EA Asks: Do We Need Another Console Generation?

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K-zon

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Could cancel release titles but keep press releases of them and redesign or revamp them around the say newer system.

Even though say the PS3 and Xbox360 has hard drives and networking, The Xbox did as well, but given the PS2 needed an external interest for think hard drive and network adapter.

So, well two have all maintaining interests with an additional but maybe networking, since lan lines only work the most for either. Or whatever they are called. Rather optical is in use, think on some releases they cancelled those installments for the older relases, but the newer ones probably still have them.

Since music is also on say the internet more, archiving from discs are about useless. And hopefully you don;t need to delete the data on the consoles.

Could say a newer generation of consoles would work on this ideas if any.

For the investments to say in hardware probably would be fairly placed on advancements or within any to find a place within use.

Least of ideas of say ports or release rather they find themselves within an idea of use with or not, might be useful for what it is. Otherwise outside of it is any guess to say.

Otherwise videos have taken interest as well along with music for both with any additions or say adapters.

Otherwise for say releases of interest is only placed within what probably isn't out or covering a new design for either console.

Otherwise again would be anyones guess. Otherwise would seem like a waste of a release for the idea of hardware if not needed. Given current say interests of what has been costs and non-costs of anything.

Rather those matter of course not if as subjective and perepctive if not just say variant.

But still otherwise is place of interest for what might be placed as a btter system would probably be the only other thing that would find its place of interest. Till then would have to wait for any releases to work with what is there for what has been released, and by now there is probably hundreds of hundreds if not thousands.

So with all those and even say whats not of intiall place of interest within ports, given rather to say remake from scratch around the ideas or just say port over with conversion.

Otherwise of it is what is placed within that of more or less of it for what has been say placed within release to say.

Otherwise features for use of what you use at times might be of interest. Think like music playlists you can say port or transfer to other devices and say services within how they were made. Playlist stays as the playlist, like playlist 1 stays as playlist 1.

But does give or take probably of course. Given say services or devices. Why say they would work on some means but not another is anyones guess. Like without playlist interest and the such. Cause the device or service can make it into its own.

For ideas many maybe old and the like, just any use of them would probably vary for what they would be. Think even the 360 or PS3 comes with netflix. Probably used an say example of interest of maybe apps or services to say on some parts of say.

Otherwise of it who knows, something to think of given they have think put a stall on the releases. With HD-DVD been abandoned for basically any use, and Blu-rays wating for content to be developed for their sizes of use.

Rather any other interests would be placed within any for release is probably within the interests of uses, which should be the same. But the Wii even changed their outlook of interest. Rather they should of or not is any guess of course.

Idk, theres probably a few things but of them say against whats in say intial release already, is kind niche on a general interest of overall use, other of specfic within it. Otherwise its just ideas of interest for place of interest otherwise taken up for interest or not.
 

phraun

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[citation][nom]damian86[/nom]Hot post..I think the answer to that is a yes, and everybody knows.Not sure the ps3,maybe yes,because of what was going on with crysis 2. but the xbox360 definately. I noticed the lack of power playing halo reach in some levels the fps will go down as hell and the newest games are getting powerful engines, lol the xbox360 is still using HD-DVDs which it was doing well untill now. Anyway,both need to get replaced with better hardware.I got a ps3 to fix..for overheating..[/citation]

Uh, the 360 uses regular DVDs. The HD-DVD drive was an external addon drive that has long since been discontinued due to the success of BluRay.
 

Maximus_Delta

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[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]Since you're struggling understanding much of anything, including English, I'll sum it up. First, don't act like you're the voice of the people, you're barely literate yourself, and to think you know more about what people are saying than they do, is absurdly stupid. People take their games too seriously, and whine that the world isn't fair to them if they don't get better this or that. It's idiotic, not that you'd be able to see it, being one of them. Take it in perspective when complaining. People aren't eating (and it's so easy to say you're contributing to charities, but in your case, I'll remind you Taco Bell isn't a charity), and they're dealing with it. Not having a better game because of a console shouldn't elicit so much emotion or hostility, unless you're a maladjusted twit that thinks the world owes him or her something. And no, the posts don't understand Sony isn't going to release a console so their games are better. If you could read, you'd see most people are complaining Sony should so their PC games are better. This isn't Sony's motivation, at all. They'll do it when it makes financial sense, even if it causes horrible suffering to the Zargon slayers because they're not getting quite the resolution on the PCs they need to.[/citation]

You sir, are abnoxious and borderline retarded... what does the worlds poverty situation have to do with me wanting better gaming graphics / phyiscs / AI.
 

