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[OniShiro]

Hmmm... ~25 watt, bigger node size (99% likely)... I don't think so I mean, a third of the gflops is more likely, if anything. But you have to compare the number of ROPS and other stuff as well.

Yeah, anyone that thinks that the Wii U GPU will be on par with Orbis and Durango is delusional.

Orbis and Durango will probably be > 150W, and Wii U is 35W.

 

[Easy_D]

Specs may be underwhelming, but the console is still being sold at a loss. So it's technically not overpriced.

Also what does the N64 have to do with this?

Well the N64 and Gamecube were both totally weak compared to the other consoles!

Spoiler

In a way he's right, Nintendo DID skimp on the physical storage space for both console's mediums. But the plus side were the load times, which were great on both.

 

[mclem]

Specs may be underwhelming, but the console is still being sold at a loss. So it's technically not overpriced.

Much the same as I've stated for many other systems in the past; over/underpriced for a games console isn't related to how much the production cost of the physical hardware is; instead, it's related to the percieved worth of buying into that system's ecosystem.

The problem at launch, of course, is that the future of the ecosystem isn't terribly clear. Certainly it's reasonable to argue that if you can't see games in the future worth the current asking price to pay then the system is overpriced. It does also point out that that's a *subjective* thing in general, although it also matters if it's over/underpriced relative to the mass market's interests in general.

 

[Kosma]

Nintendo didnt's skimp on the N64, it just wanted total control of royalties.

Much the same as I've stated for many other systems in the past; over/underpriced for a games console isn't related to how much the production cost of the physical hardware is; instead, it's related to the percieved worth of buying into that system's ecosystem.

The problem at launch, of course, is that the future of the ecosystem isn't terribly clear. Certainly it's reasonable to argue that if you can't see games in the future worth the current asking price to pay then the system is overpriced. It does also point out that that's a *subjective* thing in general, although it also matters if it's over/underpriced relative to the mass market's interests in general.

Instead of investing in making the console small and use little power they should have put that money in to CPU/GPU. Most gaming enthousiast don't care about the form factor/ low power usage, but they do care about graphics.

 

[jokkir]

Just realized JordaN's tag

 

[ZiggyRoXx]

Specs may be underwhelming, but the console is still being sold at a loss. So it's technically not overpriced.

It's only sold at a loss because of the dumb controller, if they'd just launched it with 2 standard controllers and doubled the horsepower under the hood, which they could have easily done with the money freed up by ditching the pad, Nintendo would be having none of the negative talk surrounding the console, and have something that could have competed with the PS4 & Xbox...

Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot with this console, it's one, old technology release too far.

At least they will still have enough money in the bank to rectify this debacle.

 

[StevieP]

No problems there then Thunder, thanks to Nintendo fantastic hardware choices maybe before the WiiU life cycle comes to a close you'll see idevices that surpasses it's processing abilities.

Xbox 720 and PS4 is the least of WiiU concern. Seeing the amazing growth in ARM chipsets I expect, the WiiU to be inferior to the latest iPad/Galaxy/Windows Phone/Surface within 3 years or so.

False. PowerVR aren't making GPUs that get 80gf/watt.

seriously? drinky posted the same thing before mine, i just aped off him as a joke. why didn't you quote him too, btw? Way to get overly defensive for no reason

You're not Drinky.

Is there a right or wrong answer? >_<

Nice tag. Like it better than mine

Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot with this console, it's one, old technology release too far.

Are you also an expert at Japanese culture?

Ignoring the generic "We don't know" response.



Let me know how much CPU time it takes up per second or frame, or show me the quote where more than one game has really set aside an entire core, an entire core during the entire time of gameplay, for audio.

Here's bkilian from Beyond3D, a Microsoft audio engineer that is working on the consoles.

On the XBox 360, audio mixing for a normal game can use as much as two full hardware threads, 1/3 of the CPU dedicated to audio. That's not even considering complex games like car racers, where each vehicle can have dozens of voices and complex filters. That's hugely wasteful in terms of cost. A general purpose CPU is just not optimised for audio processing.

