at native 5670x1200 with their 3 monitor setup having to hold their monocles to their eyes while they laugh hysterically at the little people who bought the next gen console and talking how 1080p is almost the same resolution at their phone.
 
but the problem lies is theirs tons of games for the consoles and crap for the PC. why i switched from pc gaming to console gaming. my machines i about 3 years old now. and ill probably get another 3 years out of it.
 
meme said:
I think the main reason why the current generation of consoles is lasting a long time is that CPUs have long since stopped getting any faster.

Since we can't make them any faster, now we're adding more and more cores, but there's realistically only so many cores you can use for gaming and still make the thing reasonable to program for, and today's consoles already are probably maxxed out on the number of cores they're gonna use.

So the next generation of consoles would have CPUs which were no faster than the current generation. Yeah, the graphics processing would be more powerful, and they'd have more memory, but truthfully the games wouldn't look all that much dramatically better that there is any great incentive to make another generation of consoles.

And the success of the Wii has told Sony and Microsoft that gamers aren't really looking for top of the line graphics anyway, they just want good games.

So why make another console generation? Every time they do, it costs them a few billion dollars in R&D and losses for every hardware sale, and why bother when the money's all in the games anyway and those are selling as well as they're going to sell no matter what they do?
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umm no mate. sticka i7 and its much much faster then the consoles cpu
 
Filter said:
but the problem lies is theirs tons of games for the consoles and crap for the PC. why i switched from pc gaming to console gaming. my machines i about 3 years old now. and ill probably get another 3 years out of it.
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I don't forsee upgrading from my Core 2 Quad until 2012-13 at this current rate. My graphics card could use replacing, but with the current state of PC gaming I see little need.
 
jonneymendoza said:
umm no mate. sticka i7 and its much much faster then the consoles cpu
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The triple core CPU in the XBox 360 is only about as powerful as a Pentium D 930, according to the accounts of the lead programmer of Metro 2033 (can't remember the source and can't find it bookmarked). So yeah, modern PCs have consoles outpowered by an order of magnitude.

The Netburst architecture was already long in the tooth when it was in competition with K8. I could see that the 360 has 3-5 years left if it had a more powerful CPU, but jeebus. Can't sqeeze blood from a turnip.

You smell that? It's the smell of stagnation. It's kind of like that pool locker where you left your wet swimming trunks to ferment for a few months during the dog days of summer. Yum.
 
Filter said:
but the problem lies is theirs tons of games for the consoles and crap for the PC. why i switched from pc gaming to console gaming. my machines i about 3 years old now. and ill probably get another 3 years out of it.
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There are plenty of games for the PC. I see far more topics about backlogs of unplayed games than topics about not being able to find any games. They can also be modded to get far more out of them. You can find hundreds, sometimes thousands of extra levels for PC games.
 
The graphics are painful to look at every time I play a new 360 game. I need a day or two to get used to the low textured, jaggy, overall suck of 2007 standard graphics, and then I'll get used to it. I play my 360 more often than my PC too...

But at the rate things are going, my Q6600 build will last a good while longer.
 
BladeVenom said:
There are plenty of games for the PC. I see far more topics about backlogs of unplayed games than topics about not being able to find any games. They can also be modded to get far more out of them. You can find hundreds, sometimes thousands of extra levels for PC games.
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i have lots of time to game as a stay at home dad. so there is hardly a backlog of anything.
and anything on the pc i can play on the 360.
 
Idk, my old E6550 was not cutting now that I got a i7 I feel like games are a cake walk for it. I look at the utilization in all of my games and its 100% of one core. Gaming on PC is so stagnant in terms of graphical development. The games I play most like SC2 barely use anything, its sad really. Now Instead of buying new graphics card and cpus I am looking into buying new Monitors.
 
TechBoy said:
Idk, my old E6550 was not cutting now that I got a i7 I feel like games are a cake walk for it. I look at the utilization in all of my games and its 100% of one core. Gaming on PC is so stagnant in terms of graphical development. The games I play most like SC2 barely use anything, its sad really. Now Instead of buying new graphics card and cpus I am looking into buying new Monitors.
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Very sad. The worst part is, with MS and Sony sandbagging with bringing out new hardware, this is set to continue for the next 4-6 years. Publishers don't want to spend more on development either, so this is great news for them as well. The Joe Blows of the world aren't bothered by this either, they're happy with what visual fidelity current consoles are capable of now.

