New consoles from the big three, madness or brilliant? (Now with added Scorpio & Neo!) This the last gen?

I'm not sure you have any idea quite how frustrating it is to read statements like these:

1. Devs cost will go up as they always with continuing tech upgrades be it a Pro, Scorpio, PS5 down the road or that new graphics card. We've talked about this with Spencer saying Single Player games are irrelevant, something I don't know what it is to even it all out.

2. Me and Muss we have to have to agree to disagree as I see alienating the audience with a New 3DS and the possibility of games made with all the POWER! of Scorpio which may cause problems getting the Xbox One version running properly, more of a issue then the PS4 Pro.


1. You make a massive oversimplification for the sake of an ill conceived coup de gras. If dev costs went up every generation how did Team Meat get Super Meat Boy onto so many platforms? The answer is, dev costs do not always/have to increase every generation. The phrasing you are searching for is, 'dev costs go up with more advanced tech for those trying to push the boundaries of said tech.' Even then, this entirely misses the point of my whole discourse on THQ, and on Konami.

You've completely ignored the very real problem of rising costs to publishers "on the fence,". There's no consideration as to what responsibilities console manufactures have in alleviating costs (something that makes gaming as a whole healthier because, hey, we get more games). Instead you've just gone, "ooh, costs go up all the time anyway so I can ignore that point as it's just the world we live in." Costs really don't have to increase in all cases though. What's the point of the Cry Engine, of Unity, of the Unreal Engine? They're used by little guys and the big boys alike because they not only provide a solid starting point for in game physics and rendering, but they make costs lower! Surely you can see how this isn't some blanket, yes or no, issue? There's lots of factors at play, but how do you think the pro or worse, the scorpio, alter these equations?

The difference between how we've been framing things like cost, is that I'm using statements like "costs are going up" within a very specific context (e.g., pro development vs base), whereas you're using it as de facto for all development. This is simply incorrect and there's no way I can 'agree to disagree' over something so fundamental.

2. I honestly can't understand what you're saying, if you're going to write big walls please proof read. If you can't proof read, use a text-to-voice narrator in MS word (I do that for my MA there's no shame in it, hearing your own words back makes a big difference). At any rate, in this case you assert another coup de gras, only this time it's not an oversimplification, it's just nonsensical. How in the F is the New 3DS "alienating?" To use a more demanding game, one needs the more demanding system. There's a choice, a very real and clear choice, for developers and consumers, with very real and clear consequences.

You want to talk "alienation?" Who do you think has a "right" to actually feel more, "alienated," in this example? The Base PS4 user receives none of the benefits which have gone into Pro development, yet they pay the same price for, what is now, different software than someone who bought a pro. If my copy of Horizon doesn't "come alive" like yours does, give me a good argument as to why I should pay the same price as you (Note, that's a rhetorical question. I don't actually believe this statement, I'm just proving a point about how erroneous the term alienation is)? Secondly, think of the devs. There' no way for them to track the economic costs and benefits of such additional development. Again, hankering back to my concerns about costs, this is clearly an ineffective solution to problems associated with AAA development. If it makes any publisher more hesitant to green light games then every consumer loses in the long run.

Now consider how alienated a 3ds user feels. They get the same games, which function the same except for the additional hardware acceleration the New 3DS innately provides (this acceleration comes at no additional development cost, it generally just makes things load faster but there have been some fuck ups like Hyrule Warriors where the base model was fucked). They don't get the new 3ds games but they also chose not to pay for them. In fact, in almost all circumstances, people who didn't upgrade get an almost identical experience to New 3ds users while development costs are held constant. - The only sitch that counters that is perhaps cases where a developer tries to develop for both even when they clearly need the grunt of the New 3DS, but that's a developer cock up.

My arguments are not infallible, there are plenty of ways you could have engaged with them. You might say, well the new 3ds has affected how Nintendo have made games for the old model and so the consumers have been affected in some sense, even though costs haven't changed. Then we can have a conversation about the merits of the Nintendo model from a mutual understanding of some common ground. This might be what you're trying to get at, but I honestly can't tell.

With my pro-cost examples, you could reasonably suggest I'm putting to much stock into costs I don't have any context for other than rising industry costs in general. That would be true, I don't, although it wouldn't change my concerns about what the pro represents, it's much better than "well all costs are going up,." They can go up, but they can also be alleviated to a certain extent.

I'm sure I've missed plenty of opportunities to bridge a gap as well but can you not see how all my examples try to establish a consistent, clear, framework accompanied with detailed examples? I do, clearly, personally feel the pro model is daft (and the scorpio is plain idiotic, it's the pro turned up to 11 FFS), but I'm also trying to make points which speak to the industry as a whole and not just myself. I know you've made several statements of, oh little Phil Spencer says this, or I feel like the pro is for people who already have 4k tvs. But while you can certainly look at things that way, it's asinine to do so without an appreciation of how 1.5 style consoles change the nature of console gaming for the vast majority of gamers who aren't moving to 4k until it's more affordable. 4k is not even close to an industry standard, and even shopping for a 4k TV that's good at showing games without latency is a challenge (see VG Dave and VG Tomo back when they were at Videogamer explaining the difficulties of knowing what a good 4k tv was for gaming). If, as you say, the pro is an add-on for people with 4k, then that don't you think changing the costs of development, and the transferred costs either swallowed by devs or consumers, is a real problem considering the ratio of 4k to non-4k consumers?

Like I've said before, consoles are not PC's. There are aspects of PC gaming that a console can benefit from. But the markets are distinct, and whereas a PC developer can make reasonable predictions about sales versus power requirements, a 1.5 console developer cannot. If it's PC gamers or the hardcore enthusiast these things are targeting, then why the fuck is my PC that I built 2 years ago still kicking the shit out of the figures on that ridiculously stupid tee? (and why the f is my pc cheaper than a pro/scorpio plus 4k telly despite being both considerably more powerful and work practical?) In the end, there's little sales evidence to suggest that these things have been wooing the PC enthusiast.

Because consoles are not, and will not, be at the cutting edge. Ever. No amount of marketing tee tomfoolery is going to change that.