I always like to look ahead to the future of gaming, sometimes even at the expense of enjoying the present. But it looks as though I may as well get on and enjoy the consoles currently on the market, because it’s likely their successors are a long way off. Seriously, don’t hold your breath for the PS4 or Xbox 720 to make an appearance anytime soon.
This current generation of games consoles is almost four years old now, with the Xbox 360 kicking it all off in November 2005. The PS3 and Wii then followed a year later. It’s around this time that we usually start to think about the next generation of consoles, with the companies working on replacements and developers starting to push the systems on the market to their limits. However, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
The Wii is maybe looking a little long in the tooth but then it did from the day it was released. Here is a console that doesn’t rely on graphics to win over consumers, instead going the route of offering something different than the competition. And Nintendo has done fantastically well out of taking this route. Then there is the PS3 and Xbox 360. There have been rumblings that the Xbox 360 is now being pushed to its limits, with Red Faction developer Volition claiming exactly that at the start of the year. But I haven’t seen much evidence of that as of yet. Instead, I think the console has a long life ahead of it. It’s clear the PS3 is nowhere near being pushed to the bounds of its hardware capabilities either. There are some fantastic-looking games on the way (Uncharted 2, God of War 3) that are clearly using the innards of the Playstation 3 in the right way but I’m confident there is much more to come.
In light of the release of the PS3 Slim, Aaron Greenberg denied a similar move for the Xbox 360. And on top of that he told Kotaku that Microsoft doesn’t even consider this to be the halfway point of the Xbox 360’s life cycle. Which would imply the company is looking at ten years for the console. And Sony has already said as much about the PS3. And then there is Project Natal and the Sony Wand motion-sensing systems on the horizon. These are being developed for the Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively, and neither Microsoft or Sony is going to release these on a console only a couple of years away from being replaced. A Wii 2 may only be a few years away but it’s likely to be a new iteration of the current hardware with improved graphics. Which doesn’t really count as a new console. And the PS4 and Xbox 720 probably won’t see the light of day for five years or more. So if you’re not a fan of the current-gen systems I’m afraid you have a long wait ahead of you. Probably.
Source: blorge.com
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