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Who will rule the next generation of consoles?

Now I am not talking about Sony Vs Nintendo Vs Microsoft, but the Devs Vs the Console Manufacturers.

Instantly, people will say that the Console Manufacturers will call the shots as the devs need to have their games to be sold on the consoles.........but this is not longer the case.

Mobile gaming from smartphones and tablets, along with everyone buying laptops/computers for work has led to devs having more freedom then ever before thus no longer are Devs dependent on creating games for consoles. Ironcially, PC gaming has also increased by 15%, rather then declining as people expected.

So, will the Devs tell Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo what they want and that manufacturers who don't meet the demands, then the devs will simply make games for other platforms (yes), or will devs bend over as they did this generation and stunt their programming skills due to weak hardware?

Companies like Epic Games have already warned manufacturers of the possibility of such a problem.

Thoughts? :hmmmm:

EDIT: It is turning out that the Devs are telling Sony & Microsoft what the new consoles need.
(edited 11 years ago)

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Smaller devs will be picky and have no power really.
Dev houses like EA will be multiformat regardless due to them not wanting to miss out on millions of sales on titles like FIFA.
I can see medium sized devs will probably try force the manufacturers one way or another, but ultimately will bend to the size of the audience they'd miss out on.
Actually its impossible to estimate the growth of PC gaming, given that Steam refuses to share its sales details.
Reply 3
Original post by Will Lucky
Actually its impossible to estimate the growth of PC gaming, given that Steam refuses to share its sales details.


What? :confused: So you can only play games online through steam? :facepalm: They will look at other factors such as high end gpu sales, gaming pc sales, pc game sales etc.



Original post by mikeyd85
Smaller devs will be picky and have no power really.
Dev houses like EA will be multiformat regardless due to them not wanting to miss out on millions of sales on titles like FIFA.
I can see medium sized devs will probably try force the manufacturers one way or another, but ultimately will bend to the size of the audience they'd miss out on.


But soon the smartphone and tablet market might be larger than a new console market, thus they might not care about a few million people with the new xbox when their games play and look far better on PCs and tablets.
Original post by Jimbo1234
What? :confused: So you can only play games online through steam? :facepalm: They will look at other factors such as high end gpu sales, gaming pc sales, pc game sales etc.


What I mean is Digital Distribution makes up a large sector of the PC gaming business, and last time I heard Steam made up around 70-80% of the entire share of PC Digital Distribution. And in regards to PC game sales, you'll find its estimated around 40-50% go through Steam alone.

Although that was from before Origin which has probably altered the dynamic somewhat. Regardless, numerous companies are now utilising Steam for all there games and that brings more through them. EA will do the same with Origin.

As a result unless Valve decide to come out one day and release there sales info its actually impossible to say how much PC gaming really has grown.
Reply 5
Original post by Will Lucky
What I mean is Digital Distribution makes up a large sector of the PC gaming business, and last time I heard Steam made up around 70-80% of the entire share of PC Digital Distribution. And in regards to PC game sales, you'll find its estimated around 40-50% go through Steam alone.

Although that was from before Origin which has probably altered the dynamic somewhat. Regardless, numerous companies are now utilising Steam for all there games and that brings more through them. EA will do the same with Origin.

As a result unless Valve decide to come out one day and release there sales info its actually impossible to say how much PC gaming really has grown.


Ah, you can look at the publishers annual reports who sell through Steam to estimate how many games were sold. As all large publishers are listed, anyone researching this would be able to get their hands on these reports.
Original post by Jimbo1234
What? :confused: So you can only play games online through steam? :facepalm: They will look at other factors such as high end gpu sales, gaming pc sales, pc game sales etc.





But soon the smartphone and tablet market might be larger than a new console market, thus they might not care about a few million people with the new xbox when their games play and look far better on PCs and tablets.


'Soon' and 'if'.

It depends really on how the mobile gaming market develops, whether in app payments increase in popularity and the originality in mobile gaming keeps increasing.

The issues faced by mobile gaming are a lack of immersion and generally simplistic control inputs. There's already an established market for high end games and it's a market that increases with each generation. I just don't see the demand for hardcore games waning to the point that developers abandon them entirely.
Original post by Jimbo1234
Ah, you can look at the publishers annual reports who sell through Steam to estimate how many games were sold. As all large publishers are listed, anyone researching this would be able to get their hands on these reports.


Doesn't work like that, Valve signs NDAs' with publishers to prevent such details being revealed.


And as for my problem with mobile gaming, the games are just too simple. Its difficult to get a decent complex game on the system not to mention the controls are typically sub-par as they tend to depend on touch screens alone. I'll stick to my PC and Vita.
Reply 8
Original post by mikeyd85
'Soon' and 'if'.

It depends really on how the mobile gaming market develops, whether in app payments increase in popularity and the originality in mobile gaming keeps increasing.

