I'm expecting a new gen to start by 2011 myself. I think both Microsoft and Sony could do what Nintendo did going from the Gamecube to the Wii which would keep costs to them and consumers quite low. I think that the most motivating factor is actually Blu-ray for Microsoft. It's quickly becoming a good time for MS to make this jump as prices are dropping and they can put a lens in that has much better read rates which I'm thinking is somewhat of a factor for PS3 games.
I'm sure Sony doesn't want to launch a new machine as soon but they'll probably have to no later then a year after the others just to keep up with the Joneses.
Nintendo is certainly in a very comfortable position right now as they have yet to even feel the need to cut the price of the machine which has been making them a profit since day one. The impact that Microsoft's and Sony's motion tech makes will certainly be the deciding factor though. They could coast right now to at least a year after either of the other two companies launch their next hardware iteration.
i bought an hd console less than a week ago.
want this generation to last at least another 5-6 years, hopefully more
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
bugsonglass said:guys come on sony is still making, and people are still buying ... and enjoying the ps2 (and for good reason)
i bought an hd console less than a week ago.
want this generation to last at least another 5-6 years, hopefully more
I wholeheartedly agree. 
bugsonglass said:guys come on sony is still making, and people are still buying ... and enjoying the ps2 (and for good reason)
i bought an hd console less than a week ago.
want this generation to last at least another 5-6 years, hopefully more
Making and selling doesn't mean its still being actively supported.
When a new console launches its predecessor is considered the old gen.
Well I've been enjoying this gen for over 3 years now so I don't want to wait for you slowpokes to catch up.
Anyway I doubt the transition will be as immediate and as jarring as it was going from Xbox to 360. I'm sure this gen will be well supported for at least a couple of years past next gen's introduction especially if both Sony and Microsoft take Nintendo's Gamecube to Wii approach to creating their next systems since development of games for such similarily designed hardware would be quite easy.
Archangel3371 said:
Well I've been enjoying this gen for over 3 years now so I don't want to wait for you slowpokes to catch up.
Anyway I doubt the transition will be as immediate and as jarring as it was going from Xbox to 360. I'm sure this gen will be well supported for at least a couple of years past next gen's introduction especially if both Sony and Microsoft take Nintendo's Gamecube to Wii approach to creating their next systems since development of games for such similarily designed hardware would be quite easy.
Curious. How did you feel about Wii when you found out about its specs?
Would you be happy if MS and Sony effectively stunted its hardware like Wii did? What if a competitor did the leapfrog thing and made it look old hat?
gamingeek said:
Archangel3371 said:
Well I've been enjoying this gen for over 3 years now so I don't want to wait for you slowpokes to catch up.
Anyway I doubt the transition will be as immediate and as jarring as it was going from Xbox to 360. I'm sure this gen will be well supported for at least a couple of years past next gen's introduction especially if both Sony and Microsoft take Nintendo's Gamecube to Wii approach to creating their next systems since development of games for such similarily designed hardware would be quite easy.
Curious. How did you feel about Wii when you found out about its specs?
Would you be happy if MS and Sony effectively stunted its hardware like Wii did? What if a competitor did the leapfrog thing and made it look old hat?
Well that's the thing right there. Microsoft and Sony both offered something far superior to what Nintendo was offering so that made me decide what my primary system was going to be due to my preferences and the Wii would simply be my gaming system to play Nintendo games on along with the VC games and the odd third party title here and there that I couldn't get on the other consoles ie. mainly Capcom's offerings RE4, REUC, etc. My decision to go with the 360 instead of the PS3 was due to the 360 being out first, the two were fairly close spec-wise, the 360 was a little bit cheaper, and third-party support was looking much stronger for Microsoft then previously leading me to believe, and rightfully so, that many third-party titles would be multiplatform with minimal differences between the versions.
Now supposing one of the three next-gen consoles were to be a large margin spec-wise ahead of the others then I would likely heavily consider that would be my primary system choice but of course many other important factors would be under consideration as well such as price and most importantly what kind of game support it gets.
Come on people, this gen is not lasting 5-6 more years. It will last longer than 5 but not much longer after that. By 2012 we will have a new console, for sure. And hopefully Nintendo is first (though it makes no business sense at the moment) cause they are the most outdated.
Save Zelda for then, launch the Wii Too with Zelda as a launch title, bundle it with Wii Sports Too and there and price it at $250 again. I think all the Wii owners will be ready for the new one by then.
