Sony: 'no need to transition' to PS4 yet
In a Gamescom 2011 interview, Sony's Shuhei Yoshida states that as long as developers are able to create new and exciting experiences, talk of a PlayStation 4 is premature.
Some sad news has come out of Gamescom 2011 for those who were hoping that Sony might be revealing a new PlayStation 4 console any time in the near future. According to Sony worldwide studios boss Shuhei Yoshida, the company will "seriously consider" creating a new console only "when the [PlayStation 3] platform becomes something game developers are not able to improve their creations with."
In an interview with Eurogamer, Yoshida asserted that Sony hasn't yet embarked on the great PS4 development adventure, largely because the PlayStation 4 still has plenty of room for developers to grow.
"When you see games coming out on PS3, both the traditional type of games as well as new kind of games using PS Move, there is a lot more we can do from the game development standpoint," he said, before concluding, "So as long as we and our developers can create new experiences that are more exciting to consumers, I see no need to transition into newer generation."
Right now, the upcoming PlayStation Vita is a huge focus for Sony, as is the PlayStation 3, which just received a juicy price-cut.
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replyJeff Mattas posted a new article, Sony: 'no need to transition' to PS4 yet.
In a Gamescom 2011 interview, Sony's Shuhei Yoshida states that as long as developers are able to create new and exciting experiences, talk of a PlayStation 4 is premature.-
"largely because the PlayStation 4 still has plenty of room for developers to grow."
im assuming "playstation 3" was meant there -
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Was that from a power or an architectural issue though? I forgot.
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Both of them have 512MB of ram though (except the PS3's is separated into 256MB system and 256MB video) so I assume it's more to do with the fact that they're separated rather than the fact that there's not enough.
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In most situations, yes. But I can see the advantage of having say, a separate 64MB for things like background services (like say cross-game messaging or an extensive overlay ala Steam). Definitely stupid to cut it into two 256MB pieces though, it's not you need that much memory for non-video stuff unless you're doing something out of the ordinary.
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He also mentioned something about PSN eating up too much of the system's resources.
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"Hey Microsoft, please be waiting a few more years before announcing your next console."
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Do you want to make a post, or are you going to continue saying nothing?
The idea that having another 3-5 years on current gen consoles will cause developers to shift their efforts back to the PC is not well supported by reality. PC hardware has already outpaced console tech by a fair margin, and yet we barely see any games making use of it outside of things developers basically get for free (increased resolution). Main reason (cited by devs over the past few years) to be the revenue generated on each platform -- consoles significantly outpace the PC.
I assume where you're going with the "what" statement is the common arguments against this -- that PC gaming is healthier than it's ever been, and all of this stuff is imagined by whiny/lazy devs. That's not exactly substantiated by anything, but it's what people like to believe around here.-
Your points only work for a small subset of AAA developers that haven't been able to effectively leverage the PC market. Sales in games like Modern Warfare may significantly outpace PC, but that's not a PC game anymore. Additionally, you can't say to what degree PC sales are, since DD figures aren't freely available except in small nuggets that are given out when EA recaps financial figures.
Also, huge LOLs at your statement here: yet we barely see any games making use of it outside of things developers basically get for free (increased resolution). Didn't we just have daVinci1980 explain one of the things that isn't available on the 360's GPU hardware that lots of AAA developers are clamoring for?
TESSELATION, FSAA, flexibility in the control schemes, better content control, etc.
There are reasons that you're seeing huge increases in Steamworks games, EA's push with Origin, more games being ported to PC, F2P games coming out. $$$
What's more likely than PC gaming being "dead" (fucking lol) is that you don't have an accurate picture of the PC landscape.-
Just because devs want something that can't be done on current consoles doesn't mean executives are going to greenlight multi-million dollar PC ventures.
Developers don't get to make decisions like that.-
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It's a console game that happens to be coming out for the PC as well.
Guarantee you they will make more from the xbox than the PC.-
That is not as safe a bet as you think. Sales for BC2 were very close to parity across all 3 release platforms.
