I see you haven't read the quote of Todd Howard after Fallout 3 came out , he stated plainly that he wants to release at least one more game on current consoles and waiting to the next console line would be idiotic. To be brutally honest I think your prediction is totally wrong because I believe what Todd says ......most of the time.

Actually, the FIRST next gen console is always Fail. I don't know about the 8-bit generation (I owned a NES, the Master System was okay; I don't know if there were any others during that era), but the first 16-bit was the TurboGrafix 16. The first 32-bit was the Atari Jaguar. The first 64-bit machine was Nintendo's attempt to leap a generation, which lost them all their RPG publishers (particularly Square). And so on.

Put simply, OP, you're wrong.
The current gen consoles have a lot more to give. Just look at Crysis 2. Puh-lease give me a break if you think TES:V will look loads better than that.

Completely agree, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAyJFxapZIQ&feature=related I immediately thought of a graphically upgraded Kvatch. The 360 and Ps3 still have plenty to give graphically.

i would definitely disagree with you on the "no where near the end of their life span" xbox and ps3 are archaic now, with even low end pcs being able to run the same games as them. i hope to God that they dont gimp the game design just so it fits on consoles. i havent heard any rumours about teh next system although its been a few montsh since ive looked. usualy you get some "leak" or something a year ahead of the official announcement but i havents seen anything.

If the cryengine 3 engine can be pulled off on the 360/ps3, I have no doubt whatsoever that a new iteration of the gamebryo engine could be implemented successfully with today's tech.

I would love to see the next Elder Scrolls game on the current generation of consoles. It would be interesting to see just how big of a leap they could make from Oblivion to TESV using the same hardware.

Also, just to clear something up, when Microsoft and Sony describe their consoles as "ten year consoles" they're only saying that's how long they'll support them. They aren't saying they won't release another console during that time.

Well its straight from the gift wardens mouth then isn't it That is an encouraging statement but is he referring to TES?

Well when talking about what would be possible with a TES came on current console tech you have to keep in mind the kind of game TES is. I keep seeing things like the Crysis 2 trailer compared. While Cryengine 3 has supposed support for large outdoor areas, Crysis 2 is set on the streets of New york. Not a huge open world game by any stretch. Fallout 3 ran and looked better than Oblivion because of optimization, and it actually did less work in some respects, such as doing without Oblivion's huge amounts of foliage with each leaf having to play an animation to simulate wind. Things like that can eat up a good sized amount of compute power.
An Elderscrolls game having a significant leap over Oblivion on 360 and PS3 level hardware would be a technical challenge. I wont say it cant be done however. Look at Id Tech 5's texture system. It seems like a dream come true for someone working on an Elderscrolls game. (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gametrailers.com%2Fvideo%2Ftech-5-id-software%2F23179&h=c9257)
Also Cryengine 3 is pushing lighting,physics, and particle effects to new heights on current generation hardware. So if you had some talented technical staff and artist Im sure a great looking, running TES game could still be put out. But most things would not be newly added features on the tech side but improved things of what we already have. Much of that is what you want in a sequel of course. But TES games like to introduce new graphics features as well. I'd love to see a higher poly count, and could see tessellation being a HUGE benefit to the type of game TES is. Cloth and water simulation would be another great advantage, along with destructible environments. Your not going to see any of that on current hardware. Most devolpers are pushing the memory barrier on current consoles to its absolute max. And now we are seeing things such as the CPU and GPU become even bigger limiting factors.

IMHO I could see Bethesda being able to pump out a better looking, well running TES game on Xbox 360 and PS3. I cant imagine them however making a TES game on current consoles that would provide any substantial leap in visuals over Oblivion, or the same difference that we had from Morrowind to Oblivion.
Also please keep in mind that just because a console has a 10 year lifespan doesn't mean its successor wont come out before then. Look at PS2. It had a 10 year life span. But the PS3 was out well before that 10 year mark rolled around. A 10 year life span just indicates that the console will be supported for 10 years. and the same thing that happened with the Xbox 1 wont be repeated where it was left to die.

This could be good, now that bethesda is familiar with the 360/PS3, the next installment will likely run better.

