Next Gen - The Verdict

[pogo]

It's not a crash. The games market is booming, attracting new customers, finding new revenue streams. But the boom mostly doesn't involve the traditional players like Sony, MS and Nintendo, which is a problem for them. Look just at their performance and yes, it's a crash.

[TFO]

Microsoft and Sony need a high number of games sold per console, as do the publishers.

At £50+ per game it will be crashing 'cause I can't afford as many...

[Darkflame]

Longer console livespans will give them more games sold per console, as long as they all do the same and theres no major jump that one can make that will kill of interest in the rest.

I still think the best course for the industry is to become more efficient at making the games.
Let games share assets more, have auctions between publishers even. If your modeling a stupidly detailed massive city, use it in a few games. If your games canned, look if anyone else wants that resource for their project.
If all games were using different styles this would be unworkable, but seeing as most of the big budget stuff is generally going for realism anyway, there should be a market possible. Hell, you could even have something like a private Turbosquid between collaborating games firms.
Another option that might help is not to have your own art teams at all - separate firms could supply assets and thus their demand wouldn't be tied to the normal game development cycles. Those firms should then be able to become specialists in things, and give artists more stable jobs.

Not sure the industry could ever transition from its current workflows and structures, and nor what would be ideal.....but there certainly is a huge amount of waste at the moment that effects break-even sales requirements.

[zip accident]

Another option that might help is not to have your own art teams at all - separate firms could supply assets and thus their demand wouldn't be tied to the normal game development cycles. Those firms should then be able to become specialists in things, and give artists more stable jobs.

There was a firm called, I think, Speedtree that made model trees which were used in Cliffs of Dover, the whole project was behind schedule, but it seemed to have taken almost as much time to integrate those as if they had been modelled from scratch in house.

[KlaxonCow]

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Lolz

[chub]

I hope everyone is ready for full PS4 hard disks. Installs are apparently mandatory, and I was just reading that Killzone Shadow Fall needs about 39 GB, and Call Of Duty Ghosts needs 49 GB. That 500 GB drive is suddenly looking rather small.

You won't need to install/download the whole thing before it can be played though, but at least Killzone will need 7.5 GB before it can start.

If anyone's planning on going digital-only, I hope you have a fast internet connection!

[fog]

I hope everyone is ready for full PS4 hard disks. Installs are apparently mandatory, and I was just reading that Killzone Shadow Fall needs about 39 GB, and Call Of Duty Ghosts needs 49 GB. That 500 GB drive is suddenly looking rather small.

You won't need to install/download the whole thing before it can be played though, but at least Killzone will need 7.5 GB before it can start.

If anyone's planning on going digital-only, I hope you have a fast internet connection!

Fairly predictable given some PS3 titles were in the 20-25Gb range.

It sounds like the PS4 will take 12.5mm drives (as opposed to the P3's 9mm) so I'll probably wait until next year and stick the biggest available one of those in.

It will be interesting to see if they have a long term strategy to address this. Maybe playing via Gaikai while it installs locally?

What happens on Bone? File size will be the same, it has mandatory installs, you can't upgrade the internal HDD and it doesn't support external drives at launch.

[bcass]

I think those file sizes will only be applicable to the blockbusters. Most PS3 Blu-rays contained huge amounts of duplicated data didn't they, due to the slow read speed of the drive, in an attempt to reduce seek times. Many of which would normally have been able to fit onto a DVD-9.

[pogo]

I think those file sizes will only be applicable to the blockbusters. Most PS3 Blu-rays contained huge amounts of duplicated data didn't they, due to the slow read speed of the drive, in an attempt to reduce seek times. Many of which would normally have been able to fit onto a DVD-9.

I would query 'most' and 'huge'. Certainly some, but it's only one possible use for the extra capacity. And such tricks are less necessary on the PS3 as you can always install to HD, while Xbox 360 games have to be able to stream so have to take account of disc layout, disc speed. The extra capacity provided by Blu-ray on the PS3 can instead be used for extra content, or better quality assets, especially for PS3 exclusives.

Games shouldn't need to install everything to HD. Game code and content that's needed all the time should be installed. But assets that are needed only some of the time, such as levels, missions, mission-specific NPCs, video and audio, etc. can be left on the Blu-ray then loaded in the background when needed. So the install footprint of even large games need not be too great.

[bcass]

Most PS3 games aren't exclusives and most PS3 games don't look any better than 360 games. The vast majority of which fit onto a DVD9 disc.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

It wont cost THAT much to lob a 1TB drive in it anyway.

Unlike the XBone.

[chub]

What happens on Bone? File size will be the same, it has mandatory installs, you can't upgrade the internal HDD and it doesn't support external drives at launch.

Some Xbox One sizes have been revealed:

Forza 5: 35 GB
Ryse: 47 GB
Dead Rising 3: 35 GB

So they are similar to the PS4 game sizes I mentioned earlier.

I assume indie games will be smaller!

[Darkflame]

Screw that.
If they cant get their disc speeds high enough for optical media, Id rather go back to carts...or they spend their money on game improvements that dont take up such huge filesizes
The whole point of a console for me, the whole advantage over PC, is theres not supposed to be faffing about.
No waiting. Just disc/whatever in, then play.
If they start have long installs, I'll might as well stick to PC gaming anyway.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

I don't see why it's not possible to have a modular install-as-you-play like Sonys download-as-you-play?