While I'm also glad I won't have to buy a new console soon I'm not happy about the graphical stagnation it has brought and will continue to bring on the PC side of the fence.

"It's a big shit sandwich, and we're all going to have to take a bite."


Also, here's an idea. I know it's not feasable for most, but it would be wild to see a new console being cabable of surround gaming (e.g. 3 HDTVs or projectors eyefinity style). Fuck stereoscopic 3D and the splitting headache it brings.
 
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Dome said:
it's when the console manufacturers want to change them. I doubt it will be when new tech comes out; current consoles are already getting adaptive (hd-dvd add on, upgradable storage, new controllers to fit existing hardware ala kinect and move)

i don't think many developers are really pushing for heavier graphics, i'd have to imagine the longer a console has been out the easier it is to develop a game for it.

i think it's when sony, ms and nintendo decide they have enough new tech or goodies to bundle together and can convince consumers and developers that it's a good time to start switching to next gen.
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Actually its when things just die off IE every single solitary person out there who will buy the console has one and so they need to make a new excuse to sell more. There has been plenty of tech and consoles are rediculously outdated already but as long as they can keep selling them they are making more and more money off the initial loss leader. These days you cannot do anything without other companies knowing also so I think it is sort of a stand off as soon as one company decides to upgrade all the others are going to jump at the same time.
 
Poordevil said:
I read an interview with Alex St John many moons ago about how badly Sony and Microsoft burned themselves on this current generation of consoles.
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I do not believe this, but honestly I wish I could if this is true it could be the greatest thing for PC games. Because they could just ride it out for so long that people get heavily back into PC games and the new innovation returns to PC gaming. I could also see an even more awesome outcome one where M$ decides it is not worth even continuing the XBOX and instead decides to focus their development on making the PC the best possible gaming platform. I think this would be amazing for us PC gamers.

Some things they could do would be develop input technology and a flexible input API for things like motion and kinect. basically they build interpreters so it does not matter what your input device is (camera, mouse, multi touch, motion sensor) all of them work seamlessly with games sort of liek you can easily use a joystick, trackball or mouse with any game.

Also push for better integration with TVs and help game developers leverage split screens and multiple mouse and keyboard inputs just like you can have 4 controllers. This way people could have 1 powerful machine in the house and it could link to input at a desk somewhere and run the TV. Some sort of virtualization or even just instancing of the OS would allow a person to use 1 computer to do M$ office work in one place while the kids did 4 person gaming in the living room.

The reason that would be good is because currently the main advantage of consoles in entry price people see it as alot cheaper to buy 1 console than multiple computers. Consoles simply have a monopoly on multi user gaming.

M$ already has multi touch input all they need to do is extend it to multiple mice.

The could also extend XBL to desktops and generate cash on top of OS sales.

I know its pipedream but we can always dream.....
 
I think its very impressive what developers have done graphics wise with the 360's GPU/CPU setup. Considering its 5 years old now and still looking quite good. Now the argument could be made that consoles have had a heavy hand in "dumbing" down PC graphics with poorly optimized console ports but still.

I think Sony needs to stop trying to push technology they don't understand so much , the PS3 is still not easy to program for and the whole idea of "Cell" chip technology fell flat on its face. It might have a place in other sectors but not video gaming.

I wonder if Nintendo will ever decide to develop another powerful console or will they stick strictly to interface technology (which makes sense considering how wildly profitable its been for them).
 
I can't wait until the next console generation comes out and there are 90 threads about how PC gaming is dying.
 
Can someone explain to me how companies make back the money they've spent in developing and marketing systems when it's so much?

I mean, when you spend almost a billion dollars on R&D and marketing together, even IF the system sells like hot cakes I don't see how they can make that money back, at least not for a very long time.

I understand you have to spend money to make money but when you spend so much on misc stuff it seems crazy.

