There is really nothing new about this period of general weirdness, of course; a similar fog descends upon the industry each time one generation of consoles is retired in favor of another. Each time this happens, though, I think there are always a couple of major themes that become the subject of debate within the press. Major debates in the past have centered around everything from the inclusion (or non-inclusion) of DVD movie playback in consoles, to the whole CD-versus-cartridge question. This time, though, a truly odd (and pretty interesting) debate is emerging: how, exactly, do we define a next-generation console?
The general consensus seems to be that the entire question rests principally on hardware power and little else. Ubiquitous games industry analyst Michael Pachter has repeatedly suggested that the Wii U—however different it might be, and however "new" it might be—is fundamentally not a "next-generation" console.
I disagree with this assessment in part because I believe that hardware power is no longer the principle metric by which to define what is and is not next-generation, and in part because the discussion amongst developers seems to have become a great deal more nuanced than this.
One such developer is industry legend John Carmack, the head of id Software and a man who has occupied a seat at the cutting-edge of gaming technology for many years. Despite the fact that his company continues to actively pursue next-generation game engine technologies, Carmack is already shifting his attention to what he considers to be truly "next-generation" experiences.
Any creative vision that a designer could come up with, we can do a pretty good job representing on current generation and certainly on PC. In many ways I am not all that excited about the next generation. It will let us do everything we want to do now, with the knobs turned up.
Interestingly, Carmack's vision for next-generation gaming has less to do with higher-fidelity graphics and more to do with the way players interact with games. Virtual reality and more sophisticated mobile gaming experiences are are the forefront of Carmack's mind these days.
This is not to suggest that graphics are unimportant, of course. I am suggesting, though, that graphics are less important than ever before; they are no longer the primary driving force behind generational change, nor are they the most important differentiating factor for consumers when it comes time to choose which console to purchase.
Carmack's point has been echoed by numerous other developers, and to some extent it is also borne out by looking at some of the latest "current-generation" games.
Naughty Dog's The Last of Us for PlayStation 3 is one great example of why hardware power is only the beginning—and not the end—of any debate about generational change. This game exemplifies the idea that the emphasis, in terms of game graphics, is increasingly placing weight on software development rather than continual advances in hardware. That is to say, game engine technology and a clever fusion of art design and programming wizardry are the elements that really make the difference. The fact that some developers are still setting new visual benchmarks on the ageing PlayStation 3 platform is testament to this.
Although Nintendo has not released comprehensive technical specifications of the Wii U architecture, it is notable that at least one next-generation game engine is already up and running on the platform. According to Crytek's CEO, Cevat Yerli, one developer is already utilising CryEngine 3 to build a game for Wii U. "It actually runs beautifully," said Yerli, in reference to the engine's performance on the Wii U hardware. It is likely that the engine has been scaled down for Wii U (as compared to, say, a high-end PC environment), but nonetheless, comments like these suggest that Wii U is not necessarily going to be some pariah that is completely left behind when Sony and Microsoft's next platforms eventually arrive.
I am conscious at this point that I still have not answered the original question: how do we define a next-generation console?
My answer is going to be unsatisfying (and I suspect may require another blog post to comprehensively explain), but in essence, I no longer think that new console hardware itself represents a "new generation"—at least, not in the clearly-defined way that used to be the case. This is because all three hardware manufacturers have changed the whole discussion. With the original Wii console, Nintendo completely stepped out of the race for superior hardware power; instead, they made the emphatic point that changing the game experience itself was the goal of generational change. Sony and Microsoft have also changed the narrative in their own ways, too. With Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the emphasis has increasingly shifted to ecosystems rather than physical hardware. This could be one reason why Nintendo's competitors are in no rush to launch new hardware (and to not even discuss potential new hardware in any level of detail).
I believe that many people—including much of the dedicated gaming press—are still mired in (and restricted by) the industry parlance as it existed in the 1990s. So much of the current debate about next-generation platforms emphasises hardware power at the expense of areas that are likely going to be far more consequential, including the aforementioned online ecosystems, interface and game engine technology.
It may therefore be time to seriously reconsider what the term "next-generation" really means. I think there is a strong possibility that the industry has moved on, but many of our debates have not.