Console developers still think there's plenty of juice left in the current Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, but that hasn't stopped the public from anxiously awaiting the next generation in home gaming. Nintendo's Wii U is set to launch soon, and we should see the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 land by 2014. Bad news is, they might already be outdated when compared to PCs.
In an interview with ArsTechnica Chris Roberts, creator of the popular Wing Commander video game, explained why he is choosing to develop his upcoming Star Citizen game solely for the PC.
"What I was showing you can't do on a current generation console," Roberts said about Star Citizen's initial concept video. "You can do most of it on a next generation console, but I can promise you a top-end PC now is already more powerful than what a next generation console is going to be."
The reason for this, he adds, is because of memory constraints in console gaming.
"You can't do that much with 512MB [of RAM on a console], so that constrains a lot of your game design. If I'm building a PC game, I'm going 'Yeah, you need 4GB on your machine.' Of course you're not going to get all 4GB because Windows is a hungry beast, but you're getting a lot more than 512MB so it kinds of open up what you can do, what you can fit in memory at the same time, and it changes your level of ambition," Roberts explains.
Roberts is a highly-respected developer, so it would be wise to heed his words, but this doesn't mean that next-gen consoles will be antiques by the time they're out. PCs have always been ahead of consoles since they get hardware upgrades at the owner's leisure. Console developers are definitely nifty though, and with high-definition gaming becoming the norm, the visuals are only going to get better.
According to a previous report, the Xbox 720 could make an appearance at the 2013 E3 convention, and could be released as early as fall 2013. Sony is widely expected to follow up with the PlayStation 4 in 2014, although reports are already indicating that dev kits have been shipped out. These reports are also claiming that the PlayStation 4 will have a whopping 16GB of RAM.