The difference is that a CPU core costs you dollars, and a DSP core costs you pennies. That's why almost all mobile architectures have dedicated audio silicon. By far the most popular request my team gets from game devs is "Make audio cheaper!". Just running a single good reverb will completely blow the L1 and L2 cache, and require ridiculous amounts of memory bandwidth. We support 320 simultaneous voices on the 360 (that's how many the XMA hardware will decode at a time). AAA games use all of them. Even plants vs zombies uses over 100 and most of a core, _just for audio_. If we were to have the choice of adding a full core to the 360 or a DSP that can handle the same load. We'd probably choose the DSP, since it would be vastly cheaper in BOM and essentially give devs an extra 50% CPU for game logic.

He also posted this:

No, see, when 360 launched, the XBox org was a "strategic bet" (Microsoft dumps tons of money into strategic bets - not all of them pan out). Now it's a profit center. It would be infeasible to reduce year over year profit growth. So selling hugely underpriced hardware now is going to be a tough sell.

But I wasn't referring to ancillary revenue. I was referring to direct hardware profits. The 360 launched with a roadmap to profitability using process shrinks and volume discounts. It's successor won't be so lucky. Process shrinks are getting harder to execute and energy efficiency is not linear with process size (much more leakage at smaller sizes).
Also, the customer focus has changed. People spend more time on 360 now consuming media than playing games. Sure, games are good, but what keeps that ancillary revenue coming in now is evenly split. You don't need a monster, power hungry, money losing superbox to provide streaming movies, and the games will adapt to the resources they have. A modest increase could be workable. Quadruple the memory, and even with no changes in CPU and GPU, the games would be significantly better.

If the rumors have any truth in them, both sides are aiming a lot lower this next generation that the previous.

So I was not saying MS is not currently making money on it's games business, I was just pointing out that your original statement overlooked the fact that the company may not be as willing to dump money into the ecosystem as it was last time around.

As a side note the CPU is still going to be weak in comparison to next gen consoles, even when at least one of them is using what's rumoured to be a 4-8 core low-power Jaguar variant. Can games be ported? Well... depends. The next engines are already scalable. As Thunder Monkey put it, it may require time and effort to do so, especially depending on the nature of the game and its hardware usage. Time and effort which most publishers probably don't think they'll see an ROI on. This will be reflected. The Wii U will have a large power defecit that needs to be scaled to, and it isn't trivial. But some of these "next gen games" are going to be released for the PS3/360 as well. Whatever that tells you.

 

[dollartaco]

Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot with this console, it's one, old technology release too far.

Nintendo knew that the Wii U wouldn't stack up against the next generation of consoles. So, why did they choose to go this route? They're (further) decoupling themselves from the horsepower-centric console arms race. Nintendo will be very happy to capture some of Sony and MS's share, but rather than rejoining the fray as Ian Bogost thought they might be to a degree, I think they're just trying to preserve the unique market the Nintendo brand has created for itself. it might not be a good strategy, but the conversations they are having in board rooms are very different than the one in this thread.

Honestly, the biggest concern I have with the Wii U is Nintendo and the culture differences between their company and Western giants. The current state of the Wii U OS and eShop shows they just don't have the experience of an Apple or Microsoft in creating the cohesive, grown-up, hassle-free digital space that can carry a platform. If Nintendo wants to pull this off, they're going to have to get their heads out of their asses. The Wii Channel -- why even throw in BC? No virtual arcade on the gamepad? Accounts linked to consoles? Those are the real concerns people should have, because these issues indicate that Nintendo was either irresponsibly rushing or completely unaware of what their system should do at launch.

 

[TheExodu5]

It's only sold at a loss because of the dumb controller, if they'd just launched it with 2 standard controllers and doubled the horsepower under the hood, which they could have easily done with the money freed up by ditching the pad, Nintendo would be having none of the negative talk surrounding the console, and have something that could have competed with the PS4 & Xbox...

I'm not sure if you've been with us for the past 6 years, but Nintendo's strategy is to not directly compete with Sony & Microsoft.

 

[Plinko]

It's only sold at a loss because of the dumb controller, if they'd just launched it with 2 standard controllers and doubled the horsepower under the hood, which they could have easily done with the money freed up by ditching the pad, Nintendo would be having none of the negative talk surrounding the console, and have something that could have competed with the PS4 & Xbox...

Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot with this console, it's one, old technology release too far.

At least they will still have enough money in the bank to rectify this debacle.

I vaguely remember hundreds of posts similar to this when the Wii released.

