The upcoming Windows 8 will run on ARM as well as x86. The threat of ARM will make both AMD and Intel improve their x86 offerings--especially in regard to the integrated graphics--while Nvidia will work to make their ARM offerings compete with both x86 and other ARM vendors. The end result will be significantly improved products from everyone involved.

As for a new console I'd say no; it's already difficult having three. Nintendo only managed to survive by sticking to a niche which Microsoft and Sony were slow to get into, but now with the next generation all three will be aiming to sell their offerings to players of all sorts. It's possible that one of the three will get pushed out after a generation or two as with Sega and so many others in the past.

EA and the like already want to you to pay $60 for a basic, incomplete experience with $20-$40 of DLC on top of that, so I don't see how getting that base for free would be any worse. It can even end up much cheaper; Age of Empires Online has $60 of DLC, which is already less than what you'd often pay for a new game plus all its DLC these days, and you can buy just the bits you want to build your own experience.

Age of Empires Online also has full single player functionality alongside the expected multiplayer, so you could play it as a solely single player game if you wanted to. Taking that concept one step further by having no multiplayer at all would make a lot of sense.

a lot of publishers can notice when there are thousands more people playing online then bought the game. Since not everyone owning it would be on at the same time, then that means a BUTTLOAD of people pirated a game.SPYDER0416

Servers have been able to check for a valid key/account since the '90s. Any developer that can't keep pirates off their service is incompetent.

The Wii U is 2012, so the next Xbox and PlayStation will have to be early 2013 or maybe even late 2012. The 360 gained a huge amount of market share because it was unopposed for so long, and neither Microsoft or Sony will want to let Nintendo secure that sort of position.

The other two industries have adapted to newer technologies and been fine.Haziqonfire

Unfortunately for us some video game publishers have chosen to cope by selling only part of the game; they carve up the game at the very end of development to sell back to you as on-disc/day one DLC. They also artificially devalue used copies by locking content and functionality behind passes.

Capcom have gone one step further by bundling extra content with retail re-releases rather than distributing it as DLC, so those wanting that new content have to buy those games all over again.

...and despite all these blatantly anti-customer actions they have managed to convince some of their customers that buying used is no better than pirating. :?

Physical goods have always been re-used without any money going to the manufacturers. This is the way the world has worked for thousands of years; why should video games be exempt from reality?

Dragon's Dogma is an MT Framework game so will definitely have a PC version.

It will of course be delayed until several months after the console version, with Capcom denying any possibility of it existing until that time. This is their standard practise for dealing with the PC.

Whenever the latest NPD sales figures are released they show multi-platform games outselling almost all exclusives, so it's no surprise that Microsoft have opted to secure timed-exclusive content for these titles rather than putting that money towards exclusive games that will sell less anyway.

Exclusives help sell consoles, but at this point in the generation anyone that wanted a 360 already has one--except for the Kinect demographic, hence the stronger focus on getting them hooked on the system. Existing 360 owners get multi-platform games, which they are statistically more likely to buy than exclusives anyway, and newcomers get Kinect games.

I think used game stores have deals with developers, so they still get a little money. And then there are passes and stuff which still give money to the developer. So piracy is worse for developers, since somebody who pirates will probably not give any money to the developer.Loegi

No, publishers don't get any money whatosever from used sales (as with any other type of used goods). Greedy publishers think they deserve a cut anyway, hence why they are implementing passes and disc-locked content and other ways of milking undeserved profit without having to do actual work to earn it.

Secondly, buying new instead of buying used or pirating is better for the publisher but not necessarily the developer. Developers are typically paid an agreed amount based on expectated profits; some manage to bargain for a bonus to be paid out if they achieve really high sales figures or review scores, but any and all profits beyond that go entirely to the publisher. A very small number of developers are their own publishers and/or own the IP (so earn royalties from each and every game/DLC sale) but for the vast majority of games it is the publisher that takes the lion's share of the profits.

As much as I would love that, Demon's Souls has to stay on PS3 since Sony owns the IPBPoole96

That would depend on what parts of the IP Sony actually owns; Bohemia Interactive were able to re-release Operation Flashpoint as ARMA: Cold War Assault since the publisher only owned the trademark, not the game itself. If From Software are in a similar position it would be easy enough to make some superficial changes and announce it as Dark Souls Zero or something.