Caffeinecarl

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[citation][nom]Nick_C[/nom]A lot of consumers play console games because of:a) Probably don't need to upgrade the hardware to play the latest and greatest (i.e. CPU / GPU intensive) PC game;b) No individual driver updates to optimise performance of the hardware / operating system configuration;c) Put disk in drive, click play....Not every gamer has access to the kind of funds required to keep a gaming PC up to date[/citation]
Right. I've built a good gaming PC that just happens to be a few years old, but honestly, I see no reason to replace my parts when I can still play modern games with decent performance. I did the vast majority of it back in 2008, except for a GTS 250 that I bought in 2009 that can still pull even with mid-range offerings and as long as it works, I'll keep on using it just the way it is. I love gorgeous graphics as much as anybody, but if it's not fun, it's not fun! If the consoles or graphics hardware aren't being made obsolete every six months to two years, it's not going to break my heart!

I have other things I can spend my money on besides hardware, so there. A new console will come when when it's time and we will all love it, but I'm in no hurry.
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]amk-aka-phantom[/nom]From one side, no. From the other side, if we are ever to hope that the game developers will get their heads out of their a$$es and start developing games with better graphics, gameplay and storyline than the current stuff we get, we need something more powerful than these obsolete garbages. So maybe we do, after all. It is painful to see great games delayed to implement unnecessary console BS (Kinect in ME3) or being dumbed down graphically (again, ME series). Consoles were great long time ago, when they could give any PC, save the most powerful, a run for their money. That era has come to an end and the next generation of consoles won't manage to keep up with desktop PCs anymore.[/citation]

aside from graphics, and heavy physics game play, current consolse are good enough, and its on developers to make the gameplay and story better, not amount of new hardware will help them in those reguards.[citation][nom]amk-aka-phantom[/nom]Then why the crappy graphics, lol? I was shocked to see MS say that "Xbox 360 is still in the middle of its working cycle and will be there till 2015" - that way even the console gamers will give up on it.[/citation]

people who care about gameplay, generally don't care about graphics. we dont want tech demos, we want fun games.

[citation][nom]Cirdecus[/nom]His opinion is closed minded. Sony and Microsoft have been pushing the console wars using technological advances only. They're forgetting the entire point of the systems and that is to have fun.Sure, we may be hitting a plateau in terms of number of polys, HD picture, and sheer hardware power and graphics.. but there's a HUGE potential in innovation, particularly the road that Nintendo has been taking the great part of the decade. There's a reason why the Wii is soundly inferior in terms of hardware and technology but still able to outsell both Sony and Microsoft hands down.It's because Nintendo saw the forest through the trees. They realized that innovation and revolution wasn't going to come by following the beaten hardware improvement path. The Wii remote and Kinect are only the beginning. To stay competitive, companies are going to have to devert from the easy hardware battles and start coming up with new ways for users to play games. To interact with their games with their friends.Look at Apple. They didn't revolutionize the smartphone market with a 10GHz processor, 20MP camera did they? No. They did it with a new idea. There's better ways to use this hardware... lets hope they can find them.[/citation]
point is good.
we hit an area where pushing more pollies doesn't matter, people cant tell the difference even if you dubble it . see resistance 1 and 2 as an example.
i personaly dont want a new console generation until full world tessellation is possible. if we came out with a new gen now, what would it do? it would look like a 1080p version of what we have now, and probably better textures, and more advanced lighting, and thats it.

if we want that tech jump we have to wait, because who wants to spend 600ish$ every 4-5 years when the leap in tech isnt there?

