Hi folks, I needed to get this off my chest... What are your thoughts on my opinion?'

I don't believe current gen consoles have the muscle to pull of a new TES game.... Perhaps the playstation 3 maybe... TES games are always built at the cutting edge of technology, i doubt bethesda would want to break their stride with this. Oblivion on 360 has a less than ideal framerate much of the time, thats a concern. Because these consoles are no way near the end of their life span. I cant imagine beth wanting to release without supporting all platforms. Im a pc gamer, but realize the importance of cross platform support.

This means, a possible long wait for this beloved series to produce another sequel.... (sniff...tears)

I don't know about Arena and Daggerfall, but both Morrowind and Oblivion were hard on PC's and consoles at the time of their release, and that didn't seem to deter Bethesda at all. Perhaps they have gigs on the side with hardware vendors, to release a game that requires upgrades.

Yes, but both morrowind and oblivion were among the line up of games at each consoles launch... this time there will be no new console for beth to make their game!

I wouldn't expect to see a TES V until late next year anyway. By then, at least Microsoft and Sony should be ready to release their next gen boxes. The 360 will be 5 years old this fall.

I don't know much about the hardware issues, but from limited understanding, can't more be done from a programing angle to get the most out of the technology?

I saw someone post a link on youtube not too long ago to a video demonstrating that the future of graphics may not even need video cards.

:nod:

Not to mention that Oblivion was also not made to its full processing potential, at least according to what I've heard and experienced. I play Fallout 3 better than I play Oblivion, and on my old computer where I had to have half of the settings at medium to play well, I could play Fallout 3 at the full settings easily. Fallout 3 had more detailed graphics, more visual effects, more screen effects, more complex meshes, and more NPCs that could target you at once but I don't remember ever lagging while playing it.

Don't under estimate the current gen of consoles, there is still a fair bit of life in them. I doubt we'll see a new xbox until 2013-2014 due to the release of Natal. I'd expect Sony to use the same logic since they have their Move controller out soon. They wouldn't spend so much money and energy in these new products for the current gen if the consoles would be dropped within 2 years.

To be honest, if Bethesda came forth today and announced that they will be releasing TES V in five years on the next generation consoles.........I would be happy with that. As long as I know it's on its way!!!!

I don't really think a new console generation is on the cards for next year (except maybe for handhelds). In fact, both Sony and Microsoft are trying to give their current consoles a new lease on life by adding motion controls. It'll probably be another year after the next before we see any movement on the "next gen"-front, imo.

As for the argument at hand - TESV this gen or the next - well, why does Beth need cutting edge tech to deliver a next TES game? They're perfectly capable to improve on the TES formula (which was never about advanced technical feats per se, but about giving players more and more freedom) without the need for new hardware. Besides, other devs still seem to be getting more and more out of current technology every day, why assume that well has already dried up and that Beth can't tap into that? Oblivion was a near launch title for current systems. I, for one, would love to see what a new TES would look like gamewise if Beth would tap into all the unlocked potential of current systems. It could potentially surpass Oblivion in every single way.

Good call

Seriously, who plays an ES game and cares whether a pebble casts a shadow?

It would be highly out of character for them to release on the same hardware I think.... and surmising again; if they want to account for any 3d venture also they need more grunt to do it also. Precisely twice the oomph....

Unless of course they build in different graphic detail to suit whichever platform, I couldn't help but worry that much of the eye-candy TES is so famous for might be watered down... especially onto a pc.

While Bethesda might choose to wait for a new generation of consoles for continuing the Elder Scrolls series, though I wouldn't completely rule out seeing another game on the current generation, after all, Oblivion didn't actually test the limits of the Xbox 360 or PS3, if you look at Fallout 3, it already looks better than Oblivion, and many found that it runs better than. If Oblivion ran poorly on consoles, it wasn't because it pushed their abilities to the limit, but because it was poorly programmed, I'd say that there's still some room to enhance the graphics of the Elder Scrolls series on the current consoles.



A lot of people, if you look at how many were dissappointed when they realized those nice shadows Bethesda showed off at E3 weren't in the final game, now look at the large amount of graphics enhancing mods released for both Morrowind and Oblivion, it seems that some players are, in fact, quite concerned with getting the best looking Elder Scrolls experience possible, and naturally Bethesda wants to capitalize on this.

Out of character? Only 2 TES games have been released on consoles. I wouldn't say that 2 games are enough to see any pattern of release emerge (with console cycles thats refering to, not development cycles)

Me. I especially care when the leaning buildings of Skingrad, or the White Gold Tower don't cast shadows.

TES:V will look amazing, even on the current gen. I'm guessing you haven't seen the graphical prowess in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D9oINHI11E? Consoles have a lot left to give, it's just knowing how to squeeze that energy out of them.

PC gamers are likely to get even more graphical wonders than the console counterparts. <3 8x Anti-Aliasing.

I can't wait to see how it looks on a top of the range PC. I'll be playing it on 360 and I know it will look stunning, but on a $4000 PC... Who knows how good they've got it looking already.

Yeah, I was about to say "Yo, have you seen the 360 build of Crysis 2 they've been showing off the last few weeks" but Darkstorne beat me to it.

