How Often Will We See 8 Gig Console Games?
Well… we’re moving into the 4th quarter of the year and since most games have disappeared until 2015 at least games I was anticipating it got me reflecting once again on the possibilities of next gen gaming overall; I’m still waiting for the “jump” a new generation generally provides and on the topic of consoles how will it take advantage of the new power, history says it won’t… at least not often.
Think about it, how many times do you hear a game developer say they’ve maxed out a console? (which is the metaphor I use for 8 gigs by the way) Not many, and when they do it’s usually at the end of a console’s life cycle. When it came to last gen and maybe even the gen before yeah you could chalk it up to good marketing you could even blame it on the “alien hardware” on the PS2 and PS3′s side, making it hard to develop for as the reasons for not seeing this as the rule but rather the exception but for Us as gamers to pay 500-600 dollars for a console with those boasted specs that’s some key promises that went unfulfilled.
Now is the past the predictor of the future? Possibly, but for all the talk about these new consoles not being a obstacle and a “thorn in the flesh” to these developers and the overall development cycle — rather aiding it, one could be optimistic that it should produce a much more consistent “maxed out” experience. Also couple that with the fact developers are always talking about how their imagination is to big for hardware limitations it should undoubtedly manifest.
I remember gamers across the world being so excited about the fact new consoles were set to 8 gigabytes of RAM — including the developers shooooo it could even be argued that they were more excited. Especially coming behind the rumors and predictions that it would ship with 4 gigabytes of RAM, that’s fine and dandy but how often will we truly see a 8 gig game?
In other words (and again) I’m talking maxing out the console’s boasted specs in a giving generation. I also remember when Blu- ray was the talk of the town and how it’s technology would make for bigger, better, longer games which might have been true but how often did we see it? Maybe about 1 percent? And that may be being generous. The Kojima’s, The Naughty Dog”s, The Santa Monica’s of the world probably the only one’s on record to reach this feat, everybody else not so much, especially on multi-platform games. And I’m just talking about maxing out the Blu-ray disc, what happened to 1080p/60 frames per second gaming, that we were promised last generation? (Dare I say 720p wasn’t even standard last gen). Mind you we’re still struggling to get to that standard (1080p) this generation as it is still “breaking news” whenever it is achieved.
It’s almost like we have to disregard the specs spewed out every gen because it will always fall short, waaaay short of being the standard. Why even make a system — or not make a system that can deliver these promises? So one genius developer could have their breakthrough moment!?
