It'll be fine :/
The games will look worse than others next gen but the system has enough power so that it has no real creative limitations.
Nintendo will make good first party titles (probably the same games again... though there's scope for a Pokémon MMO they could pull out of the bag, 2GB of RAM is enough for an MMO unlike 360/PS3s limitations) and find a way to entice more 3rd party devs if they need to.
Considering it has a better mo...
Wow, so they actually want people to play it this time!
I wonder if it will be easy to emulate the Wii-U like Nintendo's previous consoles. Probably not with the eDRAM setup, but maybe.
Hell, Counter Strike is still Crack.
There will still be enough sales for each new release to be massively profitable. I wouldn't be overly surprised though if they stop making them at some point over the next few years, or release them less often, while it remains a series that would probably be more profitable than others that could use the cash/time - in-case they get onto another cash cow. CoD could compete with their own sales of a different series that they would want to regain some market share with (from Planetside, ...
The latest DX additions are mostly things which are handy for low-end and handheld devices (like how OpenGL has the ES version), so yeah - when it comes to proper gaming, Win7 + DX11 doesn't miss out on anything.
Also with a 2008 machine here, simply upgraded my graphics card for pocket change. (saved like £400 on multiplats since then already)
It has better ASLR, so you are (a lot) less likely to randomly have malware mess with your shit (especially the kind that normally gets through antivirus type software with ease)
Other than that, it hasn't got any significant technical improvements. Actually, MS could update Win7 to have it too but then business customers would have no reason to upgrade to 8 (you know, so their info doesn't randomly get stolen because they had 1 windows machine on the network)
"no developer will be supporting the Wii U."
This just isn't true. It'll have a similar market position to the Wii, which had plenty of great exclusives. Actually, it's probably the most open for small and indie developers, I hear patches can go through instantly and they can do what they want with DLC, unlike MS and Sony at the moment.
I have Steam on my Linux boot. The beta came out not long ago, it even sports bigger picture - so essentially it's an open source console (this is probably where the steambox rumor started, though I could still see them releasing a machine with their own sleek Linux distribution designed for use on a TV - this would destroy the console market because it would be so much cheaper overall, the only competitive move for MS/Sony would be amazing multiplats... which can only just compete with V...
Once the next gen Sony and MS consoles hit the scene a lot of games will only use D3D11 (and OpenGL 4).
To make full use of D3D11 properly, the game needs to be made with it's features taken into account from day 1 - and the D3D9 version would look crap compared to a game made for D3D9 (they could also make it fine, but it'd take a lot more man-hours in development from artists and programmers, when using something like Unreal - it's only artists' time that wo...
They can take in-engine screenshots from any platform for promotional material; i.e. if it runs on PC they can use PC screenshots (even if the game won't release on PC). They can't use those same screenshots in advertising material for the game on other platforms though (without probably getting fined over it in various countries). Anyway, they could also just take 1 frame from the game running at about 5fps on a 360/PS3 with the graphics settings up high.
Like pretty...
The Activision connection pretty much dooms the game. They have ruined everything they touch.
No FPS to date is anywhere near perfect either, so people should keep making them. There isn't really any such thing as perfect for a creative product anyway.
Apart from MGS4, none of the PS3 exclusives really hit home for me either (especially when compared to previous console generations). Same goes for 360 except for Halo - but then there's the advantage of smoother multiplats. Still, since about 2007 I've done 90% of my gaming on PC as there's just no reason to get a multiplat on consoles once you have a reasonable gaming rig (pays for itself after about a 2 years of cheaper multiplats if you buy most of them, even the upgrade/rebui...
Don't buy from lazy developers then.
Doubt it, bad business logic to launch that early. They will probably be ready to pounce depending on what MS do but it doesn't make good financial sense for either to launch next year.
@NCAzrael
Yes, at the moment console manufacturers do use retailers who sell games to get the consoles to users. If they had to; they could sell a little cheaper to bulk retailers (supermarkets and online sellers), many of whom will gladly stock a console for a small-ish profit (guaranteed sale eventually, heavily outside advertised product and no spoilage). MS/Sony/Nint could afford to do that if they sold games digitally so there were no retailers to take a cut of the games sales, n...
Looks pretty damn good. It has what I missed from 1 and then some.
Cross game chat/party chat etc. is peer to peer. You already paid your ISP for that bandwidth.
It was a ripoff day 1. You already paid your ISP for your bandwidth.
If MS or Sony have a console in manufacture now, and the other doesn't - whoever launches this year or mid next, is doomed. The hardware possibilities aren't at a very sensible level, we'd be looking at the most expensive launch in history if they want to have relevant performance in a few years. Unless, there is a big performance/market difference (i.e. if MS target casuals, something a bit more powerful than Wii-U would even be kind of expensive, as in more expensive than a simi...