I worry the Ouya will have the same effect on the gaming industry the Wii did, an entirely new low bar on the industries quality standards. Don't get me wrong, Wii does have some good titles, but a combination of things about the Wii do make it the cause of developers wanting more for producing less. The real challenge the Ouya will face is providing a competitive edge over the big consoles. It will need to provide a massive list of extremely cheap games, and any classics they can pick up like the old Mortal combats, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. And if they plan on offering current indie games like Bastion or Limbo they'll need to find a way to stand out there too, be it getting the titles earlier, offering extra content or offering the base content at a better price. When consoles can provide everything the Ouya does and then about 5 times more, they'll need to prove what they do provide is better and cheaper. Just like the $99 price point.
Stuff like this is starting to confuse the argument of free 2 play games for me. I can get a game for free, that is admittedly cheap but free and after x amount of hours I'll have to pay real money to make any real further progress in the game (at which point I uninstall it and move on). Now my $65 console game is beginning to insert the same mechanic into its online aspect... why am I paying $65 again? I expect a game to have junk design to try to force players to spend money when it's free, but when I BUY a game I expect games like they were 15 years ago, pure content not trying to sell me anything or squeeze me into a position where I 'feel' just a couple more bucks would really improve the product I ALREADY paid for
If there is a video game god, either Valve or Epic Games will pick Visceral games up entirely some how and let the franchise return to what it is supposed to be.
@S0ulReav3r @Vividnightmare Gameplay isn't relevant to graphics. But technically speaking the consoles will as well display greater processing power in details, physics will be more accurate and more things will be able to exist both physically and visually on screen. The low clock 8 core setup is interesting, suggesting gaming needs more cores and less speed, more cores is beneficial to things which take multiple calculations to complete, while more power is beneficial to things which require major calculations to complete.
This is a double edged blade here. We won't see a big jump because the details are getting finer. Going from flat 2d images to 3d polygons to million pixel 3d images of course will show a difference. This time though were going from (this is just an example, not accurate math) 1 million pixel characters to lets says 2 million. While it will look better, it won't be as obvious because from this point technology will only improve the details. The other edge of this sword though is that consoles aren't making a big jump, they're getting what I consider specialized CPUs and a beefyish GPU. PC's are already 3 to 5 times more powerful at the high end, and thats not counting super systems running things like the TITAN. So the jump won't be as big because the tech gap isn't as big, going from PS1 to PS2 offered a HUGE technology leap, even from PS2 to PS3 saw the end of "bit" generations and made a big jump. What graphics will really come down to now is the studio Artists. Realistic imagery is all about the TEXTURE quality. Lighting is nice, but true visual fidelity is all about texture quality, which also means texture size. Games are going to have to get bigger memory wise if they want to continue to move forward graphically.
The illumiroom is the coolest thing ever. I love it, but I fear what it's connected to. A lot of talk about tighter security has me worried. RFID chips in game discs is bad enough, but MS has suggested using the Kinect or some kind of camera system to actually count the number of people watching your TV so as to turn off the content or charge more if the viewer limit is too high. That's just wrong. I don't care who you are, it's wrong. While companies may be creating some cool stuff, the coolness factor is only there to get you to buy it, far more nefarious purposes lie beneath the cool tech.
This is just the same cycle as always. I've been in this industry for years as a fan and this back and forth is a constant. When consoles come out they push graphics, years pass and with PC's always updating they eventually take the lead. There are obvious advantages to the console design, even with how outdated the 360 is compared to modern PC's I'm impressed with how good things like Dead Space 3 and Halo 4 look. While I am disappointed with the specs, the 8 core structure may offer greater advantages over a faster 4 core design. Personally I would have gone with a dual 8 core cpu setup at 3 Ghz but I'm just a performance hound like that. Basically though, the next gen of consoles need to be able to run the Unreal 4 AND 5 engines, the Source 2 engine and the Crysis 4/5 Engines. Those three technologies will pretty much be the back bone of game development I'm guessing for at least the next five years, maybe 10 depending on the rate of tech evolution.
Great article, I've been a fan of McGee since the original Alice since back in the day. I've played just about all of McGees games and am a huge fan of both his ideas and his art. Really bummed about Oz. Hope it makes it one day, maybe McGee should talk with Valve...
They always talk about rising costs every new generation, and I get it. It comes down to a basic balance though. Customers won't pay stupid prices, so developers need to make and get better more efficient development tools to lower their costs. Otherwise a bottle neck will take place. 59.99 is already a lot to me, if the price on games goes up again I'll have to find a new hobby.
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