Bad news, SOny and Microsoft might be delaying there new consoles until 2014.
As has been mentioned, Sony has committed to a 10 year life for PS3. Since PS3 came out in 2006, 2014-2015 is probably a very reasonable estimate as the PS3 is at an approximate mid-point in its life. A normal console's life used to be 5-6 years. We should already have the next generation of consoles this year, but they are not even on the horizon. Since PS3 and Xbox360 continue to sell well, there is no incentive for the firms to rush their next generation of consoles. The consumers are largely responsible for this. None of my friends who own Xbox360 or PS3 want better graphics or the next generation of consoles. Normally, by this point in the console's life, its sales will have diminished enough that the firm is forced to update it with a newer console.....
Are we gonna get mostly crappy console port for a few more years?
Graphics wise, most likely. But
innovative games like Portal 2 can still provide an outstanding gaming experience despite not looking like Crysis. Innovation and graphics are
not necessarily the same thing. Although, if you are talking about having top-of-the-line graphics, then I am pretty certain that PC has hit a stagnation point a long time ago (I would say Crysis 1 is the highlight of PC graphical innovation and after that 4 years of marginal improvements). Even BF3 looks nothing special in terms of graphics -- what stands out are the destructible environments and EA sports character animations (but neither of these are PC exclusive features). Keep in mind BF series is very popular because it's fun to play, and not because it has top-of-the-line graphics.
I think this will hurt new gpu sales.
Desktop GPU sales will be hurting regardless since consumers are moving towards mobile gaming and mobile computing (all my friends would first consider buying the latest laptop, tablet, smartphone than upgrading their 3-5 year old desktop PC
). Even if developers introduced games 10x as better looking, there is still a huge market for casual gamers who'd rather play Angry Birds for 99 cents. Mobile gaming (smartphones, tablets, facebook) is the new market threat for PC gaming (and even console gaming) and it's
very real. It's becoming harder and harder to sell $50-60 games.
Superior graphics alone aren't enough of an innovation to entice a young/upcoming generation of gamers to think of the PC as their main gaming platform. They probably start out gaming on their iPod Touches, iPads, iPhones (and other smartphones), and eventually move to Nintendo 3DS and then consoles. Not to mention younger kids are much more interested in Apple products, which are notoriously horrible for promoting PC games. Therefore, the path towards PC gaming for a young person growing up isn't there anymore. The games themselves have to be innovative for someone to notice them. Also, the PC platform clearly lacks exclusives. Having 5 or more 'AAA' exclusive titles on the PC a year would go a long way towards revitalizing the PC gaming platform. We have to stop thinking about our generation and consider how the younger generations view the PC. 3D gaming should be a major innovation on the PC. But thus far it's simply too expensive.
If this is true we might see only a trickle of good inovated games that challenge our gpu's in the future.
I presume you are talking about graphics = innovation. It's going to be too costly for most developers to make the games look a lot better until PS4 and Xbox720 ship (but I would welcome someone take that risk and bring another "Crysis" experience between now and 2015).
Even if Nintendo pushes low-mid range hardware like they did with the Wii, it will be substantially faster than the now ancient 360 and PS3.
Think about it... Geforce 6800 vs a GTX550 Ti
PS3 uses a 7950 GT while Xbox 360 uses a slightly faster GPU. Not sure why you brought up the 6800 series. So far the rumors for Wii2's processor include a tri-core PowerPC CPU. That's nothing to write home about as that only matches or barely exceeds the Xbox 360's CPU. GPU wise, I could see something maybe as fast as a GTS 450. We really will need PS4 and Xbox next. Hopefully they will be DX12/13 compliant in 2015. If PS4 and Xbox720 ship in 2015 and they are only DX11 compliant, we will be in a pain of hurt for the next 10 years.
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