i dont want a console to baby step i want it to take one large step or none at all.
tell me pc gamers, right now, what makes a pc game look better than a console? its not the pollies
its textures, lighting and minimal tessellation, and we are talking about tech that takes 2 gpus minimum to push out at playable 1920x1080 resolution.

im done because i know this will fall on deaf ears and be downvoted because no one here actually understands this beyond "pc is newer hardware, consoles are old".... i souldnt say understands, i should say will talk about it beyond that.
 

amk-aka-Phantom

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Okay, congratulations to my fellow PC enthusiasts... we've been successfully trolled by EA. I mean, everyone knows they're full of $h!t... take a look at Mass Effect 3 Xbox 360 demo - it looks worse than ME1. We've received a DX11/high-res packs for DA2 and Crysis 2; yet ME2 never got such a thing despite way bigger fanbase and need for such an upgrade (thanks to the Xbox, the distant texturess look like garbage in ME2). Why? Because they don't want to make Xbox look even worse than it already is. DA2 and Crysis 2 received the packs because people were whining about them being inferior to their predecessors and the DX11 packs triggered some more sales.

You console fanboys keep talking about how nothing that we say matters. Of course it doesn't, as long as most people choose to remain motionless and blindly accept whatever is being thrown at them. But do you remember what happened to DA2 prices when gamers complained about its allegedly (can't confirm, didn't play yet, lol) crappy storyline and gameplay? DA2 can be now had for as low as $15, I think... compare that to other famous games that still sell for $40 after 2-3 years since their release.

I think we CAN make a difference as long as we're clear about what we want. EA'd love everyone to shift to the consoles and buy their stupid sports games, but not everyone is willing to do it; and eventually even the hardcore console fanboys will get sick of their 360s and PS3s - I'd be ashamed to play on something THAT lame when there's already much better option - a PC - for a reasonable price.

You all speak about PC gaming being "expensive"... well, save some money! Miss on a new CoD - that's already $60 saved, I bet. You've got yourself a PC cabinet right there! Now, stop wasting money on all kinds of BS the media tries to talk you into wasting or waste less. There're all kinds of ways to save money. It is possible, and once you've got yourself a top-class machine (which can be had for ridiculously low amount of money, if you know how to find some good deals), it will serve you for at least three years, and it will be still going strong even after that - you can use it as a backup rig or give it to your relatives (if you're fine with messing it up eventually, lol). I have some friends who are still kicking with top Core 2 Duos and 9800GTs, and they don't *really* need an upgrade, and that's after 4-5 years... needless to say, graphics is much better than on consoles.
 

atikkur

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yea this EA person is right after all.. just forget console, they are fine now (or not needed).
lets improve PCs more, this baby is still untouched. and you (developer) still unleashed its power and all the efforts should be headed to explore the full potential of DX11. thats the agenda.
 

amk-aka-Phantom

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A bit of sarcasm: we don't need new consoles, because according to another EA representative whose interview Tom's published a few weeks back, tablets are the best gaming platform and the games there a built with a (quote!): "...hardcore gamer in mind".

I don't think EA can be taken seriously any more at all.
 

guardianangel42

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PC Gamers: Shut up. You'll get what you want. You should know this by now if you paid attention to gaming news.

If the consoles don't update, the developers will shift back to PCs. Epic has already said that their new version of the Unreal engine, the lifeblood of their company, will require a new console to run properly. I've seen the tech demo, achieved with two GTX 580s in SLI if I remember correctly, and there is no way the consoles will be able to compete with that.

So how successful is Epic in selling their engine? Pretty damn successful and all the developers that rely on that engine may end up jumping ship too because they can't develop their own engines and Epic's is proving to be a powerful tool already.

And they aren't the only ones. Battlefield 3 developer Dice has their own Frostbite engine, and so far it's looking like it will be too much for current consoles to handle to its fullest.

The industry is in a weird place. The PS2 was so successful for so long, all the major companies want to replicate that lifecycle and profit. But what I don't think MS or Sony fully realized was the implications of driving the video game industry. Unlike the PS2, the 360 and PS3 were part of a huge revolution in the image of video games.

This pass time became common place. My dad, an Aeronautical engineer who works at an Air Force base hiring new engineers, told me that for him and his coworkers, video game playing is a perfectly acceptable pass time now.

