You do not know much about economics and consoles, and you might even own a current gen console. :shadedshu
2gb of memory is enough, I am playing battlefield 3 on my ps3 @ 720p with only 512mb of memory, and a very old in standard video card also, (7800 series nvidia gimped).
All consoles have to do, is slap some stronger cpu/graphics cores in them and finally allow full 1080p pixel gameplay, and that will be a mass improvement over the consoles of today.
They do not want to go overboard on memory, because just a bit overboard will cost millions in overall total for distribution period.
There going to down the specs low enough, till there is still considerable improvement over today's consoles, and still offer headroom for next-gen consoles with the same cheap prices.
2gb sounds like enough, even if 1gb goes to all background process on the console, there will still be another 1gb of ram to handle a full 1080p graphics experience for the console.
And trust me, someone will develop a game that does everything explained above, and is just shy of using over 2gb of ram.
I still think the next big thing with console games distribution will be consoles shipping with terabytes of local storage and games being distributed over the internet (like Steam and Origin have already achieved on PC, so did Xbox360 and PS3's native content distribution systems).
Yes this sounds like a possible solution for the future, but a bit in the future.
Isn't there supposed to be some issue involving hard-drive manufacturing and raising overall prices because of recent events?
I would not want to try to think negatively but, even if this decision was made it would affect the market for us PC players and spectators for sure. Quality of hard-drives might go down because of mass production, and it might become overall harder to get hard-drives of quality or at all because time and money will be spent on consoles, and those consoles will barley be enough return profit because they make them as cheap as they can, and sell them at similar prices. This can be possible though.
Also the overall talk about digital downloads is great for consoles, but I am sure 50-60 dollars for 1 hard media of any kinds, and a plastic covering is great profits for everybody, and I just can not see someone sacrificing that, or having the potential to "raise prices" on video games if there digital in the first place. Why? Because people just wont accept something pure digital and see the prices raise, that argument will blow up on anybody who made that decision.
That is why us PC gamer's get are content extremely cheap from digital suppliers(or host/servers) because there is just no justifying locked in prices for digital content in the first place. A lot of people are simple, and I believe that the console player base and older people that have been used to physical copy's of games just wont accept that, they need it in there hand for more insurance and happiness.
Also taking everything into the digital download world will definitively give the people in charge more power if not loads of power to do what they want. Limited installs, Prices changing on the fly, Even more lack of customer care(game-stop covers that great). I say game-stop covers Customer care great because, if I were to buy a non working title, I can go back and get a replacement. If the same happens for digital, I would have to make phone-calls maybe across the continent threw sections of there customer service.
I could imagine the servers that would be needed to handle the entire console player base downloading blockbuster titles would have to be out of this world with millions accessing and requesting at the same time. (10gb general game request per person). There are also still a huge amount of players, millions still running on some sketchy internet, It would take hours above the 10 mark for them to finally get a start and installation of there games.
Its all possible, and non of B's points are ludicrous, because they have been proven to be more efficient and reliable, it will just take a pretty big movement and assurance to get a start on that for millions of players on consoles.
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ohh yeh, switching the topic a bit, Game-pad vs keyboard and mouse.
Keyboard and mouse is overall completely better then a game-pad, no argument. Game-pads have way more limited movements, buttons, and flexibility then a mouse and keyboard.
A mouse is the aiming reticle of all axis for the player, and is completely controlled by your entire palm, arm, and shoulder muscle movements. I want to see someone with a ps3/360 analog stick use there entire arm to do the same. When aiming with a joystick your only using your fore-arm and hand muscles that are eventually toned and memorized for efficient game play.
When people make some of the control layouts for the consoles, you are eventually needed to focus on pushing a button on the game-pad which sacrifice's focus for aiming and the analog stick movement.
With keyboard and mouse, you never let off your aim because its completely dedicated to one side of your body and nothing else, and the keyboard side layout for actions is exactly similar to a console but instead of your thump of 1 index finger having to move up and off to press a button on a game-pad, you have your entire hand dedicated to a wall of buttons, 5 fingers vs limited movement and fingers on a game-pad.
Its hard to explain, but its the truth.
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