Okay, I've already stated my opinion on Nintendo, so I'm now going to focus on Microsoft and Sony.
In my opinion, neither company will release a new console until 2014-2015 at the earliest. I don't believe they will pull a Nintendo, and release their next console as a slightly upgraded 360 or PS3. Instead, I believe they will release new slim models of their current gen consoles with the exact same specs, and they will include motion controllers in the box. This will be the closest thing to next gen that we will see in the next five or six years.
My reasoning is based on the fact that both Microsoft and Sony have saw the light, and are now going to aggressively go after the casual market. Casual gamers aren't swayed by pretty HD graphics, so releasing a new, even more powerful console would be completely unnecessary, and very costly.
Ravenprose said:Okay, I've already stated my opinion on Nintendo, so I'm now going to focus on Microsoft and Sony.
In my opinion, neither company will release a new console until 2014-2015 at the earliest. I don't believe they will pull a Nintendo, and release their next console as a slightly upgraded 360 or PS3. Instead, I believe they will release new slim models of their current gen consoles with the exact same specs, and they will include motion controllers in the box. This will be the closest thing to next gen that we will see in the next five or six years.
My reasoning is based on the fact that both Microsoft and Sony have saw the light, and are now going to aggressively go after the casual market. Casual gamers aren't swayed by pretty HD graphics, so releasing a new, even more powerful console would be completely unnecessary, and very costly.
No, please no.
New consoles, slightly upgraded by 2012 as well.
Dvader said:
Ravenprose said:
Okay, I've already stated my opinion on Nintendo, so I'm now going to focus on Microsoft and Sony.
In my opinion, neither company will release a new console until 2014-2015 at the earliest. I don't believe they will pull a Nintendo, and release their next console as a slightly upgraded 360 or PS3. Instead, I believe they will release new slim models of their current gen consoles with the exact same specs, and they will include motion controllers in the box. This will be the closest thing to next gen that we will see in the next five or six years.
My reasoning is based on the fact that both Microsoft and Sony have saw the light, and are now going to aggressively go after the casual market. Casual gamers aren't swayed by pretty HD graphics, so releasing a new, even more powerful console would be completely unnecessary, and very costly.
No, please no.
New consoles, slightly upgraded by 2012 as well.
Yeah I definitely can't see them waiting that long either. I too see these current systems being slightly upgraded ala GC to Wii. That will make it easier for developers and cheaper for both developers and console manufacturers. You're not going to see Sony and MS bring out some $500 plus system in fact I would be surprised if they even released a $400 system. I'm expecting more around $350. I fully expect Microsoft to be the first to launch because they've already had a system out since Fall of 2005 and we're coming up on the 360's 4th anniversary. I'm expecting 2011 and definitely no later then 2012. Like I said the biggest push for MS right now is to adopt Blu-ray as the new medium. While it made sense back in 2005 to stay away from it it's now making much more sense to move on and adopt due to cheaper costs now and better hardware.
Archangel3371 said:Yeah I definitely can't see them waiting that long either. I too see these current systems being slightly upgraded ala GC to Wii. That will make it easier for developers and cheaper for both developers and console manufacturers. You're not going to see Sony and MS bring out some $500 plus system in fact I would be surprised if they even released a $400 system. I'm expecting more around $350. I fully expect Microsoft to be the first to launch because they've already had a system out since Fall of 2005 and we're coming up on the 360's 4th anniversary. I'm expecting 2011 and definitely no later then 2012. Like I said the biggest push for MS right now is to adopt Blu-ray as the new medium. While it made sense back in 2005 to stay away from it it's now making much more sense to move on and adopt due to cheaper costs now and better hardware.
I don't know if I agree with you pricewise. Sony can't offer a $350 console right now, and theirs has been on the market for 2 1/2 years and technically has been downgraded from the original design. Even if they just make minor upgrades to it, they're going to be right back at $400 if they try to launch in 2012.
The more I think about it, the more I think that Sony is going to try and ride out the storm and stick with the PS3 much longer than this generation goes. I think they'd be more likely to counter with a new design and reintroduce backward compatibility or something like that. Assuming they are finally able to break even on PS3 sales by the end of the year or next year, I just can't see them launching a new console right when their current model finally becomes profitable.