I agree the target market on 360 is bigger, but it depends on how many people either 1) defect from MW3 or 2) get both. BF3 on PC is going to be huge, but Battlefield has always been a PC franchise. 360 has the opportunity to outpace PC sales if EA can leverage the Modern Warfare-fatigued players.
Also, DICE has always mentioned BF3 has been the exact opposite of what you say. PC -> consoles. The technology at work in Frostbite 2 effectively confirms this.-
Are you seriously going to sit there and pull numbers out of your ass? Close to parity?
http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/browse.php?name=bad+company+2-
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However, if we're going to use those charts, here's the analysis I did on those numbers from EA's quarterly report.
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=26438599#itemanchor_26438599
TL;DR: So either VGChartz is wrong and that's a bad example, or PCs sold 3.7 million copies.-
You've made the classic mistake of confusing sold in with sold through. Sold in means sold to a retailer or distributor, sold through means sold to a consumer. So if they "sold in" 9 million copies, as that report says, it means they sent out 9 million copies to stores. If they "sold through" (NDP numbers) 6 million console copies, that means that the other 3 million are not just PC games - those missing 3 million units are divided between both the PC sales and the units still sitting on the shelf at target. So at best your an analysis using that data would be indeterminate, at worst it proves the PC version sold less than either console version.
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I agree the VG Chartz, is ass, but even NPD number showed a significant difference. Far from parity.
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Wow that's crazy. Didn't realize they sold over 5 million units for 360/ps3
Is it easier to develop for the 360 and PS3 simultaneously than the 360/PS3 and PC?
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Merc - Sorry man, but you have no fact based analysis that you're using.
Look at the top 50 selling PC games on VGChartz (not perfect, but most reliable free source of data). Tell me how many games on that list have been released in the last year. Two years. Five years. Other than World of Warcraft, I think I saw two games on that list.
By the time you get to the bottom of the top 50 for Xbox 360 (or PS3, or Wii), most of the titles are in the past few years, with a few standouts as old as 5 to 6 years old. Black Ops 360 alone sold 12.87 million units.
If you just look at the raw data, the PC's best days ended about 5 to 7 years ago. That's not to say PC is dead. And I've been a PC gamer since the mid 80s, but I'm also been in the industry since 1998. And it's simply the way it's moving. PC as a market segment has recovered a tiny bit, thanks to Steam and other digital distribution services, but it's still not where the money, and therefore development dollars are going.
If you need a velocity argument, look at the VGChartz list of "Fastest to 2 million" titles top 50. Guess how many of those titles are PC? One. World of Warcraft Cataclysm. That's it. Every other title on that list is a console game.
I hope lots of indie's and groups like Valve continue to help keep classic PC gaming alive, but at least for the forseeable future, it is a niche market.-
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It misses a lot, but most of the core VGChartz data is a subset of NPD. So the numbers are almost always low.
Even NPD though, any more, is inherently flawed, as it does not track many of the digital distribution channels with any reliability. Steam, Xbox Live, PSN - all of those channels get very misrepresented by NPD.
Your point is accurate (it is bunk for specific, accurate numbers), but the patterns the overall data show are still relatively accurate.
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Also, you've never said anything substantiative, even after your attempt at a point. All you're saying are broad generalizations and no specific facts.
1) PC Gaming is healther than ever, based on catalog, release schedule, number of developers, and market capitalization
2) Developers have already come back to PC within the last two years. It's already done.
3) Carmack is way closer to the reality than you are: the shape of the market has changed, more F2P games, more indie games, more flexibility, but blockbusters are still viable and can be leveraged correctly (why would they make Rage for PC if they didn't think so?)
Quite frankly, I'm trying to be civil, but your viewpoint isn't novel and your opinions are based on spurious conclusions.-
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I disagree on the 3-5 years piece; two of the big deficiencies in our age is a lack of good RTS games and racing/sports games. Even then, studios like Relic, Total Assembly, Codemasters, Blizzard, and others fill those gaps handily.
