Cons29 said:
one more important thing to consider, business, that alone is enough reason (for me) that consoles will still be there.
sure phones are getting better, but with the amount of battery drain i doubt they can match a console in terms of experience.
i know i don't play much using a phone, but how many (non-casual) games are there in android/ios that matches those top titles on the console.
and compare the screen size, it is more fun to play using those 32 inch (and above) than those handhelds. of course portables are portable, but the games are just too simple (those that ive tried at least).
manofchalk said:
I doubt this gen will be the last, technology will continue to move forward and sideways, and the console makers cant fall too far behind the trend.
Resolution I can see as a big aspect in the future, 4K TV's are already available on the market and are dropping in price quite rapidly compared to 1080p TV's. While the next gen consoles are going to be gaming at 1080p, that's only 1/4th the pixel count of 4K. This isn't like the last gen where you could upscale 720p content to 1080p and it would appear fine, 720p is half the pixel count of 1080p.
Who knows, multiple displays might even catch on. Microsoft are kind of pushing it in a way through their Smartglass app for mobile devices, I know Infinity Ward are doing something along those lines as well with the next COD.
Storage limitations are nothing, both the PS4 and XBone have USB ports, stick your own external HDD on there. No doubt that versions will be released with higher capacities as well.
I have to admit, I'm considering getting a PS4 for the exclusives.
Porting now will be easier than before, as has been constantly mentioned they basically are PC's. Though the main effect of that I think will simply just be better multi-platform games.
Other side of the coin, you can bet next gen emulators will arrive a lot sooner than for this generation.
They're pretty far behind with the PS4 and Xbox One. Most games will still be running at 30FPS and as graphics improve, they'll go right back to 720p. Even if this doesn't become the case, being at 1920x1080 with no antialiasing is quite ugly. Yeah, it's obvious that even a PS5 won't have as much horsepower as a GTX 780 SLI setup (a single Titan has 6 times as much horsepower, according to Nvidia, as a PS4). Multiple displays are out of the question for consoles of any generation, at least in terms of maintaining the same quality and performance. They can throw plenty of cute little gimmicks out with glasses, but at the end of the day, you will never see a console running a game on 3 displays.
As far as storage goes, MS and Sony may not allow external hard drives. If they do, they may limit which brands and types you can add (this is how Xbox 360 was, I believe). Did PS3 allow the use of external SSDs or just regular HDDs?
Yes, the exclusives are nice, but if people stopped purchasing consoles, they would cease to exist and developers such as Naughty Dog would be developing for the PC. I see so many more positives with the gaming industry dropping the console format and going strictly with PC. The only negative is the myth that PC gaming is "so much more expensive" than console gaming.