 

[Dicer]

I see an awful lot of "probably" when it comes to Durango/orbis I think its amusing

 

[Vinci]

I see GAF is discussing pricing again. Always amusing.

 

[mclem]

I see an awful lot of "probably" when it comes to Durango/orbis I think its amusing

I am kinda curious to see how they pan out in the end - and if both of them go for the same path. I *suspect* they'll both go for power, but I can see perfectly good arguments to rein it in somewhat - particularly for Sony, who - I suspect - could not afford to release another system which doesn't compete in sales right from the outset.

Conversely, if I was *Microsoft*, I'd consider the possibility of making the next system a massive loss-leader; powerful, expensive to manufacture, but sold at a huge loss to make it affordable in order to push their competition down a dangerous path - but that might also be dangerous to them if development of unique titles which tap that power is prohibitively pricey.

Interesting days coming up!

 

[pestul]

It's only sold at a loss because of the dumb controller, if they'd just launched it with 2 standard controllers and doubled the horsepower under the hood, which they could have easily done with the money freed up by ditching the pad, Nintendo would be having none of the negative talk surrounding the console, and have something that could have competed with the PS4 & Xbox...

Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot with this console, it's one, old technology release too far.

At least they will still have enough money in the bank to rectify this debacle.

They've known since the GC that this strategy doesn't work at all. For what its worth, I think the technology surrounding the Gamepad is awesome when you get your hands on it.

 

[Vinci]

Conversely, if I was *Microsoft*, I'd consider the possibility of making the next system a massive loss-leader; powerful, expensive to manufacture, but sold at a huge loss to make it affordable in order to push their competition down a dangerous path - but that might also be dangerous to them if development of unique titles which tap that power is prohibitively pricey.

Which would cause MS proper to split in half. Seriously, the Office, Windows, and Tools groups would be fucking furious if the X-Box division were to squander all of the money they're making for the company. They're already not especially fond of that group losing so much money.

 

[Boss Man]

I see an awful lot of "probably" when it comes to Durango/orbis I think its amusing

Why? Most people assumed that the Wii U would "probably" only be slightly more powerful than current consoles. Most people are assuming that Durango/Orbis will be a genuine leap. I don't think that's funny, it's just an educated guess.

Do you think it's silly to assume that Durango/Orbis will be about as far separated from the Wii U as PS3/360 were separated from the Wii?

 

[JNappula]

You say this, but its by design. It's either or. You either sacrifice clock speed for IPC, or sacrifice the clock for the IPC. It would be prohibitly inpractical to try and build a CPU with the best of both. Especially a consumer grade.

Yeah, and also they had a limited transistor budget for a CPU. In order to be economical the chip needs to be small enough (with selected process) to be able to be produced in large quantities per wafer.

So in order to have the most bang for their transistor budget they chose to have three dual-threaded highly clocked but simple cores. Had they chosen more complex cores, they might only have been able to fit two of them on a chip and possibly not clock them as high either.

Same thing will affect PS4/720 CPU:s as well, they'll need to compromise between the core size and complexity, and try to select CPU configuration which gives the most bang for a buck with typical game workloads.

 

[Osiris]

Yeah, and also they had a limited transistor budget for a CPU. In order to be economical the chip needs to be small enough (with selected process) to be able to be produced in large quantities per wafer.

So in order to have the most bang for their transistor budget they chose to have three dual-threaded highly clocked but simple cores. Had they chosen more complex cores, they might only have been able to fit two of them on a chip and possibly not clock them as high either.

Same thing will affect PS4/720 CPU:s as well, they'll need to compromise between the core size and complexity, and try to select CPU configuration which gives the most bang for a buck with typical game workloads.

The cores are single-threaded, not dual/multi threaded.

 

[mclem]

Which would cause MS proper to split in half. Seriously, the Office, Windows, and Tools groups would be fucking furious if the X-Box division were to squander all of the money they're making for the company. They're already not especially fond of that group losing so much money.

Oh, yes, I'm not sure it's a particularly *smart* strategy, don't get me wrong there - but it would be interesting, and it *could* potentially reap benefits. If they had the same faith in the high-end audience being lucrative that some in this thread did, then it might well be a smart decision, or at least a disruptive one. I'd be sceptical, myself, and it's not a strategy I'd expect them to take, but *if* the high-end market is powerful enough and completely driven by power, it might perhaps be viable.

