The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Grand Inquisitor Kegkilla_sl said:

lol

Click to expand...

I think (hoping) he's referring to technological convergence, not that people will not be playing console games anymore.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

This will be the last generation of consoles.

Click to expand...

In what way? Will Sony and Microsoft start making them built into TVs? How else will they distribute games? Sony and Microsoft aren't going to stop making consoles so all they can do is shift forms but will still be consoles in nature.

And then steambox comes out, all Gabe drones buy it. Destroys all other consoles on the market.

But no really, I hope PS4 does support Mouse/Keyboard and that they will look more into cross platform multiplayer. I love my ps3, esp for it's exclusive titles, but fuck I'd like to play some fightans with my friends who own xboxs, or anything else for that matter.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Theyll simply become obsolete like arcades did or any other technology/product does? Technology is moving way way too fast for the business model of consoles to keep pace.

Click to expand...

They won't be obsolete as long as there is a market for AAA games and until mobile devices are able to really handle those consoles aren't going anywhere. This is definitely not the last generation.

Sean_sl said:

They won't be obsolete as long as there is a market for AAA games and until mobile devices are able to really handle those consoles aren't going anywhere. This is definitely not the last generation.

Click to expand...

I don't know. Cloud computing and we're already reaching a point where we just pack more pixels into shit because we can, not because it actually makes things look better at 60fps. I could see it, given that the 360 and PS3 have been out FOR-FREAKING-EVER.

Mobile chipsets are improving by leaps and bounds every year. It's crazy how far they've come in such a short amount of time.

Stuff like Epic Citadel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0phPgXeRm78), for example, runs at 2048x1536 at 60fps on the iPad 4. Apple is in the middle of refreshing their current AppleTV with the A5X SoC used in the iPad 3 which would allow the Epic Citadel demo to run at 60fps at 1080p, too, which is pretty damn impressive for a $99 piece of kit. I do wonder what sort of effect they'll have on the console market once they release an App Store for the AppleTV.

Gabe Newell made some interesting comments recently, too.

"The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," Newell said. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging ? I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"

"The biggest challenge, I don't think is from the consoles," Newell said. "I think the biggest challenge is that Apple moves on the living room before the PC industry sort of gets its act together."

Click to expand...

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/30/393...oles-its-apple

You guys are grossly underestimating how much power we still need. We're not even remotely close to hitting a ceiling on visual fidelity. Plus there's a major issue with mobile devices and the storage capacity needed for large games. Not to mention the whole infrastructure of the internet making anything cloud based a total pipe dream for mass market use.

It's going to be a while before we're at a point where everything progresses enough. It definitely won't be the last generation of consoles just on the issue of storage and how unfeasible cloud streaming is going to be for a long time. There's probably at least 2-3 more generations of consoles before mobile devices are ready to fully take over their purpose.

2-3 more generations? That is at least 16-24 years. This will be the last generation. 8 years is all it will take. Smartphones are really powerful as it is now and in 8 years they will be insanely powerful.

The next next generation of devices will be a mobile device and you'll just put your mobile device on a dock hooked up to your TV and use a bluetooth controller to play the game on your TV. You can take it out of the dock and play it on the go with touchscreen controls(*shudders*).

I would be surprised if this next generation was longer than 5 years, this past one has been an anomaly.

You are also overestimating the power that mobile devices have. Plus, the storage and memory issues really can't be ignored. The next consoles are both using 50gb blu-ray drives as a standard and have a memory bandwidth that is an order of magnitude higher than the X360/X720 and they have a hell of a lot more memory to work with as well. They are going to use much larger texture files and be able to push things that are a lot bigger and more of them through the systems. Mobile devices just cannot handle those things yet due to memory and storage. Memory and storage is not going to grow that fast for those devices.

There is a hell of a lot more to a system than raw CPU/GPU power. Until Cloud Streaming of games is a feasible reality, which it isn't going to be for a long time because LOL US Internet Infrastructure, mobile devices aren't going to replace shit.

So y'all are suggesting mobile devices will be able to catch up with PC hardware? This new generation will STILL use physical medium and y'all think in 10 years we are going to be using cell phones to play 1080p games on our TVs (or whatever ridiculous quality we have by then)? Delusional.

I can definitely see the role of consoles shifting to be more like a media center rather than a gaming device but I don't see them disappearing anytime soon.

What you fail to realize is companies will milk the shit out of something till it is no longer possible. There is still plenty of possible out there.

In rough chronological order:

1) Virtually all reports had the PS4 at 4GB of GDDR5 (3.5GB dev usable) and the 720 at 8GB of DDR3 (5GB dev usable).
A)4GB does seem ridiculous, but console makers always skimp on RAM - remember the 360 was only aiming for 256MB until Epic slapped some sense into them.
B)3GB reserved for the system for the 720 also seems ridiculous, but I don't think this is just OS - I think MS designed the system that all of the OS, user apps, Smart Glass output, (much higher res) Kinect camera input, VR goggles input/output, Youtube/Justin.tv output, maybe even TV recording/forwarding may or may not be active at any given time, and designed with a large pool of slower, cheaper RAM accordingly.
C)Supposedly Sony has recently upped the RAM to 8GB to match the 720, but 4GB more of GDDR5 vs. DDR3 is much more of a financial hit.

2) PS4 is almost certainly has no BC. PS3 managed it early on by simply including the PS2 processor, but trying to include Cell in the PS4 would be a technical nightmare. (You have to feel for guys like the Guacamelee devs - Sony has basically told them "You need to finish and entirely sell your game in the next ten months, because at that point the majority of people who would buy your game will have switched to a new system.")

3) I fully expect there to be more generations of consoles. However,
A)I expect the gap between gens to run even longer - I wouldn't expect your 1080 until at least 2020.
B)Physical media will still be an option even then. Massive chunks of the world don't have the technology / business models to support today's game sizes, much less 2020's.
C)I still am doubtful of the impact of the Steambox this gen. As already stated, they have to get around Windows emulation (though porting over OpenGL PS4 games is intriguing), and the array of third party Steamboxes they are evangelizing now is entirely missing the point of consoles (being able to code directly for one lesser cheaper hardware spec for better results).
D)Smart phones continue to gain strength, but they aren't taking over before another generation of consoles (so 2020+). Game image size (not to mention getting that image to the phone), battery life, heat dissipation, etc. are all much bigger issues than you realize. And the biggest issue: UI. Secondly, while the Epic/Chair stuff is impressive, let's remember that resolution is one thing; geometry is another. Note how few character models, particle effects, amount of world textures, etc. you actually get in Infinity Blade.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

I really dont think any of you guys understand the fact that even though the PS4/720 are a year away from being released at the earliest, they are already outdated. The very high development time and cost of consoles simply cant compete anymore with the pace of technological advancement.

Click to expand...

This is both true and untrue in today's environment. The pace of PC performance development is still growing exponentially but look at modern gaming and see just how many games will run successfully on 5 year old computers. PC performance has reached a state where additional upgrades are not significantly impacting PC game development.

The largest barriers to gaming right now is probably or slow internet infrastructure.