Blizzard is as strong as ever, id was heavily active in the era you mentioned but they've been much quieter in the last decade, I'd say Valve now is better than Valve late 90s. Quality across the industry has steadily risen, and the PC isn't exempt from that.
PC gaming is still pretty damn good.-
How about the lack of a good, action fps game? Console shooters are fine, but we haven't had a good twitch FPS game since, what? Half-Life 2? Granted, I'm stretching with the definition of "twitch" here, but it was definitely PC-focused in its design.
How about the entire simulations genre? How many simulation games have we seen in the past 5 years? Two? Sci-Fi sims have been dead since Mechwarrior 4 and Independence War 2, which is over 10 years now. Another mainstay PC genre that's absolutely thriving at the moment.
Adventure games have just started to see a bit of a resurgence, but that's another entire genre that was pretty much dead until recently. Turn-based strategy games are down to Civilization and the occasional Stardock title. RTS games, like you mentioned, are down to Relic, Blizzard, and the random half-assed C&C/TA update from EA/GPG. The last of which struggles because their respective companies are trying to find _some_ way of migrating the genre to the console, just to make the whole thing overly shitty on everything.
Speaking of Blizzard and Valve, both average a release every ~3-5 years. Sure, we're currently in Blizzard's good season, but it won't be enough to sustain the platform long-term. We'll be back to another huge drought in Blizzard titles starting in ~2014/15.
Oh, and I love it when you bust out a list of awesome ~10+ PC games, and maybe two of them are actually PC games and not games designed with the console in mind and ported to the PC (sometimes with legitimate graphical enhancements!). Small areas, frequent loading screens, outdated graphics, and -- the kicker! -- a menu that can't even parse the mouse-wheel for input doesn't exactly scream THE PC IS FUCKING AWESOME to me.
Granted, the PC has RTS, MOBA, MMO, and indie games... but not much else. Claiming it's healthier now than what it was back in 1996-2002 is drinking a little too much of the koolaid.-
Warsow? Hard Reset? Bulletstorm? Planetside 2 is coming next year.
DCS Blackshark, Grid, Arma 2, Arma 3 is coming next year, Mechwarrior 5 would be out if Harmony Gold didn't pull legalistic bullshit.
Telltale Adventure games are pretty damn solid. Bastion is a pretty good adventure game. An argument could be made for Terraria as an adventure game.
Action RPGs are doing very good, we'll have T2 and Diablo 3 very soon.
Blizzard's going to have SC2 Phoenix and Titan in 2013-2015.
I'm just not seeing the argument.
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Sims? what are you smoking? we have the new IL2 game, iRacing is pushing hard and going well, netkar pro and the soon to be released rfactor 2. There has also been rumours of a new ms flight sim online and then ofcourse there are the tac sims like arma.
"sci fi" sims were always a small niche anyway, im the biggest x-wing series fan ever, but the genre was not that massive. We have got a few released in the last decade but they have not been very good.
Turn based games are going huge, games like europa and hearts of iron, there are also a bunch of 4x indie games that are really good aswell.
RTS is still a strong genre aswell, as you said the two big guns are blizzard and relic...and whats wrong with that? we also just got the release of age of empires online which is a really good title (suprised me alot).
We also get some good sports games, apart from the racing sims i mentioned above, we get the full PES experience and this years FIFA 12 is going to be exactly the same as the console versions aswell which is a first! also tiger woods is making a return to PC.
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Uh, the market for PC games has increased a ton since that time. However, consoles have increased more.
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EA just posted up numbers where the PC is actually money them a ton of money. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/27/eas-non-gaap-figures-pc-beating-consoles/
not having to pay royalty fees and DD helps. -
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walker has a good point. There is definitely a market for smaller/indie games through Steam and the like. For big titles though, it's hard to justify putting a lot of money into a PC only game when your potential sales will be a fraction of console numbers even if you have a hit.
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It's true, the best characterization for the PC market is "flexible". More indie titles are viable than ever, and that means a wider range of choices for PC gamers. The stories of indie game company success are getting to be a dime a dozen.
