http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/sony-indies/
So far everything I've seen makes PS4 a clear choice over Xbox One as a console, although I'm still curious what Valve has in mind, but it doesn't look like they are in a hurry to announce anything so could be another year or two of waiting.
Personally, the locking down of the platform to destroy the used game market is a big loss, imo. Being anti-friendly to indie developers is just another data point for sure; it's still not engendering excitement about the future of the XBox.
The newer Kinect seems real neat, although I do fear what it could be used for, (emotion tracking during tv ads?)
I think it's too early to speculate on "destroying the used game market" as MS has been very vague on the exact details. Not an issue for Steam for what it's worth.
Skype integration does seem cool, after moving away from home, it's nice to Skype with the family back home, and doing it on a TV seems more personal to me than an iPad or laptop.
The instant switching feature seems cool too, will have to see how it actually performs. Right now on my tv there is 2-3 second delay while switching inputs. Quite a first world problem, but cool that they are addressing it.
To me it didn't seem like PS4 brought much new to the table, while XO seems a bit more of an evolution of the last console.
e.g. Want to put your app.net snap-in out there so people can communicate that way during broadcast events? Sorry, Twitter doesn't want it. Maybe Facebook has enough money to buy its way in, but you're SOL.
Want to do an Amazon-style "X-Ray" companion app for video content? Sorry, Microsoft is rolling their own.
xmpp chat? Nope. It's Skype-or-nothing.
etc.
The programmers are smart - I foresee a lot of good programmers going into either middleware or kickstarter.
The next gen consoles, with their power, are going to bring dynamic animation and procedural 3D environments and numerous innovative areas so that small teams can unshackle themselves from the legions of artists necessary today.
Ah, the dream. I've heard the same thing for the last 15 years.
And AMD APUs are not very powerful beasts either, as far as I know. Not matter how tuned the whole architecture is...
If you look at how the extra power on PC is used you'll see it's the same type of games, prettier. Almost universally. I can't think of a PC game that uses performance to do something significantly new or interesting, or even do some gameplay better.
It's going to be the same this new generation too. What can we so with this extra raw power? Not much more except make the game games, prettier. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo know this, which is why they're all pushing for second screen integration, social features, online connectivity and (especially in MS's case) motion input.
m3mnoch.
90% of paid salaries will be to people who contribute to sound, code, graphics and other things that is shipped.
Publishers have the know how and capital to devise and implement such a strategy. Don't make the mistake to assume that they are just there to take a cut of your profits without putting any value on the table.
I am not sure that developers without publisher pressure is ACTUALLY a good thing. Sometimes you need constraints to do good work.
Compared to the consumer-facing mess that's XBLIG, it's hard to fault them.
The fact that these consoles have PC-like hardware make the market ripe for disruption: Now any company, like Valve and their potential steambox, can come and put a cheap AMD APU based box on the market and let publishers publish the very same games that they publish on the PS4 and Xbox One. Of course this means you will not get access to exclusive games from Sony or Microsoft, but that's been proven to be a very small amount of games every year (less than 5%).
It may be a new come-back for the PC in the living room.
Honestly, nothing much comes to mind, and most of the so-called exclusive titles like Alan Wake made it to the PC eventually.
Regardless, the Indie games tend to be the ones I gravitate to, for no good reason I can determine, so that's a pretty damning data point to me at least.
(well, family-friendly indies at least. Don't expect to see Hotline Miami on WiiU any time soon)
Retaining developers, inspiring them, giving them proper tooling, reducing bureaucracy, and generally enabling their success -- that's a whole other ball game.
Nice thing is that Unity3d seems to have a usable port for WiiU, so it should (in theory) be much easier to developer for Nintendo. If you use Unity, you can at least reuse everything on a different platform if Nintendo launch fails.