Originally posted by: kppanic
Originally posted by: erwos
You have to look at this in terms of features, not chips. For the next generation of consoles, here are my predictions:
Downloadable content will play a much bigger role than it does now. Expect Microsoft and Nintendo to mimic Sony's predilection for combination downloadable / retail releases. Accordingly, we'll see much more emphasis placed on storage - I predict that _everyone_ will have 4gb of flash onboard, and generic eSATA hard drive support will be standard. I'm personally unsure about card readers or flash drives for games, but I suspect they'll at least be supported for media.
Visually, the target will be 1080p60 with 4x AA (although I'm suspecting Nintendo is going to use a scaler to hit this mark). Shaders will clearly need to be more powerful, too. For audio, I'm going to predict that we'll see at least 7.1 linear PCM, but maybe even real-time TrueHD and DTS-HD MA encoding. Of course, there'll be the usual DD-5.1 / DTS fall-back (maybe Nintendo will even include an SPDIF-out for once!).
Media streaming will also be a big deal. This will shift from just being a "share files on your computer" thing to more of a marketplace where you can buy and rent media.
I'm hoping (but not sure) we'll see more customizable controller options in the future. What I'd really like is a wireless controller "core" that could be placed in various non-standard controllers to enable them to work with any particular console. For instance, DDR pads, guitars, drums, light guns, etc.
Finally, I think that the idea of social gaming will grow tremendously. The real limitation to this in today's consoles is that you can't define a group on its own - you can only define your own friends. I think there's a lot of great ideas that could be done to cater to the casual and competitive crowds on this front, and I'm hoping someone finally does it.
On that note, IMHO emphasis on the storage will not be a big one, or at least the kind of gigantic storage that we think.
In a couple of years hopefully North American internet infrastructure catches up and we should have no problem surfing at much faster speed (i.e. sustained 1000mbps+) and whether this happens or not will dictate the future success of streaming HD content (imagine streaming HD Blu-ray quality movie with our existing internet connection...)
With internet this fast it would mean storing less and downloading more. Imagine playing a game without actual physical discs.
And obviously if any next gen console is released within the next 2 or 3 years it would not predicate the current gaming console.
I don't know... Obviously the computing power would increase in the next gen. But I honestly do not think this fact alone would be their selling point. Hopefully they start working with the developers to decrease this "juicing out" console delay. Give them the blueprint! Give them access to the research labs! haha...
I am sick and tired of this generation console and all the "hype" people create and then the quality of the games we get is sub-par. I mean, lets look at PS3. Its best game for about a year was Resistance Fall of Men. That made me very sad...
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