 

[quest]

Why? Most people assumed that the Wii U would "probably" only be slightly more powerful than current consoles. Most people are assuming that Durango/Orbis will be a genuine leap. I don't think that's funny, it's just an educated guess.

Do you think it's silly to assume that Durango/Orbis will be about as far separated from the Wii U as PS3/360 were separated from the Wii?

I do to be honest the jump in resolution made the difference huge between the Wii and the HD twins. I think many in here are setting themselves up for disappointment in the next generation. I really think we will get a half generation leap this time. I think lower power budgets, having to spend budget on a gimmick and total money budgets will keep from a giant leap. That is why we are hearing about a cheap APU powering sony's next system. The Kinect 2 and what ever sony packs will take away from the cpu/gpu budget. I expect them both to be under 100 watts each maybe even closer to 80. I expect both systems to have 399.99 SKUs sold with very little loss this time around so no super systems. I expect them to be more powerfull than the Wii U but it won't be a full generation leap like the PS1 to PS2.

 

[Saint Gregory]

As a side note the CPU is still going to be weak in comparison to next gen consoles, even when at least one of them is using what's rumoured to be a 4-8 core low-power Jaguar variant. Can games be ported? Well... depends. The next engines are already scalable. As Thunder Monkey put it, it may require time and effort to do so, especially depending on the nature of the game and its hardware usage. Time and effort which most publishers probably don't think they'll see an ROI on. This will be reflected. The Wii U will have a large power defecit that needs to be scaled to, and it isn't trivial. But some of these "next gen games" are going to be released for the PS3/360 as well. Whatever that tells you.

Here you hit on exactly the point that I tried to bring up earlier. Not to gloss over the seeming power deficiency of the WiiU but I expect that very many next gen games will also be developed with the PS360 in mind. Too much investment have been made by publishers in current gen development for them to abandon the huge HD console base to start fresh on the currently non-existant PS4/720 userbase.

Years down the road when those consoles have a large enough base to make them viable alternative platforms we'll probably see the PS360 (along with the WiiU possibly) abandoned as a platform but I don't see the massive platform shift next gen that we saw with the PS2 to Xbox 360 development transition.

 

[mclem]

I expect them to be more powerfull than the Wii U but it won't be a full generation leap like the PS1 to PS2.

One other possibility is whether the two companies choose *different* paths from one another. Could we see a situation where there are in fact three different strata of development?

 

[Projectjustice]

I have a Wii U. Combined with what we know about the system's power and price, that's enough info.

I too have a Wii U and i still say you cant say no 100% because you do not have enough info.

 

[KageMaru]

Here you hit on exactly the point that I tried to bring up earlier. Not to gloss over the seeming power deficiency of the WiiU but I expect that very many next gen games will also be developed with the PS360 in mind. Too much investment have been made by publishers in current gen development for them to abandon the huge HD console base to start fresh on the currently non-existant PS4/720 userbase.

Years down the road when those consoles have a large enough base to make them viable alternative platforms we'll probably see the PS360 (along with the WiiU possibly) abandoned as a platform but I don't see the massive platform shift next gen that we saw with the PS2 to Xbox 360 development transition.

I agree, this is exactly how it will play out.

 

[Dicer]

Why? Most people assumed that the Wii U would "probably" only be slightly more powerful than current consoles. Most people are assuming that Durango/Orbis will be a genuine leap. I don't think that's funny, it's just an educated guess.

Do you think it's silly to assume that Durango/Orbis will be about as far separated from the Wii U as PS3/360 were separated from the Wii?

Development costs are already crushing the industry...and if they come out with monster systems its only going to become worse. I don't think Sony or Microsoft want to kill the industry that they worked so hard on. Lol I said hard on.

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Here's bkilian from Beyond3D, a Microsoft audio engineer that is working on the consoles.



He also posted this:

The problem with that it still isn't showing the in game breakdown and the impact of the XNA decoder or anything. And Audio processing is heavy on the SIMD engines, which the Wii U CPU just lacks. That would be making up for functionality, not actual speed of anything.

 

[TheExodu5]

Development costs are already crushing the industry...and if they come out with monster systems its only going to become worse. I don't think Sony or Microsoft want to kill the industry that they worked so hard on. Lol I said hard on.

More powerful hardware doesn't necessarily imply increased development costs. That added power can be used to achieve better performance and image quality for free, along with facilitating the usage of real time lighting solutions (which lower development costs).

