As gamers prepare for their likely first glimpse of the next generation tomorrow, at least one executive is tempering expectations. Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli says it is "impossible" for the next-generation consoles to match high-end gaming PCs.

"Without breaking NDAs that are in place, realistically, from purely a price point perspective, it is impossible," Yerli told Eurogamer. "It's impossible to package $2000-3000 into a mainstream, let's say $500 console. I'm not saying they are $500 consoles. They may launch a console at $2000, but the consumer pricing is usually much lower than that." He further stated that Moore's Law dictates that hardware evolutions mean consoles launching in 2013, 2014, or even 2015 "will never beat a PC again."

The other issue at play is the PC culture, which Yerli says has grown more advanced and devoted to powerful gaming rigs. "If you look at PC gaming, that has changed also. The whole modular way you can design a PC today, with two, three or four graphics cards in them, and you can water cool them and overclock to infinity, that didn't exist even six or seven years ago. You just bought one or maybe two graphics cards and then you were super enthusiastic. It's very difficult to compete with that. People have these massive nuclear power plants standing in their rooms that will run your games really fast. It's hard to compete with."

If Yerli is right, Sony's presentation tomorrow may underwhelm some PC gamers who already own machines that outpace the future console.