Good deal

In a recent interview, Microsoft’s Robbie Bach mentioned that the current generation of console hardware will probably last longer than the last generation.  This is actually something I myself predicted not too long ago because of the financial crisis, but I think it actually makes a good deal of sense for other reasons as well.

1) The current crop of consoles debuted at higher prices than the previous gen, and therefore are still pretty expensive.  Certainly, they’ll come down in the next 2-3 years, but the cheapest PS3 is still a ways away from getting into the “mass-market” range, and even the cheapest, somewhat incomplete $200 360 is still not quite at “mass-market” pricing (and, of course, the Wii is still selling out all the time at it’s original launch price).

2) Graphics, at least on the 360 and PS3, are still pretty good, and are still getting better.  With games like Killzone 2, God of War 3, Rage, and who knows what else around the corner there’s still a lot to like about the current generation’s graphics.  Obviously, it’d be stupid to say that they couldn’t improve any, but it does seem like we’re still at a place where developers are still not only figuring out how to maximize the graphical capabilities of the hardware, but also the gameplay implications for the new hardware.  This generation will probably take longer for the graphics to really start looking dated.

3) Relating to the graphics, it also doesn’t seem like PC graphics are substantially pushing the envelope over console graphics yet either, so the typical comparison tool isn’t really “making the case” for a new console just yet.  With the two “powerhouse” consoles supporting HD graphics they can actually come close to matching mid to high-end computers in terms of resolution and capability (and those using the Wii don’t seem to mind so far as they’re still flying off shelves).  Sure, with a powerful enough PC you can certainly get even higher resolutions and even better looking games like Crysis, but not many people have powerful enough machines to take advantage of that and most people probably wouldn’t care that much about differences anyway (assuming a console Crysis ever actually makes it out, I’m guessing not too many people will be too disappointed with whatever sacrifices they need to make assuming it doesn’t interfere with the actual gameplay).  Part of the reason why PC graphics haven’t seemed to be accelerating as quickly as they used to in the past is the apparent shift in the PC market to either online games or Sims-like games.  Both of these need to retain a pretty high level of scalability, and there just won’t push graphics as hard as the cutting-edge games of the past like Doom or Quake.

So really, I think the current generation can probably last a bit longer than “typical”, and to be honest, despite loving new technology and more powerful hardware, this just makes all of our console purchases more worthwhile.  With longer lives we get more bang for the buck.  Good deal indeed.