At this year's GC Developer's Conference in Leipzig, Germany, predictions have already begun to fly about when we may see a new console generation arrive on the scene:
The PlayStation 4 and Xbox '720' will arrive in 2011 or 2012, we think. But this is just our estimate – we don't know, and even if Microsoft and Sony told us, I couldn't say because it would be under NDA. But we think in three to four years' time, although there are good reasons why it should be 2010 already…but we'll see. — Cevat Yerli, Crytek CEO
However, it would seem that there are those who don't believe that consoles will even get that far, such as one Alex St. John:
St. John's basic argument is that community aspects, not graphics, are the future of gaming. "Sony and Microsoft took the bet that prettier graphics would be the huge differentiating feature for their consoles. They were wrong." St. John then proceeded to ramble on about MMOs and eventually started to advertise his new system, Orb, as the greatest thing the world has ever seen. Ok maybe it's not that great, but even I have to admit it looks interesting. … St. John's prediction is that by 2020 "the market will be dominated by online community based games. The PC will be the dominant platform. It will be monetised by microcurrency, advertising and subscriptions." That sounds great, except for the 'microcurrency, advertising and subscriptions' part. That doesn't sound much fun at all. So, if this is the last generation of consoles, yet we won't be seeing the resurrection of the PC until 2020, that means I'm going to be playing my 360 for another 12 years. That sounds like an accurate predition! Well done St. John! The guy does seem pretty confident though, saying "I'll take the heat if I'm wrong and don't mind being mocked in the future with people going 'Wow, was he wrong'. But it doesn't happen to me very often." — Eoco, Sarcastic Gamer
Yeah, those consoles are really tanking right now, the Wii most of all. Pure folly, I say.