If someone at that organization comes up with a clever marketing scheme (assuming they can tear themselves away from the assclowns who currently handle their god awful marketing), I think it would be the best course of action to simply rebrand while the other companies introduce new models. Inferior technology has won the last 3 generations of console gaming so they could have a shot.
robio said:
Archangel3371 said:
Yeah I definitely can't see them waiting that long either. I too see these current systems being slightly upgraded ala GC to Wii. That will make it easier for developers and cheaper for both developers and console manufacturers. You're not going to see Sony and MS bring out some $500 plus system in fact I would be surprised if they even released a $400 system. I'm expecting more around $350. I fully expect Microsoft to be the first to launch because they've already had a system out since Fall of 2005 and we're coming up on the 360's 4th anniversary. I'm expecting 2011 and definitely no later then 2012. Like I said the biggest push for MS right now is to adopt Blu-ray as the new medium. While it made sense back in 2005 to stay away from it it's now making much more sense to move on and adopt due to cheaper costs now and better hardware.
I don't know if I agree with you pricewise. Sony can't offer a $350 console right now, and theirs has been on the market for 2 1/2 years and technically has been downgraded from the original design. Even if they just make minor upgrades to it, they're going to be right back at $400 if they try to launch in 2012.
The more I think about it, the more I think that Sony is going to try and ride out the storm and stick with the PS3 much longer than this generation goes. I think they'd be more likely to counter with a new design and reintroduce backward compatibility or something like that. Assuming they are finally able to break even on PS3 sales by the end of the year or next year, I just can't see them launching a new console right when their current model finally becomes profitable.
If someone at that organization comes up with a clever marketing scheme (assuming they can tear themselves away from the assclowns who currently handle their god awful marketing), I think it would be the best course of action to simply rebrand while the other companies introduce new models. Inferior technology has won the last 3 generations of console gaming so they could have a shot.
Yeah Sony can't quite get the PS3 down to $350 right now I'm assuming but Fall of 2012 is still over 3 years away which is a lot of time to cut costs. I too think that Sony will try to ride this gen out as long as they can but no more then a year from when Microsoft launches their new system. So depending on when that happens a new Sony system would likely launch Fall 2012 or Fall 2013.
However, Microsoft? Definite new release. The only thing that would possibly change that is if they sincerely believe a directed 360 with Natal could be an answer to Wii. If so, they're as stupid as Sony.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobileArchangel3371 said:My decision to go with the 360 instead of the PS3 was due to the 360 being out first, the two were fairly close spec-wise, the 360 was a little bit cheaper, and third-party support was looking much stronger for Microsoft then previously leading me to believe, and rightfully so, that many third-party titles would be multiplatform with minimal differences between the versions.gamingeek said:
Now supposing one of the three next-gen consoles were to be a large margin spec-wise ahead of the others then I would likely heavily consider that would be my primary system choice but of course many other important factors would be under consideration as well such as price and most importantly what kind of game support it gets.
I went with 360 for the same reason. Because 360 launched earlier, the price came down faster too, so I jumped in.
Dvader said:Come on people, this gen is not lasting 5-6 more years. It will last longer than 5 but not much longer after that. By 2012 we will have a new console, for sure. And hopefully Nintendo is first (though it makes no business sense at the moment) cause they are the most outdated.
Save Zelda for then, launch the Wii Too with Zelda as a launch title, bundle it with Wii Sports Too and there and price it at $250 again. I think all the Wii owners will be ready for the new one by then.
But the question for me is what form will these new consoles take? The Wii is like a mighty exclaimation mark for other companies saying: hey we CAN repackage old goods at a low cost to ourselves and the consumer doesn't care. So will the new consoles be old graphics tech with new spins on other features? 360 is triple core now, do you think it will be 10 core next gen? With 1gb RAM? etc?
So I had to chop alot of the article down because it was so long. But the other stuff is just as relevant, namely talking about firstly PC upgrades and secondly these new OnDemand gaming services.
One platform, however, isn’t a slave to generational change. With new graphics cards and CPUs being released every month, PCs have always provided a technical benchmark for consoles to aspire to. But with the highest-specification PC already running a game like Crysis at fantastical resolutions and with the benefits of DirectX 10-fuelled graphical effects, consoles are already falling significantly behind. In three years, might the kind of people who buy the first consoles of a new generation have gravitated towards PC for their thrills?
