this is a very VERY good thing... come 2014 they should have advanced enough to keep backwards compatibility.... sofar im enjoying the style and look of the console generation... the graphics are fine in my mind...

This will also shift focus for devs to the PC market again and hopfully move to a new era in gaming ^_^

As for the CPu/GPu thing the move is to integrate the entire north bridge AND gpu into the CPU making a master control chip so to speak... currently sandy bridge and fusion are looking good... with Fusion beating the shit out of SB....

by 2014 i expect amd cpu's with on board graphics in the new consoles... they are the leading tech and with there advancements in power and performance (as long as no speed bumps are hit) should take them to the top.

Well, HDTV will still suck ass but we might have affordable, high resolution LCD panels by then (think 2500+ wide or more), those will be nice. A quad core, low power GPU setup should drive something like that really easily.

They should have been focusing on PC by now anyway, commodity PC stuff is better than what went into these 2005 consoles. A 45 dollar vid card upgrade on a cheap-o Dell PC has more horsepower.

^This.

And hopefully focus will be on gameplay again for all platforms.

with phones getting duo cores and some TV's coming with that aswell Cpu tech will only get cheaper...

since were litteraly at a technological stand still it'll be up to things like Direct X and shaders to push out graphics... that or 16gigs of ram with a hexa-core cpu and duocore gpu's....

From the Apple II days? The age before CGA display? The age of Monochrome display ?

Better technology does not only mean better graphics.

It means better physics, better AI, bigger levels, etc.

1. Unless more games go to the console and there's no NEED to push the PC.

2. I dunno about you but IMO there's no way they can scale a current high end GPU onto a CPU size chipset without losing mucho functionality.
Black and white blocky graphics, or 8 color stuff.

You meant the monochrome days. Play Karateka it's fun.

Sorry I just can't get past REALLY DATED graphics....story or no.

Indeed.

So... like a low-end computer, then?

I think many of the problems that plague us are the FPS and the button mashing mindness issues.

The point that many games like back in the days of the Commodore and Atari. You had some really great games adction, adventure, and some rpg. Thought was put into how the game should work and at times a few bugs did pop up but not like what we see today. Most games are screwed because of the DRM and other factors like being rushed out the door to turn a quick buck instead on focusing on a clean game to play. Too many people worried that they can't max their video cards out. Mind you this argument really gets me for the sake one cannot do anything to a laptop besides upgrade your ram. Anywho.

A lot of games lose their focus on the story regardless if it's a RPG or action game. Thus the reason I said about a certain company in an earlier post. Give us a balanced game on play, story, and graphics. It can be done if the companies put the effort in it. That's where the real money comes from. As long as the ones keep buying the crap that gets put out then nothing will change. The peanut counters can't see quality only quantity. Once they see how bad they are really doing and the true cause is without a doubt shown. Then these companies will finally get their act together.

But that's in a perfect world that is far from theirs, ne?

mmm ? Oh thats nice.

More importantly, 13 years later I still havnt beaten Baldur's Gate as an evil aligned character.

Now, Chaotic Neutral Half Elf Bard, or Chaotic Evil Elven Assasin ? Oh, the possabilities..

Consoles ... *rolls eyes*

I mostly play good alignments in games. I know...i'm a wimp.

Great

maybe now then they can focus on putting out actual good games instead of obsessing with hardware and graphics

Thank fucking god.

A. I don't have the cash to keep buying 3 new consoles every 5 or so years just to play the latest games.
B. This pretty much says to me that the next group of consoles will be enough of an improvement that they will actually be enough to get excited about
C. Maybe now they will actually be able to put the current hardware to the test & push it to the limit.... unlike last gen where they were finally starting to figure out how to push it to its limits then basically canned them in favor of new consoles.