spectrum48k

PlayStation 4 And More - Forbes.com

don't expect any revelations - just a general discussion

PeteBrant

Ps 10 years
Ps2 10 years

Xbox 4years
Gamecube 4years

Dreamcast 4 years.
Saturn 3.5years
N64 5 years



Stick your neck out mike

(We will see Xbox 3 before 2012)

bob269

I think you should work for Sony Pete with your clever marketing statistics to make things seem better than they are.

Ps1 - 1995
Ps2 - 1999
Ps3 - 2006/7

That's not a 10 yr gap between releases, maybe they are still selling but thats irrelevant, they do not have a 10yr life cycle (maybe a 10yr sales cycle but not performance wise), the new consoles are released every 5/6 years and a lot of people make the transistion to the new hardware. If somebody wants to hang on to their inferior console for an extra 4 years thats their choice it doesnt mean the new hardware isnt available.

PeteBrant

I wasn;t trying to make out SOny to be any better than anyone else, I was just pointing out that his 5-6 year figure is possibly a little optimistic.

You are of course right to point out that there was a 4 year gap between PS and PS2 and a 6 year gap between PS2 and 3

myblackwrx

iTrader: (1)

Sega Saturn was 6 years in Japan
Dreamcast was 7 years in Japan (admittedley as a Homebrew machine).

Problem is with the new next gen consoles is that they will offer better shinier graphics etc but you will still get another FIFA,Call of Duty etc there are very few unique games avaliable for the PS3/360 whereas the Wii has a unique control method /add ons but not a lot else imo.

EddScott

With a bit of luck the next gen consoles will just be catching up with todays PCs

ScoTTyB

Nvidia GX 280 is leagues ahead of the consoles now.

bob269

This arguments been done to death, pc's will always be ahead of the game, but the gfx alone cost more than a console. Consoles are hassle free quick n easy gaming.

swiss scooby

Plus the developers can create a game specifically to around a console platform. They can bring out the maximum performance from a specific console, unlike the PC games that need to be made for an average performane PC. Otherwise too many users need to upgrade their PC's too many times and that could hit sales numbers of the game. Since I don't play games on my PC myself, I am not sure if this is still correct with nowadays PC's but it seems obvious to me and was mentioned so many times.

PeteBrant

Thats not quite true. PC games are scalable. By that I mean that you can run the game at stupidly high resolutions and detail and effects if you have a very fast PC, and you can adjust said parameters to cater for less able PC's. Of course there will always be a floor which you cannot go beyond, but the fact you have to cater for lots of different set ups is not the problem it once was. Thanks mainly to APIs like Direct X.

The trade of with PC gaming is that it is unsubsidised. The publisher gets all the money (split witht he retailer and developer). A console game needs to pay the manufacturer it's slice too, be it Microsoft, or Sony or whoever. Hence the reason console games are more expensive.

The trade of is the initial purchase price of the hardware. PC components are sold at cost plus a bit of profit. Consoles are sold at a loss which is recouped through game sales.


The main problem with PC gaming now, is lack of innovation and content. PC game sales have always been low, in the main, compared to thier console counterparts, and that gap is growing ever wider. So developers start to move over to console rather than PC. The likes of Lionhead, Epic, Bioware etc now lead on console and *may* do a PC version.

I have always been a huge fan of PC gaming. When it gets it right on a good setup, its great.

But, that isn't often enough anymore. Certainly not often enough for me personally to justify the outlay (much as I would love to spec up a really nice PC, and its something you can do for £500 odd)

StickyMicky

the problem is, that while loads of people have pc`s, very few do the big update thing, so current games do not work on the majority of the systems out in peoples homes, and the majority of the public simply do not want to upgrade just to play a game, when most of the time they want to sit and play on facebook, this has driven games sales down apparently

which is why nobody is wanting to bother with pc game ports anymore.

average bloke in the street simply can not buy a pc game nowadays and play it, his "PC" that he bought from dell or asda simply can not cope with the latest stuff without upgrades, and complicated pissing about

messiah

Aren't Crytek abandoning the PC games market after the next Crysis game, due to the current game more or less bombing?

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

They developed a game that only 5% of the PC market could possibly run it at anywhere near max resolution!

swiss scooby

Many thanks for the clearifications. It's a very interesting development in the PC gaming world which I haven't really paid attention to in the last couple of years, coming from the console world exclusively.