Projects like OnLive remove the whole idea of having a console in the first place
Pachter is clear that it’s not relevant, saying: “PC games are such a small slice of the overall business now that it’s almost irrelevant if there’s a quality difference.” But it’s a complex question, not least because of the changes that PC gaming is currently undergoing. PC technology leaders are emphasising other uses for hardware power, seeing GPUs as ideal for such computationally intensive tasks as AI and physics. In relation to the fear that graphics would therefore take a hit, Roy Taylor of Nvidia told us last year: “If we’ve got the baseline graphics at a point where people say that that’s good enough, then no. I think we’re getting to a point where baseline graphics are somewhere around Crysis and that’s pretty damn good. What we need is not more photorealism, but more going on.” Could developers continue to create games that can take advantage of this power and also easily be ported to the current generation of consoles? Might a gulf in power be harmful to the ongoing development of games on PC?
All the while, however, the idea of consoles as they currently exist is being eroded. It might be difficult to imagine forthcoming streaming game services like OnLive, David Perry’s Gaikai and AMD’s Otoy project practically implemented on existing broadband infrastructure, but their potential can’t be ignored. “The concept is logical,” Perry tells us. “We buy the highest end, so the hardware is far more expensive than anybody could normally buy, and finally your gaming experience moves where the world is at. Conceptually, would you rather have a machine sit on your shelf for six to eight years with dust all over it before you can taste the next level? Or would you rather move with the times? Me, I’d rather experience it.”
And then there’s Apple. Pachter admits that he knows no one at the company, but believes that it makes sense for it to build on the success of iPhone and create a living-room computer that plays media (Apple TV style), supports Skype-like internet phone and video calls, and runs applications according to principles set by the App Store, all using similar technology to what Apple is already selling in its MacBooks. It wouldn’t represent a new generation, but it could cause for consoles the reshuffling of attitudes that iPhone has done for handhelds.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digital-foundry-how-microsoft-could-build-a-new-360
So the cat's out of the bag or thereabouts. Xbox bosses will wish he hadn't, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that a "new Xbox" bundled with, or even integrating, the Project Natal 3D camera will launch in 2010, just days after the company distanced itself from talk of a new machine. Bearing in mind this is the same firm that refused to confirm the existence of the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU even when photos showing the packaging in actual shops appeared online, this is clearly something of an unplanned turn of events at best, a marketing disaster at worst.
The news first emerged when 1UP carried a story claiming the existence of new Xbox hardware in its most recent podcast, tantalising its audience by promising that along with bundled Project Natal, the console itself would be an enhanced, more powerful but still backwards-compatible version of the current 360 architecture, something I was quick to dismiss in a follow-up blog post on the Digital Foundry channel.
More at the link
gamingeek said:http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digital-foundry-how-microsoft-could-build-a-new-360
So the cat's out of the bag or thereabouts. Xbox bosses will wish he hadn't, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that a "new Xbox" bundled with, or even integrating, the Project Natal 3D camera will launch in 2010, just days after the company distanced itself from talk of a new machine. Bearing in mind this is the same firm that refused to confirm the existence of the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU even when photos showing the packaging in actual shops appeared online, this is clearly something of an unplanned turn of events at best, a marketing disaster at worst.
The news first emerged when 1UP carried a story claiming the existence of new Xbox hardware in its most recent podcast, tantalising its audience by promising that along with bundled Project Natal, the console itself would be an enhanced, more powerful but still backwards-compatible version of the current 360 architecture, something I was quick to dismiss in a follow-up blog post on the Digital Foundry channel.
More at the link
Yeah definitely more at the link. While it's just a "theory" of why they think there may be a new 360 launched in 2010 it is a very good read but he also gives very plausible reasons as to why there may not be a new 360 released in 2010 at the end of the article. Personally I think Microsoft will go the route Nintendo made in designing their next console which I think will launch in 2011. It will be a Blu-ray system with modest upgrades all around from the current 360. Sony will do the same and while they would prefer to hold off as long as possible they'll probably launch it no longer then 1 year after MS. Nintendo will be quite interesting to see because now that the Wii is a proven success they'll be able to really beef up the specs on it and they'll likely have to.
They cant do a wii sports or wii fit every year. I mean, it's hard to create a driver for mass sales and media coverage, year on year. Despite Wii Music and animal crossing selling 2 and 3 million respectively they are widely seen as failures in 2008 to do what Wii fit and Sports did.
Motionplus may give Sports resort a giant boost. It may be this years Wii Play. I suppose. But you know its hard to create this mass market drivers year on year. Look at the feeble showing at E3 of the vitality sensor.