Pretty much nothing to say here that hasn’t already been said in the thread title. Please feel free to discuss your answers.
Poll to follow.
Oops. Wrong forum. :smack:
Reported.
Got it for ya, Homie.
EDIT: Never mind didn’t read the poll very carefully. At this point it seems kind of pointless to speculate when we have info on only one of the consoles and it’ll still be a couple of years before they are all out. Still consoles aren’t dead yet and I doubt they will be soon.
Pretty much this; There’s absolutely no reason to even THINK about next gen consoles right now.
Either current gen consoles have games you want to play, in which case, you should get a current gen console, or they don’t, and you should go upgrade your video card. 
I suppose it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on the Wii-U just in case someone comes up with something really clever for its goofy arse controller, but we don’t even have a timeframe on new consoles from Sony/Microsoft (assuming Sony can even withstand launching a new console anytime soon) nevermind any idea of what features, processing power, or games they might or might not have.
About the only thing you can count on is that the next Xbox is going to be mighty Kinect-centric, probably with a second generation of Kinect technology.
Not enough info. Do you own the current gen consoles? Do you own or are you interested in a gaming PC?
As mentioned, we know next to nothing about next gen consoles. We do’t even have a clear date of release, though speculation is currently pointing to holiday 2013. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony didn’t come out with their new console until 2014 though.
A PC can give you a taste of what next gen will be like:
1080p + 60 FPS, better graphics (although we are just starting to see PC titles announced that truly utilize modern game engines - though there are many PC exclusive engines that impress such as Shogun 2’s, Crysis’s 2 engine etc).
Free to play games, MMO’s, MOBA’s, mods etc.
These are all things that will be featured prominently on next gen consoles and Microsoft and Sony will try their hardest to make it look like they came up with the ideas.
**WiiU **-- Complicated, clunky controller will alienate the mass-market audience that they captured with the Wii. However, their games will still be targeted at that audience. Worst of both worlds.
Xbox 4zillion – Microsoft’s obsession with turning Kinect into the Interface of the Future will hurt their focus on creating fun games. Expect a lot more Simon-says, wave-hi-to-the-screen experiences.
PlayStation 4 – Probably your best bet if you want the next-gen version of your current console experience.
For something apart from the big three, you might want to keep an eye on the Ouya to see where it goes. (Note that there’s actually considerably more info on the Kickstarter page than the home site so far.) Android-based, semi-open platform with a fair amount of extra functionality. It’s not going to be super-powerful, but it will at least be cheap, and it comes with an established base of programmers.
Personally, I’m primarily a PC gamer, so I’m not in a hurry for a new console, even if I didn’t loathe two out of the big three console makers. The Ouya looks like it will make a reasonable XBMC box at a reasonable price, though.
…for $1000 in 2015. And features you pay for will be disabled by “updates”. Oh, wait, that’s part of the current console experience you mentioned.
How is this question even answerable right now? May as well as what console you should buy in 2020 as there’s about as much information about that gen as the next.
I don’t see better graphics being a tremendously compelling reason to upgrade to a new console. At least, not in terms of resolution. When I play Forza 4 right now, sometimes the imagery looks so lifelike it looks like real footage.
I think the big changes are going to come from processing power to enable better AI and more complex environments, plus the addition of tablets and phones and such as secondary displays and controllers. We’re already seeing the beginning of that, but Microsoft has a huge vested interest in combining their Windows 8 phones and tablets with the Xbox to help build their market share in the tablet space. Plus, Nintendo is already doing that with Wii U.
Whether this will drive a lot of innovation that actually makes gaming more fun is an open question.
What we really need to take gaming to the next level is a better internet with less latency and more predictable throughput. Then you can start doing more real-time, massively multiplayer stuff without the compromises that exist today, and whole new applications for gaming will pop up. But that’s years away yet.
I heard about this on the radio. It sounds very interesting and could be big if enough developers get in on it.
That’s still a pretty big ‘if’, but I think folks are following this one with interest.
The WiiU, because it’s coming out next. If you’re that big a gamer that you are already trying to decide which console to get, you probably need to be getting all of them.
I agree that more powerful hardware equals more than just better, more immersive graphics. It could mean better AI, more varied animations, denser, more realistic areas, more interactive environments.
However, the difference between console graphics and what a modern PC/next gen console can do isn’t insignificant.
Forza 4 has nothing on something like Project Cars, for example:
And even that isn’t fully representative of what modern hardware is capable off.
I think that once console gamers actually see games that look like the bullshots publishers post on their websites and magazines and not what is actually up on the screen, they will quickly change their minds.
Ignorance is bliss and all that.
I think you overestimate the allure of “it just works”
Can you clarify? I don’t think I understand your point.
Uh oh. Here we go…
Sure it is. But they already have Minecraft. And their Kickstarter page says this:
Well, a game released for a given console will almost always work very well on that console. Sometimes there are bugs or framerate issues, but the strictly-standardized hardware makes it pretty easy to ensure that any given XBOX 360 game will run on any given 360 console.
That’s not really the case for PC gaming; there’s enough variation in PC components that two different people may have very different experiences of the same game (graphics settings, for example), may need to install different patches, or even may be unable to run the game at all, despite having a pretty decent graphics card. (Amnesia, for example, was very picky about what cards it would run on when it first came out).
This isn’t to say that the additional complexity of PC gaming makes it bad - it can add a lot of richness to the gaming community. But it does mean that, if you’re serious about PC gaming, you really have two hobbies - playing the games, and ensuring that you have a machine that can play the games. And unless you’re building from scratch, you’re probably paying more over a several-year period than a console gamer. (For the hardware, anyway). The 360 is seven years old, and still plays brand-new games; you’ll be hard-pressed to have that with a PC graphics card you bought seven years ago.
Consoles are a lot simpler. They Just Work, they’re cheaper than a purpose-built gaming PC (and comparably priced upgrading a graphics card every 3-4 years), and they’re purpose-built for play whilst lounging on one’s sofa. (Say what you will about the precision of mouse-and-keyboard control, it’s not an ergonomic delight).
There are a lot of good things to be said for PC gaming, and a lot of criticisms to be leveled at the consoles. That’s why I generally prefer to have a decent PC gaming box and a console, when I can afford it. But it’s perfectly fair to say that consoles have mastered “Just Works” in a way that PCs haven’t. And PCs probably can’t pull that off, unless they become as standardized and locked-down as consoles - which would be a damned shame in many other ways.
This is extremely unlikely. MS knows who their bread and butter is. Kinect is aimed at bringing in outsiders, and it works well for it. MS isn’t going to force competitive gamers to use Kinect to play Gears of War.