On the crysis topic; It is a great show case to see what the consoles can do, but i think its quite a different animal to the demands of a open world action rpg, without mentioning the rpg mechanics running behind the scenes...
Real time shadows to me are important, for sunny days on the road, or to cast warm torchlight through a dark dungeon.... Its very atmospheric, and to my knowledge, very rare to find such a thing on consoles, especially a heavy game like oblivion.

Perhaps the world of home video games is simply in a different phase at the moment... The PC is not likely to hold much sway over the consoles and the massive audience they entertain, unless of course (here comes controversy...) they don't get their 3d support sorted out in any decent length of time. Usually mentioning something like that invokes opinion, but I feel that this time its here to stay, and it is good. TES games lend themselves to escapism, and I think that bethesda should exploit that tech.

And on that note, I think the boys at bethesda would\already are right up in there with 3d, developers have their ears to ground, and like mentioned in anothers earlier post, they like to go where the new stuff is... To me it seems like the natural evolution of what their company goal/mission for TES lives for...

What other game would they make? Most likely TESV , I think he said having one more TES game before this console line coming to an end....or something really close to the lines of it.

This! Oblivion had a very high number of objects and complicated NPC routines and behaviors that it had to constatnly keep track of in the back ground. These types of things eat up a lot of hardware resources and make it hard to compare to something like linear FPS. Then we you take into account massive amounts of foliage and all the animations for that foliage kept in memory you start to see why the Xbox 360 had some frame rate drops in Oblivion.

Yeah, this is true that programming can optimize too make an engine look better but still same requirements. (Look at the difference between ME1 and ME2, or Call of Duty 2 and MW2 on the same console).

BUT

The Xbox360 and PS3 are missing some vital things to make a game look amazing. Any DX above 9 (they both have DX9). Tesselation, High textures, Advanced AA, Vsync are some things they are missing.

Does Fallout 3 really have better graphics and better performance than Oblivion? It seems that both are worse, to me. I'm playing the ps3 version of both of them, though.

I'd say it does... but the environments are so different it can be hard to tell.

They might do an adventures game to go with the storyline of the book. That would be fine by me.

You're forgetting that neither microsoft nor sony have not released their motion controls nor the games for them. Plus, gears of war 3 and other big games like MOH are coming soon. They are just going to last 6 or more months? I think not. I believe that the new consoles are coming post 2012. Also, 360 and PS3 has should be able to run the new TES Games, I believe they are not using DX11 so console players should be fine.

They will run on the consoles if they make them for the consoles, ofc. But it would be sub-par for any decent computer...

They would amuse me for about as long as your elitest attitude amuses me. Indefinitely.

I never said or even implied that I care about graphics more than gameplay. I simply said I care about graphics. A great game needs to excel in all areas, whereas a good game only excels in some.

I agree with Todd Howard that in a TES game the world is the main character. The graphics need to be mindblowing to svck you in and add to the incredible immersion that Bethesda's games provide. They make the world feel that much more tangible and believable. Have you seen the wildnerness videos of Red Dead Redemption? I would love that level of detail in a TES game.

Don't pretend graphics aren't important in a modern TES game. You're either lying to us, or lying to yourself as well.

I think Falllout 3 has better charcter models than Oblivion, but the shadows, lighting and textures are not as good. Great game, but doesn't compare to Oblivion graphically on the PS3.


I think that if we got some decent occlusion culling going, we'd be able to run some great graphics on current gen stuff without seeing a hit in framerate. The current gen has a life, but only with proper coding. I don't imagine they can last beyond 2012 without a new system coming out though.

I have no shame about being snobbish.

By the way, Red Dead Redemption looks boring, but then again i've never cared for westerns.

Red Dead Redemption looks amazing. I can't wait I'll be buying my 3rd 360 for it haha

ooh yes, red dead looks like a breath of something fresh... I think the desert environment might save a few frames per/sec, :edit:
And as Darkstorne quoted; if the main character is the world, it means your not so much getting thrills from watching your character interaction with the world, but instead watching the world react to your character...

This means that there is one 'action' going on, not two; therefore; we need a really mint world and visuals.

Wow, the psychology of game production!! So interesting!! <3 I once read a great article about Uncharted 2 and its game psych....

Any chance of a link to that article? Sounds interesting