The issues faced by mobile gaming are a lack of immersion and generally simplistic control inputs. There's already an established market for high end games and it's a market that increases with each generation. I just don't see the demand for hardcore games waning to the point that developers abandon them entirely.


Original post by Will Lucky
Doesn't work like that, Valve signs NDAs' with publishers to prevent such details being revealed.


And as for my problem with mobile gaming, the games are just too simple. Its difficult to get a decent complex game on the system not to mention the controls are typically sub-par as they tend to depend on touch screens alone. I'll stick to my PC and Vita.


Actually mobile gaming is now on par, if not more advanced than current consoles due to the state of the art IP's.

This game was for the old IPad :redface:
The controls will need work, but that would not be hard if the devs are intuitive enough.
Reply 9
The smartphone and tablet market is limited because most people like playing on a big screen with proper controls, they do not compete with the next Xbox or Playstation but with the PS Vita and the Nintendo DS.
Reply 10
Original post by Catilina
The smartphone and tablet market is limited because most people like playing on a big screen with proper controls, they do not compete with the next Xbox or Playstation but with the PS Vita and the Nintendo DS.


The vast amount of people who play in a tiny window for facebook games would disagree with that statement :redface:
I think the iOS will.

In terms of the best graphics it will be the PC.
Reply 12
Original post by Snagprophet
I think the iOS will.

In terms of the best graphics it will be the PC.


On what grounds do you base that claim on? They have always had poor performance when it comes to graphics.
Original post by Jimbo1234
Actually mobile gaming is now on par, if not more advanced than current consoles due to the state of the art IP's.

This game was for the old IPad :redface:
The controls will need work, but that would not be hard if the devs are intuitive enough.


Yeah, but IB looks like a DX7/DX8 game at best.. Compared to Doom 3 on DX9, it's not impressive. Compared to Battlefield 3 on DX11... well... it's still miles off.
Reply 14
Original post by mikeyd85
Yeah, but IB looks like a DX7/DX8 game at best.. Compared to Doom 3 on DX9, it's not impressive. Compared to Battlefield 3 on DX11... well... it's still miles off.


Oh, I think you need to go back and play a dx7/8 game as IB2 looks on par with many 360 games:




They are far from DX11, but the consoles can not play DX11, and no one is sure if the next gen will. But if the trend in mobile gaming performance increases, tablets will reach dx 11 before the next generation consoles are released :redface:
Original post by Jimbo1234
On what grounds do you base that claim on? They have always had poor performance when it comes to graphics.


Well the PC rules as it has superior graphics. There is no explanation needed.
Reply 16
Original post by Snagprophet
Well the PC rules as it has superior graphics. There is no explanation needed.


Yup, PC does have far superior graphics. This new gen of gpu's (AMD HD7xxx, Nvidia 6XX) really take the piss in performance as they can now play DX11 games on ultra at 30 fps +. No one thought that gpus would be able to do this in a few years, let alone months :biggrin:

But why did you say that iOS would dominate? Apples history of gaming is not very good thanks to Apple thinking that their drivers would be superior to the manufacturers :facepalm:
Original post by Jimbo1234
Yup, PC does have far superior graphics. This new gen of gpu's (AMD HD7xxx, Nvidia 6XX) really take the piss in performance as they can now play DX11 games on ultra at 30 fps +. No one thought that gpus would be able to do this in a few years, let alone months :biggrin:

But why did you say that iOS would dominate? Apples history of gaming is not very good thanks to Apple thinking that their drivers would be superior to the manufacturers :facepalm:


Well they're they're the most popular handheld device. Apples can play PSP Vita games had they not been locked.
Original post by Jimbo1234
Oh, I think you need to go back and play a dx7/8 game as IB2 looks on par with many 360 games:




They are far from DX11, but the consoles can not play DX11, and no one is sure if the next gen will. But if the trend in mobile gaming performance increases, tablets will reach dx 11 before the next generation consoles are released :redface:


Very nice... though if you were to render that level if detail on a large map on iOS devices, the frame rate would tumble. IB2 is basically a glorified tech demo IMO, not really representative of the average obtainable quality across larger maps.
Reply 19
Original post by Will Lucky
What I mean is Digital Distribution makes up a large sector of the PC gaming business, and last time I heard Steam made up around 70-80% of the entire share of PC Digital Distribution. And in regards to PC game sales, you'll find its estimated around 40-50% go through Steam alone.

Although that was from before Origin which has probably altered the dynamic somewhat. Regardless, numerous companies are now utilising Steam for all there games and that brings more through them. EA will do the same with Origin.

As a result unless Valve decide to come out one day and release there sales info its actually impossible to say how much PC gaming really has grown.

no. EA will deliver its games through origin, but other devs will hardly chose origin over steamworks.

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