Will the next generation be an incremental improvement over this one or will there be some dramatic progress? I have read that the PS3 will 1000 times more poweful than PS2. Is this just hype? What exactly will that power give you in terms of graphics?
I’d like to see FMV kind of graphics come into actual gameplay.
Terms like 1000 times more powerful can be a bit deceiving, since it won’t be 1000 times the resolution in graphics.
I think they’ll be over to leap over tall buildings and drain your bank account with a single bound…
Okay, look at it this way:
The 8-bit consoles were the first to do 2D games in any convincing manner. (The Atari 2600 and its ilk had 2D games of course, but the graphics were more symbolic than anything. 8-bit graphics actually looked like what they were supposed to represent.) The 16-bit consoles finally did 2D right. It was possible to do high-quality, artistically pleasing graphics for the first time, and the games started to look really, really nice. Then the 32-bit consoles (including the N64) came in, and it was possible to do things that were jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
Compare this with the evolution of 3D games. The 32-bit consoles were the first to really do much in the way of 3D. The 16-bitters had a couple stabs - Star Fox and Virtua Racer, notably - but again, the graphics were more symbolic than anything. With the advent of the PSX, Saturn, and N64, real 3D was possible. It was generally ugly 3D (much as the NES and Master System did generally ugly 2D), but it was 3D. Then came the current generation of systems, and 3D is now being done right. Games look extremely nice, and more attention can be focused on artistic matters (witness the visuals in Zelda:Windwaker, or Jet Set Radio Future). Using the 2D parallel, we should expect the next generation of consoles to put out breath-takingly beautiful graphics that compare to the current crop as, for example, Castlevania:SOTN compares to Donkey Kong Country.
However, there will be a few caveats that will keep the new systems from creating the photo-realistic graphics that I’m sure Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will tout. The biggest limitation is going to be time. More realistic visuals demand more work. The biggest hurdle to keeping games from looking as realistic as possible is lack of detail, and that detail takes time to create. You want a game that accurately represents, say, a New York street? You need to recreate every garbage can, every piece of litter, every puddle, every oil spot, every car, every person, every tree, every bush… you get the idea. Achieving that detail really leaves three choices: you hire drastically larger development teams (driving up costs); you have drastically longer development times (driving up costs); or you have drastically shorter games (angering the consumers). We already see evidence of that last one - a lot of top-tier games today can be finished in 5-10 hours.
Basically, I expect games to look dramatically better than they do today, but mostly in fields removed from increases in detail. More characters on screen, better lighting effects, higher poly-counts in models (though not hugely so - the line between pre-rendered and real-time characters is already dimming, and we’re reaching a point where increase in poly-count won’t even be really noticeable), and more rendering effects (expect everything to have bump maps, specularity maps, reflections maps, and probably a bunch of other -maps that I’m forgetting).
I think we’ll also see improvements in AI. The AI in Halo, for example, is above and beyond anything that had appeared before it. I would like to see that quality of AI in more games. (Morrowind, for one, could really have done better in that department.)
It’ll be interesting to see what the Big 3 have in their bags o’ tricks, that’s for sure.
Jeff
Virtual sex.
“Achieving that detail really leaves three choices”
A couple of other possibilities: use gaming locations across multiple games. If you have a fantastic New York street setting there is no reason why it can’t be used for more than one game. Secondly I would imagine a lot of the coding grunt-work could be done in Asia or East Europe for a lot cheaper so costs could be kept under control.
When a Romulan Warbird scores a direct hit on the port nacelle, the next generation of consoles will not just explode and shoot sparks. Instead, a man will appear on all the screens, and say: “WE ARE SOOOO FUCKED!”
I was thinking “cup holder” but I think Payton’s Servant hit the nail on the head.
I just hope the PS3 is backward compatible with PS1 and PS2 games.
I really hate having tons of consoles.
Guess it’s time for a link to The Onion:
Ghost of Christmas Future Taunts Children With Visions of PlayStation 5.
And you should win things by playing.
Based on Nintendo’s steady progress, they will be controlled by a random cluster of 27 different-sized buttons and 13 joysticks that will still be far less usable than the SNES pads.
Also, they will feature neon. Unless neon is out of fashion, when they will be teak. And I really hope they’ll have built-in DVD multichangers.
What you describe there is photo-accurate. Photo*-realistic* is very different. They could probably get away with using the same ‘oil puddle’ or wall texture in lots of places (as they do)
I believe the game producers could go through virtually the same processes to get the textures and models for their levels as they do now. The difference being - they will be able to scan things at higher resolutions, and do less, or completely iliminate the reduction of textures to fit the disc or 3d capabilities.
So it might turn out that there is less work involved in making games for the better consoles.
Another thing. - IANA Playstation programmer - but it is probably easier (code wise) to create a game for the X-box than it is for the PS1.
And it was probably easier (code wise again) to create for the PS1 than for the NES or Megadrive.
Having said that. I am aware that the reverse is true for all other production tasks.
Fantastic. I didn’t think of that. With photo-realism ‘graphical-style-variance’ between games goes out of the window. Eventually all the important bits of the world (and lots of nice fictional places) could be stored in a free for all database. And if required - the ‘borrowed’ new york street or office building interior could be modified.
In a sort of answer to the OP. I would LOVE it if they could make EVERY part of a level destructable
so if it’s a driving game you could break through walls and fences, knock down trees, drive completely off the ‘course’ and into the countryside.
In a splinter cell or MOA game explosions would destroy the surrounding area (the SC wall mines or the MOA rockets) no matter where the mine was placed or rocket hit.
And the destruction should be physically accurate too.
And this just occurs to me - Future games will have far better physics in them! (I am like an excited nerdy kid right now typing all my ideas as soon as they come to me). A gunshot will behave in the game exactly as it will behave in real life, damage to cars in racing games will be accurate, instead of a pre-modelled damage.
And lighting will be very accurate too, with radiosity.
I demand that they create the following…
It’s a space sim - like freelancer. There are 20 times more planets. There’s liked a thousand or more different types and designs of ships. There are far more types of jobs in space (jump gate maintenance crews, VIP chaufers, passenger transports, civilians simply out for a fly etc…). Space will be far far far busier with ships. When you land on planets you don’t just have one pub, one comodity dealer, one ship dealer etc you can go anywhere you want on the whole planet. It’s all modelled. There are planet based missions - you might be asked to drive a car to a delivery point ASAP, or driveby shoot. Or you might be asked to covertly sneak into a building and retrieve valuable information. on some planets you can visit holo-rooms where you get to relive earth’s WW2 as an SAS rambo. You can get a job as a mayor where you get to build and plan new cities on the planets. You can join the highly secret persuadeatron society where you can control the everyday lives of some citizens.
You can visit worlds that are in early development and use your persuadeatron to be ‘god’ to the people there, you can fight wars, build towns with watchtowers with firethrowers in them.
Or - Someone build every game type there is into ONE GAME, and make it as seamless and realistic as possible. This will all be stored on a 20 terabyte cube. And you play it using either a 3d headset or a direct connection to the brain.
I got a bit carried away there I think.
And to think - most. if not all the technology required to create my ultimate game already exists. (except the 20 terabyte cube and the brain connection)
6 posts! :eek: must… stop… posting.
can’t… supress… urge… to… ramble… nerdilyly.
Sure the 20TB cube exists. After all, you never said the size of the thing. All you’d need is about 80 250GB HDs. Then again, that wouldn’t exaclty be a cube, so let’s bump the number of them to 125.
One word:
Holodeck.
That is all.