 

[JNappula]

The cores are single-threaded, not dual/multi threaded.

Well, the cores in Xenos definitely have two hardware threads.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Development costs are already crushing the industry...and if they come out with monster systems its only going to become worse. I don't think Sony or Microsoft want to kill the industry that they worked so hard on. Lol I said hard on.

Yes. It's much more likely that they'll release new hardware that is very similar to their existing machines for seemingly no reason.

 

[Dicer]

Yes. It's much more likely that they'll release new hardware that is very similar to their existing machines for seemingly no reason.

Not what I said at all...

 

[Basileus777]

Yes. It's much more likely that they'll release new hardware that is very similar to their existing machines for seemingly no reason.

Yeah, only Nintendo would do something like that.

 

[Osiris]

Well, the cores in Xenos definitely have two hardware threads.

Yep, and according to this article from earlier in the year, the Wii U's cores have less, which would put them as single-threaded.

This was confirmed in one of marcan's tweets, which stated:

"No hardware threads. One per core. No new SIMD, just paired singles. But it's a saner core than the P4esque stuff in 360/PS3" - marcan.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Not what I said at all...

Snark aside, I really don't see any reason to doubt a significant leap in technology. Mind you, it may not be as huge a leap as some think, and it's entirely possible that titles that truly take advantage of it are going to be in the minority. We don't know. However, I do think that anyone operating under the suspicion that we've reached the apex of what improving technology can do and as such the Wii U may not be as outclassed as some fear are going to be in for a rude awakening once the blockbusters that truly target those machines/high end PCs really manifest.

 

[Xun]

Sadly the Wii U will have to bomb for Nintendo to realise the stupid direction they're going in.

Development costs are already crushing the industry...and if they come out with monster systems its only going to become worse. I don't think Sony or Microsoft want to kill the industry that they worked so hard on. Lol I said hard on.

You do realise assets for games are already made at a far higher quality than what we're seeing, right?

Development costs really shouldn't increase much, if at all.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Snark aside, I really don't see any reason to doubt a significant leap in technology. Mind you, it may not be as huge a leap as some think, and it's entirely possible that titles that truly take advantage of it are going to be in the minority. We don't know. However, I do think that anyone operating under the suspicion that we've reached the apex of what improving technology can do and as such the Wii U may not be as outclassed as some fear are going to be in for a rude awakening once the blockbusters that truly target those machines/high end PCs really manifest.

It's going to be a pretty big leap. All the rumors/leaks/info suggest it will. And this one here, from a legit source, backs it up:

The next Xbox and PlayStation are not "GPU-centric." There are pretty significant things happening with their processor architectures. And at least for Durango, it's not using off the shelf kit, contrary to what many GAF posters have insisted. Even more troublesome for the Wii U, they have much more dedicated GPGPU capabilities which aren't happening on the dedicated GPUs they're packing.

Nintendo cheaped out but that doesn't mean the others will.

 

[Vinci]

More powerful hardware doesn't necessarily imply increased development costs. That added power can be used to achieve better performance and image quality for free, along with facilitating the usage of real time lighting solutions (which lower development costs).

Can you point to a generation in which an increase in power didn't result in greater development costs? You're right, though: It doesn't necessitate higher development costs, but they will always occur.

Why?

Because the publishers and developers don't know how to compete in any other way.

 

[Easy_D]

Sadly the Wii U will have to bomb for Nintendo to realise the stupid direction they're going in.

You do realise assets for games are already made at a far higher quality than what we're seeing, right?

Development costs really shouldn't increase much, if at all.

Didn't Epic (or some other dev) project a pretty insane budget increase for next gen? I'd say a developer probably knows a thing or two about development costs.

 

[wsippel]

The problem with that it still isn't showing the in game breakdown and the impact of the XNA decoder or anything. And Audio processing is heavy on the SIMD engines, which the Wii U CPU just lacks. That would be making up for functionality, not actual speed of anything.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say? Also, what about the XNA decoder? The Wii U DSP features a hardware decoder as well, so decoding is not an issue on either platform. In fact, due to the fact that the decoder is part of the DSP itself on Wii U, not part of the chipset, it also reduces bandwidth quite a bit.

 

[Perkel]

Jordan have a tag and it is glorious.

Aside from that we know anything about WiiU pipeline or x360 or ps3 ?