Take for example Microsoft's estimated $500 million marketing campaign. In order to just make all that back, they'd need to sell around 3.5 Million Kinects; and that's not even taking into account how much R&D cost them, along with making them and shipping them. All in all I bet it'd take at least 5 million Kinect sells before they made back what they paid for it and to start profiting.

What's funny is, despite how much they've spent on Marketing none of my friends knew what Kinect was.
 
Azureth said:
Can someone explain to me how companies make back the money they've spent in developing and marketing systems when it's so much?

I mean, when you spend almost a billion dollars on R&D and marketing together, even IF the system sells like hot cakes I don't see how they can make that money back, at least not for a very long time.

I understand you have to spend money to make money but when you spend so much on misc stuff it seems crazy.

Take for example Microsoft's estimated $500 million marketing campaign. In order to just make all that back, they'd need to sell around 3.5 Million Kinects; and that's not even taking into account how much R&D cost them, along with making them and shipping them. All in all I bet it'd take at least 5 million Kinect sells before they made back what they paid for it and to start profiting.

What's funny is, despite how much they've spent on Marketing none of my friends knew what Kinect was.
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I am fine with them making money and milking things, I just wish the cycle was not so long now, particularly since it seems to have such a direct effect on my platform of choice, PC gaming. If PC gaming was less subservient, then let the cycle last 20 years for all I cared.

It's like the prevalence of directx 9 force game devs try to target their games to the lowest common denominator for the widest audience.

I wonder if there is a solution to this. Could they try and stretch the features of the new dx releases to be more bold, and so, last longer? But I guess that would just raise the cost of the hardware even more. That or fragment the full suite of dx feature implementations that occurred in the past.


Sigh

Imo, there is no excuse for modern big budget games or mmos to not be using dx10 graphics at a bare minimum. Even with compatibility for older graphics cards, there should be graphic candy for newer hardware by default.
 
Godmachine said:
I think its very impressive what developers have done graphics wise with the 360's GPU/CPU setup. Considering its 5 years old now and still looking quite good. Now the argument could be made that consoles have had a heavy hand in "dumbing" down PC graphics with poorly optimized console ports but still.

I think Sony needs to stop trying to push technology they don't understand so much , the PS3 is still not easy to program for and the whole idea of "Cell" chip technology fell flat on its face. It might have a place in other sectors but not video gaming.

I wonder if Nintendo will ever decide to develop another powerful console or will they stick strictly to interface technology (which makes sense considering how wildly profitable its been for them).
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Compared to how they used to progress in the last 5 years it's been SLOW. Five years used to be a massive graphical leap, now it's meh because of consoles.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
The triple core CPU in the XBox 360 is only about as powerful as a Pentium D 930, according to the accounts of the lead programmer of Metro 2033 (can't remember the source and can't find it bookmarked). So yeah, modern PCs have consoles outpowered by an order of magnitude.

The Netburst architecture was already long in the tooth when it was in competition with K8. I could see that the 360 has 3-5 years left if it had a more powerful CPU, but jeebus. Can't sqeeze blood from a turnip.

You smell that? It's the smell of stagnation. It's kind of like that pool locker where you left your wet swimming trunks to ferment for a few months during the dog days of summer. Yum.
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...but now we have Kinect, where 10-15% of our CPU processing capability gets eaten up in processing input.
 
Anyone remember old ages merge a computer and console built in ? That is Colecovision Adam Computer !

246kpqe.jpg


too bad, it was flop business and stopped selling long time ago, I did bought it and it's was focking biggest box i have ever seen whole package in it and use for few weeks and took it back for refund, they almost denied me mofo, I was like I have a receipt for it, lucky manager was there and granted me money back.

I like to see PlayStation 4 or XBOX 720 allow to run ANY OS on it would be cool because it's powerful enough to handle right ?

No need all out war about which is better games on pc or console waste time.
 
"I like to see PlayStation 4 or XBOX 720 allow to run ANY OS on it would be cool because it's powerful enough to handle right ?"

