That Ars Technica article is quite interesting. Right now, though, I fail to see why it is necessarily bad news that Sony and Microsoft are possibly aiming for cheaper hardware. I still expect them to go for a relatively competitive pricing. My assumption is that they will still be a good deal in terms of price vs. performance.
I also agree that the limitations off HDTVs will make sure that a worse GPU will still be able to create some rather good looking games, especially since games can usually be far more optimized to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the available hardware. Forgoing insanely powerful CPUs, well... I don't even know whether they ever were put to good use, anyways. A simple Core 2 Duo has lasted very long for most PC games and I'd actually say that CPUs have hardly been much of a bottleneck for the visual quality seen in most games. Hence why I think that cutting costs by using less powerful hardware isn't going to have as much as a negative impact on console gaming as some people expect.
It's not like we won't see any progress at all, as it was the case with Nintendo's Wii at launch. My hope is that the new generation of consoles will be significantly cheaper at launch, say somewhere around the 250$ mark, instead of the 400$ that the Xbox360 was released at. My hope would also be that Sony and Microsoft (especially Microsoft!) will stay away from releasing a plethora of different versions of their respective console with slightly different capabilities.
This may sound strange, as I actually like the Wii the least out of the three current consoles, but I do think that it is the best in terms of just being a gaming console. You know, it's relatively simple, relatively cheap and focused on, well, playing games. Maybe not the kind of games I personally like to play, but I think you get where I'm going with this.
I do realize that multimedia usages will be very important for the upcoming consoles, so hoping to see a stronger focus on actually gaming might be entirely futile, but I'm trying to stay positive for the time being. Another thing that makes me look forward to the upcoming generation is the fact that the hardware isn't as powerful. Why might that be a good point, though? Because I am a firm believer that not being able to focus solely on eye candy might cause developers to shift their focus more towards the gameplay elements. Improving gameplay to compensate for the lack of graphical prowess that's on equal terms with the gaming PCs out there, now that'd be a good thing. We've seen such games suceed quite a bit recently, with lots of PSN and XBLA games that may not be very advanced from a pure graphics point of view, but offer great gameplay. We even got a fine example of that with Rayman Origins as a full-fledged retail game. The PC market has also seen some great indy games that are, from a pure graphics point of view, not very taxing in the hardware. A shift towards those kinds of games seems desirable to me. I actually feel that graphics are being over-emphasized on, right now, and have been for quite a while.
If it wasn't for all the DRM rumours floating around right now, I'd be rather excited for the upcoming console generation. I don't mind all sorts of protection from pirated software, really. But after playing the Diablo III Beta and witnessing the downsides of constant internet connectivity being a requirement to play a game in single player, it is annoying me, to say the least. Furthermore, it seems to me that jailbreaking these consoles will also soar to new heights. Piracy, not to safe money but to use the consoles more conveniently might also be occuring far more often, too.
I'm basically split and torn about this. The next generation seems to carry great potential, in my opinion, to start a new trend in gaming which would be right up my ally. I don't need the best possible graphics and the most powerful hardware. All I want is gameplay that's really good. Not having access to outstanding hardware and graphics might faciliate better gameplay, so I'd say that there's a distinct chance for a "second golden age of gaming" to be caused by this change in philosophy of the biggest console manufacturers... If it wasn't for the overblown DRM measures and the potential thread to the second hand market - most likely without getting the great deals and cheap games that are being offered via Steam, for example. In that regard, I am afraid that we might be ending up witht he worst of both worlds: Games that are as hard to pass on as PC games with all their registrations and online accounts but stay at the same price point that console games have been at for years. Which would inevitably kill all the chances to see that "second golden age of gaming" come true.
That's why I feel okay with having a laptop for school work and minor games while the PS3 works as my primary entertainment at home.