Not only that, the popularity of the pass time exploded and all the focus was on two consoles. The dark side of this success is that MS and Sony became responsible for the industry. As game developers flocked away from the versatile and more powerful PC market and onto MS and Sony's platforms, those developers became reliant on those two companies to drive the industry.

But that reliance will only last so long. At some point, developer ambitions will exceed the limitations of the consoles. If MS and Sony don't come out with new consoles when that happens, they'll be left behind.
 

hanrak

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[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]Since you're struggling understanding much of anything, including English, I'll sum it up. First, don't act like you're the voice of the people, you're barely literate yourself, and to think you know more about what people are saying than they do, is absurdly stupid. People take their games too seriously, and whine that the world isn't fair to them if they don't get better this or that. It's idiotic, not that you'd be able to see it, being one of them. Take it in perspective when complaining. People aren't eating (and it's so easy to say you're contributing to charities, but in your case, I'll remind you Taco Bell isn't a charity), and they're dealing with it. Not having a better game because of a console shouldn't elicit so much emotion or hostility, unless you're a maladjusted twit that thinks the world owes him or her something. And no, the posts don't understand Sony isn't going to release a console so their games are better. If you could read, you'd see most people are complaining Sony should so their PC games are better. This isn't Sony's motivation, at all. They'll do it when it makes financial sense, even if it causes horrible suffering to the Zargon slayers because they're not getting quite the resolution on the PCs they need to.[/citation]

What does my comprehension of English have to do with this debate? Seeing as you have brought it up though, you've made lots of mistakes yourself in your last essay so its never a good idea to attack someone else's post due to grammar unless you are sure that your own post if perfect before hand. It always makes you look desperate.

Taco bell? We don't have those in England.

It also appears that looking at our post ratings that more people agree with me than they do you, so one could assume that I have a better understanding here of what people are saying and that they are not dumb.

By the way, this is a message board, where people discuss/complain and generally chat about things in life. I suggest that if you find the posts here in some way offensive or over bearing that you find another board to your liking because I can assure you that you are the only one thinking in this strange way.
 

DaveUK

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Actually, John Carmack has talked extensively about the concessions and complex technical workarounds he has needed to employ in order to get id Tech 5 running as desired on the current consoles - in particular RAM constraints. This leads to a detrimental experience in both quality and performance (eg load times) for the game, as well as substantially increasing development time in having to accommodate for that.

Other developers (best example, Crysis 2) have taken the far simpler approach of creating a 'lowest common denominator' engine which simply works from the established console base feature set and using that to design the whole cross-platform experience. I'm not including the subsequent DX11 patch here, just talking about the game state at launch.

If the existing consoles were perfect hardware wise, we wouldn't have top-tier game engine developers expressing concerns about certain hardware choices in the current generation of consoles.

I think Frank Gibeau makes a very good point, he is just one generation premature in his argument.

Yes, this is the first console generation where both key players combine a stable multimedia platform with competent 'HD capable' hardware and an accessible internet connectivity backbone.

However, now that those are an accepted reality in the console wars, we need them to deliver something future-proof in the hardware department. Would consumers pay an extra £100 on the price of an Xbox 360 to see an 80GB SSD and 2GB RAM in their consoles, if it meant significantly better performance and a longer life cycle? I would.

 

deksman

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It's painful to watch console ports of games to the PC that lag horribly, but should be running fine on a mid-range laptop from late 2008.

A ton of other factors is to be taken into consideration.
Numerous games are made for consoles first, PC's end up suffering in a lot of cases and this is in cases where the graphical portion of the game simply doesn't justify the high hardware requirements.
Look at the Unreal engine and how far it can be pushed.
That thing runs beautifully on mid-range hardware from nearly 3 years ago.

Optimization is a problem even for games that are purely made for PC's.

Technologically speaking, consumer grade hardware is a joke to technologies that were developed by now (several decades behind to be precise).
But consoles are among some of the worst examples of OUTDATED consumer grade technology.