In that case you are converting the consoles to a personal computer. Essentially they would be a PC that would plug into the TV,right ? Then of course they would have to be upgradable to make the transition total. Add faster CPUs more RAM.
Yea! upgradable Xboxes and Playstations, that's the answer! When they get a little behind the times Sony and MS could offer hardware upgrades. The N64 did that by offering the RAM pac upgrade, so it is not unprecedented. The only real difference between an upgradeable console and a regular PC would be the console's single focus on gaming. The consoles wouldn't even have to run an OS, just be able to run all the games on any version of the console you happen to have. If you have the fastest hardware available you could run games at greater draw distance, higher detail, AA, etc.

Upgradeable consoles is the only way they would be able to keep up with relentlessly advancing technology. The alternative is what we have now, outdated hardware and a huge investment required in order to bring out a whole new generation of consoles. An investment that neither Sony or MS can afford.
 
phatbx133 said:
I like to see PlayStation 4 or XBOX 720 allow to run ANY OS on it would be cool because it's powerful enough to handle right ?
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Why would you want that? They are purpose built devices. I don't want the OS of my TV to be anything but what it needs to be a TV. I don't want my DVD player to run Windows 7, I want it to run whatever OS it needs to play movies.

What about running Windows 98 on Linux on the X-Box?
 
rudy said:
I could also see an even more awesome outcome one where M$ decides it is not worth even continuing the XBOX and instead decides to focus their development on making the PC the best possible gaming platform. I think this would be amazing for us PC gamers.
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They tried this. failed.

i doubt pc gaming will make a huge come back. it will always be around and will always dominate the MMO market. But i dont think it will ever go back to the way it was. i remember when eb games had a wall dedicated to pc gaming now its to a tiny ass rack that you can hardly find.
 
Filter said:
They tried this. failed.
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Huge overstatement on that 'tried'.

A book(Xbox 360 Uncloaked?) by Dean Takahashi, details the making of the 360 and Games for Windows Live. They were sabotaging the PC side for the first 2 years, then realized it wasn't such a great idea. If the tried anything it was to pull PC gamers over to the 360.

You should check it out.
 
I see no reason why consoles cannot take out MMOs either. For a long time people said the same thing about FPS games.
 
Upgradable consoles has basically already happened. But it has certain problems for instance the main thing most console gamers claim is that the gaming is more fair because everyone has a crappy system that is exactly the same. If you allow upgrades you change that and the console just becomes a locked PC. Also the whole thing that makes consoles successful is selling the hardware at a loss until it becomes outdated and so cheap you make money. This would make for very expensive upgrades.
 
In the past all consoles with upgrades didnt do well; Sega CD, Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar CD, N64DD, N64 RAM pac. The main thing is when you develop for upgrades you have to cut off the people who don't have the upgrade and force them to buy it. I think the best one was the N64 ram pack but that only had a hand full of games that supported it.
 
Yep and just like when the xbox had no hdd you could expect very few developers to utilize the upgrades since they did not have access to many clients.
 
djbess said:
In the past all consoles with upgrades didnt do well; Sega CD, Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar CD, N64DD, N64 RAM pac. The main thing is when you develop for upgrades you have to cut off the people who don't have the upgrade and force them to buy it. I think the best one was the N64 ram pack but that only had a hand full of games that supported it.
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Still it was pretty cool that many games were able to run at 640x480. I still remember seeing Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer in high resolution for the first time and I was blown away by the crisp-ness. Too bad the framerates sucked (Turok 2: Seeds of Evil ran like doggie shit in "high rez mode"). And it was nothing like the Sega CD or 32X where they wanted $150-200+ for the add-ons.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
Compared to how they used to progress in the last 5 years it's been SLOW. Five years used to be a massive graphical leap, now it's meh because of consoles.
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5 years ago we had x1800 series now are up to 6xx0 series which is a considerable leap in performance
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
5 years ago we had x1800 series now are up to 6xx0 series which is a considerable leap in performance
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I was talking about software, not hardware. The hardware is there but no one wants to make cutting edge software for it. They would rather churn out Call of Duty 8 with the same engine they were using 3 years ago or make 10000 Unreal 3 games with blurry textures and shit loads of bloom.
 
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