Didn't Epic (or some other dev) project a pretty insane budget increase for next gen? I'd say a developer probably knows a thing or two about development costs.

They did say that but they didn't say it will be problem at lunch. But easy no one will just like that spent 2x amount of money just because it is newer game. There must be some valid points and projected income to justify those budgets.

Also we know that graphic don't make good games not sales. It's like ps2 to ps3. Game are more costly ? yes but it doesn't mean there are fewer games. People migrate to different market like mobile phones and PC/OS

 

[Orayn]

Nintendo cheaped out but that doesn't mean the others will.

I hope they do "cheap out" enough to keep the main SKUs reasonably priced. Microsoft could get extravagant if they bank on selling it subsidized like a cell phone, but Sony will need to reign things in because they can't afford a repeat of the PS3's early days.

 

[Osiris]

Can you point to a generation in which an increase in power didn't result in greater development costs? You're right, though: It doesn't necessitate higher development costs, but they will always occur.

Why?

Because the publishers and developers don't know how to compete in any other way.

This is a key point that is missed in this argument.

The development costs rising is entirely due to the publishers being in an arms race of competition with each other, budgets have increased not so much because the hardware requires the size of increases we've seen, but rather because the market as a whole seems to require it.

Cheaply (relatively) made games can be made on any system, increased hardware capability isn't what has driven some companies into Hollywood style budgets, a cutthroat business model by some of the biggest publishers has.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

I hope they do "cheap out" enough to keep the main SKUs reasonably priced. Microsoft could get extravagant if they bank on selling it subsidized like a cell phone, but Sony will need to reign things in because they can't afford a repeat on the PS3's early days.

For Sony I think we'll see $399 and $499 SKUs. The $399 can't be a tard pack though otherwise the price could be a barrier, it's got to be a worthwhile SKU. And then the $499 will have a new control device or something, an accessory a la Kinect.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Polygon counting. Now I've seen everything.

 

[pestul]

More powerful hardware doesn't necessarily imply increased development costs. That added power can be used to achieve better performance and image quality for free, along with facilitating the usage of real time lighting solutions (which lower development costs).

While I think this is good and true in principle, all it takes is for a few devs to throw $100M at games and there becomes a huge disparity in graphics. That said, big money does not equal a good game.

 

[Hero of Legend]

I'm glad that the GPU seems to be a cut above the rest, so we will see "next gen" graphics when done right.

And to see Nintendo's own games in these graphics?

Where's the nearest Old Navy to replace the pants I just shat?

 

[quest]

For Sony I think we'll see $399 and $499 SKUs. The $399 can't be a tard pack though otherwise the price could be a barrier, it's got to be a worthwhile SKU. And then the $499 will have a new control device or something, an accessory a la Kinect.

If MS and Nintendo are including the gimmick in all SKUs so will Sony. I am sure the higher priced SKU will be like the Wii U deluxe version. More storage and some pack in games/PSN + membership.

 

[Earendil]

Snark aside, I really don't see any reason to doubt a significant leap in technology. Mind you, it may not be as huge a leap as some think, and it's entirely possible that titles that truly take advantage of it are going to be in the minority. We don't know. However, I do think that anyone operating under the suspicion that we've reached the apex of what improving technology can do and as such the Wii U may not be as outclassed as some fear are going to be in for a rude awakening once the blockbusters that truly target those machines/high end PCs really manifest.

I think we're beginning to reach the apex of what budgets can handle.

 

[Vinci]

For Sony I think we'll see $399 and $499 SKUs. The $399 can't be a tard pack though otherwise the price could be a barrier, it's got to be a worthwhile SKU. And then the $499 will have a new control device or something, an accessory a la Kinect.

A 'new control device' should not be the difference between SKUs, unless Sony plans for it to never be utilized well.

 

[quest]

Didn't Epic (or some other dev) project a pretty insane budget increase for next gen? I'd say a developer probably knows a thing or two about development costs.

If it is from Epic they have their own interests at heart. They want to sell their new engine to as many developers as possible. I would take anything Epic says with a grain of salt. Yes budgets will go up but I highly doubt it will be nearly as much as this generation. The leap from SD to HD was huge asset wise.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

I was thinking along the lines of some kind of headset? Something that's not required to play the games but really improves the experience. But that technology probably isn't up to speed yet.