Of course, there is still room for PC blockbusters, e.g. Portal 2, Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Deus Ex. Nobody in their right mind would look at those titles and say "they won't be successful on PC". Figuring out how to leverage that market, however, is crucial, and each of the companies behind the previously mentioned titles can do that. -
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They said over halfway and that there's no reason there won't be any overlap.
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If things keep going the way they're the Wii U2 will be out by then.
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Why is anyone hoping for a next generation when the current one is still going so strong?
Consoles still haven't run up against huge technical barriers to what they want to do.-
Ugh, first year of a new console is always such a horrible transition. You'll have maybe 1-3 really good games on the new console, but for the most part you're going from awesome, polished games that take advantage of every bit of the old console's performance to shitty, rushed launch games that are just extra "shiny".
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Yeah, but what they want to do isn't the least bit ambitious. Most aren't even capable of running at 1080p, and the best looking console games generally have stupid low fps caps. Developers have to cut corners and make concessions for consoles. Example: Battlefield 3. 64 player limit on the PC. And what is it for consoles? Smaller maps, and 24 players? That's sad, and the funny thing is that despite taking such drastic measures to get the game running well enough on consoles, it still won't look as good or run as well is it could on a decent PC. If it were any other game, those small maps and that low player limit would carry over to the PC version, but fortunately the game has a strong PC fanbase and Dice cares about keeping that fanbase happy. Point is, consoles are holding back progress. You can't blame Sony and Microsoft for that though. They'll keep milking their outdated systems as long as they're profitable. It's just business.
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Oh ok, I'm wrong, designing a game with massive 64 player battles across large maps with fighter jets dog fighting in the sky and tanks tearing up the terrain all while being capable of running at 60fps at high resolutions isn't ambitious.
Just kidding! In a Battlefield style game, yes it is. It's technologically ambitious, which is what my entire post was about. Consoles prevent this sort of thing from being fully realized.
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half the innovation needs to come from hardware.
this is ridiculous -
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Too bad Killzone 3 runs like ass. Uncharted 3 has very detailed, full environments, but the textures look muddy. Forza 4 has amazing looking menu screens, then you start up a race and it's not that impressive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zsuz5F_9NU You'll see what I'm talking about if you watch the early parts of this video, then skip about halfway through it to the actual gameplay. None of those games actuallu run at 1080p. I believe they all run at 720p native, which means that they are actually as big as this image, just stretched and artificially sharpened to fit your screen http://hd-wallpapers.eu/wallpapers/cod-mw3-1280x720.jpg
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"total garbage" i love this. so jaded and cynical. completely dismissive.
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im not dismissive. cynical maybe, but I feel like the consoles havent innovated in terms of graphics much at all. the pc has been lock and step with its ports along side of it, and very few things have changed in the last 2-3 years.
Ive always been cynical from the standpoint that i wish more innovation was moved back towards the pc, and I realize thats a dream that wont neccessarily ever be reimagined. But if they think we are "halfway" to the point in these consoles I want to just throw up in my mouth.
We could be so much farther if there were more forward thinks at these studios.-
Oh I say you just need the right developer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ysGqsLf2oA -
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They haven't even begun to reach the limits of the hardware like they did with the previous generation, which makes most of your argument moot. As far as sequels re-using engines, sounds, etc., that's because it's cheaper to use existing tech and sound assets than it is to re-do everything every 12 months, that's just obvious from an economic standpoint.
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I understand the reasoning. Its completely a valid attempt, but battlefield3 is a perfect example of the systems reaching their limits. battlefield3 does 24 players on console, it does 64 on pc.
thats all you need to read. they are limited, and need to be updated. we are SO fucking lucky dice was allowed to take the platform and use the PC as its main sku, if not we would have something tearful in between.
And I want to see any quote where they seriously think they havent met the limits of the hardware. a ps3 has no fucking ram. you can only fake so much shit.-
I'd rather have a console that has a huge library, good support, etc., and games that look a bit out of date rather than having a new console that has limited/no BC, a small software library, a limited userbase, etc. Plus, I still find it hard to believe we're reaching the limits of the power of the current consoles when you have games like Uncharted 3, Forza 4, and others coming out that still look amazing.
