neXtBox Speculation!

[Matt]

Thought I'd post this here. Imagine BioShock with physics based water, not just particle effects to create an illusion. Running, reacting water.



That's why I always laugh at people who say, "We don't need more power". You can never have enough computational power.

I don't just want realistic graphics, I want hyper-reality, better than real life with more drama, more colours, more light. And more explosions

[Neon Ignition]

Meh

That's nice water effects on show in the vid but other than some decent fluid programming it's nothing out of the realms of this generation. We're at a point where the graphical level of improvement is so evolutionary that it's stopped standing out. With Natal in 2010 and having say at least a 12 month lifespan as MS's focus (because MS are highly likely to be the first to push for next gen) I'd say 2012 for Xbox III at the earliest. Thank god. It'll give me time to get through Call of Duty 9

[Matt]

Come on, you show me any game this gen with that level of physics. Even on that hardware in the vid the framerate is dodgy. There is nothing close to that on console. That's an example of the kind of thing I'd like to see next gen.

There's several techniques, for example, in KillZone 2 that next gen will become standard for all shooters. KZ is a good example actually, as it does a lot more than almost every other title out there (putting aside personal opinions of the game itself, I'm talking graphically here).

I don't understand people's objections to the next gen rolling out sooner rather than later. Financially you know they're going to hit the £250 price point so it won't hurt too much. There's a lot of hyper-ventilation over future gaming titles, so why not the hardware that powers them?

That's a genuine question by the way. I'm curious as why people want this gen to be "pushed" so hard, when a quick hardware upgrade would yield grander results in a single day than a year of "to the metal" programming.

[MikeRox]

Because while the water effects would look lovely, it's got to the point whereby the additional costs don't currently bring enough upgrade to justify a whole new console. Resistance 2 has fantastic water effects which react to the environment and what is happening.

It's really nice to have, but at the end of the day it's just water and developers seem to be too distracted trying to focus on graphics this gen as it is. IMO with the advent of HD gaming, the overall quality of games has dropped with the rising dev costs, ever increasing reliance on a "blockbuster" and so much focus on getting the teeny little bit more power so that you can have 10 layers of reflection in a car window rather than 9... or whatever.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love fantastic looking games, however I don't think it would do game budgets etc much good at the moment and think this gen is currently already costing devs so much that compromises in quality are being made. It's madness that a game should need to sell 1+ million units just to break even.

As for getting consoles out at £250. Sony are still making a loss on the PS3 at £250 with the machine now hitting it's 3rd year. Putting even more expense in the hardware is only going to compound the problem. I don't think Microsoft do much more than break even on the 4 year old 360 now, not including bills for replacements (that $1bn was set aside seperately)

[Matt]

The water in R2 is pretty good, but not a patch on that demo or something like Crysis with caustics, etc. Plus, the water wouldn't be programmed per game. I imagine it's a material from a library you drop into your game. You'd add the emitter, tell if the kind of physics object, set frequency, and you'd let it do it's own thing. That's WAY simpler than the current method of artificially faking wetness with textures and particles.

I don't think the cost of development should come into this discussion. Live has shown a low cost route in for grass root devs, and there will always be a market for games with "simple graphics". Sprite based titles aren't dead, merely niche, for example. Besides, I'd prefer fewer, better produced titles than a myriad of Me-Too games that don't get bought anyway.

[EvilBoris]

What's to say that in 3 years time with enough optimisation and experience of the consoles that we won't see something like that one the current gen consoles?

[MikeRox]

I don't think the cost of development should come into this discussion. Live has shown a low cost route in for grass root devs, and there will always be a market for games with "simple graphics". Sprite based titles aren't dead, merely niche, for example. Besides, I'd prefer fewer, better produced titles than a myriad of Me-Too games that don't get bought anyway.

The better wouldn't be a factor, it would just be fewer. Just like this gen is fewer games, but nothing really better than last gen.

[Matt]

What's to say that in 3 years time with enough optimisation and experience of the consoles that we won't see something like that one the current gen consoles?

Other than a tech demo, the consoles don't seem to have the power to put something like that into a game. I thought the PS3 would be doing kind of similar stuff by this time, as that's the kind of the thing the SPUs would be able to do - but they're being used to help the GPU put out decent visuals, and what's the point of putting in lovely flowing water if the level of graphics drops back a generation? You could so something sprite based on a 2D game happily enough I'm sure.

Naughty Dog say they're hitting nearly 100% with UC2. I expect that's marketting spiel and they'll be saying the same thing in 2 years time with UC3 though.

Besides, the point still stands, that a new hardware iteration could do that stuff at a drop of the hat (well, not yet, but in a year or two). It's like spending thousand of hours messing around with a car engine to get every last ounce of power out of it, when you could save the time and just buy a better car to begin with

[Matt]

The better wouldn't be a factor, it would just be fewer. Just like this gen is fewer games, but nothing really better than last gen.

I'd really argue against that. This gen has had far more appealing titles for me than last. I'm saying that as a FPS fan though. This may be the best gen ever for me

[Sam The Man]

I'd really argue against that. This gen has had far more appealing titles for me than last. I'm saying that as a FPS fan though. This may be the best gen ever for me

Im happy for you but for me its possibly the worst gen as FPS are my LEAST favourite with my most enjoyable being JRPGS

[capcom_suicide]

Naughty Dog say they're hitting nearly 100% with UC2. I expect that's marketting spiel and they'll be saying the same thing in 2 years time with UC3 though.

I think the key thing with saying they hit 100% CPU, is that that hit that with today's code.

If they further optimise their (remarkable) engine code, they maybe able to get even more effects for the same CPU cost.

But anyway, U2 shows the world that with the right talent a 4 year old console can give a PC a run for it's money at 720p.

Personally I would love a new console to come out, as I am very interested in new technology. But the beauty of consoles is the standard nature of the hardware, and the fact that the developers can squeeze and tweak every last % of power.

Speaking of the 360, if we were allowed to close our eyes to the RROD issues, what an amazing design! It is staggering to see how good games look on that box, when you consider R&D was completed over 5 years ago.

[Matt]

You'd never hear me complaining about the 360's software, it's had some brilliant games on it. I think the last year or so though, all the best titles are either multiplatform or PS3 exclusives.

[MikeRox]

I'd really argue against that. This gen has had far more appealing titles for me than last. I'm saying that as a FPS fan though. This may be the best gen ever for me

Thats the thing though. FPS games are generally all most companies dare put any serious money into now. Well that and TPS with cover systems mimmicking Gears of War. Don't get me wrong, I love a good FPS, I just don't think the diversity is there like it was last gen.

I think we're just starting to see more frequent random titles now with 3D Dot Heroes etc. However the budgets this gen have made those sorts of games extremely risky up until now. Thats only reason I'd rather see the PS3 and 360 go on as the "high end" systems for another 2-3 years.

Also, I agree, Microsoft really turned their focus from the 360 this last yea and it's shown with anything of interest being either multiplatform or PS3 exclusive this year for me. Hopefully it was them concentrating a lot on Windows 7 etc and also top secret Natal developments etc and lots more will be unveiled soon, but as it stands, I feel I could probably drop the 360 from my consoles and not miss it.

[Brad]

Agree with Capcom re: Naughty Dog. No doubnt they are ace developers but what they're really saying is "The way we wrote the code for UC2 means that we used up all the PS3's power". I could max out every SPU + the main CPU with a Hello World program if I wrote it badly enough! I'm not saying they wrote it badly, just that there's always room for optimisation.

[MikeRox]

Well GT3 100% Maxxed out the PS2... then we got GT4