And while I will agree that you can indeed make great looking games today for current consoles, it means nothing if the PC version is a horrible port that will lag even on the most powerful computer.
 

anaral 234

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The console makers need to be careful with their upcoming consoles. The market place has changed alot since the 360 and ps3 first came to market. I don't think consumers will tolerate a really high price cutting edge console like how the PS3 was launched.

More horsepower will also increase development cost for game developers, and consumers will probably refuse to let the costs passed down to them. Increasing developer cost also makes it riskier for developer to recover their cost. Even in this generation, only EA and Activision can afford multimillion dollar commercial flops like Bulletstorm, but every other company cannot.

I think we need the laws of economics to catch up to what companies like Epic want to do technology wise. Cheaper, more powerful technology will push the cost of buying and developing new generation of console games, but if they push it too fast too far, consumers will vote with their wallets on whether they think the new technology is worth their money in a gaming market with more choices now than ever.

 

werner123

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Now i know why Shift 2 unleashed graphics looks like sh*t compared to shift 1 the trees looks like oil paintings ugh! and runs like crap why didn't they just use the same engine from shift 1?

 
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to be honest the next gen only needs a buff in the memory area....and a refresh of gpu. all you pc heads are mad because consoles more games...also no pc is optimized...almost everybody has a different setup. every ps3, xbox 360, and wii has the same processing power, has the same amount of memory. because of piracy and cheating is why you pc useres don't receive as many games. i'll go out on a limb and say that 75% of gamers own a console. with 50 percent owning a smart phone. pcs are dying due to smart phones and tablets.....laptops even outsold pcs.
 

shin0bi272

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My issue with this concept is that no we dont need a new console generation because the console people are happy with what they have. They dont care for dx11 graphics because they are fine with dx9. Im a pc (almost exclusive) gamer and playing call of duty black ops on the pc was boring but my coworker still plays it on his console every night. Why? its a first person shooter of the type pc gamers play. So he feels like hes got enough to last him years of play time. He also is a high school drop out and has a below average IQ... But... He represents the average console mindset. "I dont need dx11 hardware tessellation because I cant tell too much of a difference and when Im getting shot at who cares?" So that means I get shooters on rails like crysis2 that look cool (and get a dx11 patch for the pc) but are ultimately the most boring POS ever.

So on the one hand no they dont need new consoles (they could just release ps3.11 [LOL] with a dx11 card in it and be good ) but if we dont get new consoles we wont get new pc games either and that will be tragically boring for all the pc users.

But on the other hand if pc's continue to get better graphics (dx11.1, hardware physics, etc) and the consoles dont catch up... we will have what we had back in the early 90's where there were 2 classes of gamer the console kids who played mario and sonic the hedgehog and pc gamers that played doom and quake and civilization.

So the cycle could repeat itself if the console makers dont keep up with the pc... but if they do then the pc will become less crucial for the gamer's shopping list... which might create a vicious circle if we're not careful.
 

eldridgep

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[citation][nom]amk-aka-phantom[/nom]From one side, no. From the other side, if we are ever to hope that the game developers will get their heads out of their a$$es and start developing games with better graphics, gameplay and storyline than the current stuff we get, we need something more powerful than these obsolete garbages. So maybe we do, after all. It is painful to see great games delayed to implement unnecessary console BS (Kinect in ME3) or being dumbed down graphically (again, ME series). Consoles were great long time ago, when they could give any PC, save the most powerful, a run for their money. That era has come to an end and the next generation of consoles won't manage to keep up with desktop PCs anymore.[/citation]

Since when did enhanced hardware improve storylines or gameplay? I like flashy graphics as much as the next man but the screens for BF3 still wow me 1080p is enough to keep me going. Much rather play on my big TV than a number of smaller monitors.
 

eldridgep

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[citation][nom]jimmysmitty[/nom]Nope. Lets just stay stagnant in technology. Do we need AMDs Bulldozer? Do we need SSDs? Or the HD7000 series?Hell we didn't even need Sandy Bridge or 22nm.All we need is a 386 with 4KB of system RAM.[/citation]

4KB of RAM what 386 did you have?!?

Honestly next you'll be telling me my Tseng Labs ET4000 VESA local bus graphics card is out of date..... honestly some people.... :)
 
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