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Ubisoft: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/310551/ubisoft-extremely-limited-by-ps3-and-360/
Codemasters: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/06/29/codemasters-discuss-current-console-limitations/
Dice: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/297985/dice-prepped-for-xbox-720-ps4-arrival-battlefield-3-pushing-current-consoles-to-absolute-limit/
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I don't agree. With games running lower and lower resolution and frame rate just to get details up, it is past time.
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vita wouldve been a nice stopgap if the damn buttons werent small DAMN YOU SONY
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do you guys think the PS3 could be considered a full success at this point? i kind of feel like it came out too late, and for too much money, even though it's an awesome system. i feel like they just had bad timing, not necessarily bad hardware or software.
then again, how do you follow the PS2? such a juggernaut, possibly the most successful console ever with the largest library of great games ever.-
I don't know how you can consider it truly successful comparing the loss in marketshare from PS2 to PS3 and comparing Sony's financials then and now. Obviously it depends on your metric and if the metric is just 'have a solid marketshare and x games selling y million copies with metascore over 90' then sure it's done well. But when the metric is 'last generation we owned practically the whole market' things look much worse.
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Neither the 360 nor the PS3 are a success, considering both bet that they would have a PS2 on their hands and just absolutely dominate the market like that. And if they did pull that off in any sense, they would have been absurdly successful, the margins on the hardware would have been much more comfortable and they wouldn't just me making money off games licensing now.
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what makes you think the 360 folks realistically expected PS2 level success?
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I dunno what they expected but it seems clear that they hoped for that kind of success. I think Microsoft understood that they couldn't come at Sony half-heartedly. They launched a year early and with aggressively priced machines with an intent of toppling Sony, not of just firewalling off half the market and staying there, I'm sure.
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hope and realistically expect are two very different things. You think going from 0 to 50% of the market in 2 console cycles and getting profitable starting up against the PS2 was a conservative goal that they're now unhappy with? And with 360 sales still consistently increasing YoY?
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keyword: ultimately, not from 0 to PS2 levels in the first 2 generations.
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I know the guys running the XBox division aren't stupid and I know generally Microsoft orgs are aware of what realistic marketshare gains are within product cycles
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I think it is for the consumer and it did a good job humbling Sony a bit and making them realize what drove the success of the PS1 and PS2. They are far more focused on the games now and the system is really starting to hit a stride as a result and they are driving hard for middleware and helping the developers out. They look to be applying a lot of this positively to the Vita so hopefully we'll see more of the same with the PS4 which should be good for all of us.
Microsoft on the other hand seems to be going the opposite direction. They had excellent focus on the games and worked hard to build a great gaming library at the start in attempts to gain success. But now they've lost sight of all of that with Kinect and some kind of blind pursuit to chase Nintendo's success. They have practically nothing of interest coming out these days and we're starting to see a shift to multiplatform releasing being better on the PS3. I hope it burns in them in the ass in the end otherwise we're going to see a PS3 release repeat but this time it will be with the Xbox 720.
I've done almost a complete 180 where a few years this time my PS3 was collecting dust and my 360 was always on. Now it's my PS3 that is always on while my 360 sits and waits around for a good exclusive or superior multiplatform game.-
I love how easily people dismiss Kinect, it goes to show how out of touch the "hardcore" gamer minority is with the mainstream gaming market.
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will somebody PLEASE give me a console that can do BF3, max graphics and 64players. i would pay whatever you wanted. just release it and i will buy it. PLEASE!
thank you.-
Here you go: http://alienware.com
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Quite frankly this is some of the greatest news I've heard all week. I am not ready to plop down another 500-600 dollars for a new machine when my current machine is still pumping out great looking and great playing games. Plus it has the features I want (wifi blu-ray) I just don't see the reason for a new system yet. Nintendo it makes sense, Microsoft maybe in a year or two due to them still using DVD technology, but for the most part I think Sony and Microsoft don't need to rush out new systems for quite a few more years.
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