But yeah, they can squeeze a great deal out of the current consoles.


That said: I would not be surprised if they did announce that they were going to wait for the next gen, after watching the 'making of' DVD for Oblivion, and how they started work on Obliv without knowing what hardware would be like by the time they finished, but just shooting for the moon... Being a graphics showcase, and a herald of next gen possibilities definantly seemed like a priority for Todd and company with Oblivion, it could be possible they want to replicate that kind of bar-raising debut with TESV.

If you haven't seen the DVD feature and don't have the SE, you can find it on YouTube. Graphics were unquestionably a major priority for the Oblivion team, even though they started work without any real info about the 360's hardware. This is to address Wierdcitizen's point in particular. Those gamesas boys and girls like to think big.

Only time will tell, but I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of a next gen console release. It seems more likely that TESV will grace the 360 (with a much more robust PC graphics ceiling), but the possibility of TESV being to the next console gen what TES4 was to the current generation remains, in my books, distinct.

I'm of the opinion they could EASILY make a game for the 360 and PS3 that blows Oblivion away graphically. Oblivion was entry-level software for those consoles, basically. The devs were just tinkering around with and learning the capabilities of the hardware then. Just look at some of the late era PS2 games compared to early era. Same with Xbox. They could make a game more gorgeous than Fallout 3 without waiting for a new console. Shiny graphics are cool, but they're not everything when it comes to the Elder Scrolls.

I for one was disappointed when Shivering Isles was the last expansion for Oblivion. I hope the next game has a lot more DLC.

How long would shadows amuse you if they were in there?

Would you rather time being spent making books have shadows? Or would you care more about them writing new material to fill them? (The focus seems to be one or the other nowadays)

Apparently i'm in the minority of gamers who care about the latter.

I realize that MS claims that the 360 is a "ten year" console, but that's an awfully long time in the hardware business to go without any upgrades to graphics, processor, memory, etc. Frankly, I don't believe them. Of course, if they offer upgrades of that type then the question is moot. It'll no longer be a 360, no matter what MS says.

To be honest, I like it if virtual worlds in games are well realized and look beautiful. But if said world isn't in any way an exciting one to experience by means of good gameplay and well written interactive storytelling, I couldn't care less about any sort of graphical prowess.
As vault_13 already alluded to: it's a matter of what you want devs to focus on, because time- and financial restraints make it so that devs simply can't give you everything. Most of the time it's either an overly deep virtual world or a very beautiful one and if such is the scale of things I'd rather have Bethesda placing themselves somewhere between the center of said scale and the 'overly deep' end of it. It's all a matter of balance and if that means - returning to an earlier example - pebbles don't cast shadows: so be it.



Hey, I don't believe any talk about ten year-lifecycles either, but seven isn't ten. And semantics aside, both Sony and MS have invested a lot in their current systems (one due to own R&D and slow early sales, the other due to system failures), it just seems more likely to me that they'll be trying to squeeze out as much profit out of these machines before going onto another round of serious expenditures. Besides that, seeing how consoles have become the focal point of the industry (at least where AAA 'hardcoe' titles are concerned) there's no added pressure from an evolving external platform (ie PC's) to pick up the pace. Sure, hardware's evolving outside the console market, but as long as audiences and publishers are happy, why change?

Yeah, thats bunkem. I'm sure most observers agree that 5 years, give or take, is typical, and there is not bloody way the 360/PS3 generation has all that much time left in them. I mean, thats just how these things go.

No console has ever had success with in-generation upgrades either (look at all the times Sega tried that and failed, even the minor upgrade of the RAM cart for the N64 was a stop-gap before the GC and only worked with a few games).

My gut feeling: new console generation announced in 2011 (by or at E3), released in 2012-2013 range. No facts, just intuition.

If true, would this situation impact TESV? Impossible to imagine at this point.

and Why Change?

First next gen console has a head start. The next gen is always inevitable. The only risk is teeing off too early (burn fans, miss a tech wave the rival catches). Everything is in the timing. You want to be first out of the gate into the next generation, without being too early.

Ignore the Wii, look at the next gen consoles - 360 dropped first, hit the ground running, has out-performed the PS3 in N.America since release on the whole, even with the failure rate. Being first pays, and you better believe both Sony and MS are staring each other down at the begining of a new knife fight right now. Do you think Sony is happy with its market position in the West - they ruled the PS2 generation, but they have had to settle for what they can get this time around.

The future will be interesting.

Well, technology is important. Graphivs don't make a good game, but a good game has good graphics. For example, I can play Daggerfall better than COD 4 because I 'like' Daggerfall's [censored] graphics better, but then I can play Morrowind or Oblivion or COD 6 all day long.

Considering a) Todd Howard has already said he expects people to still be playing these consoles in 2015, and B ) Bethesda likes to make money, I'd say there's ZERO chance of a new TES not hitting this gen.

Personally, I don't know whether the 360 and PS3 will go without new iterations for that long, but with Natal and Move, it's definitely looking more likely. There's simply no way Microsoft and Sony would be pumping all this hype and money into their motion control devices for systems they expect to throw under the bus in 2012.

I'm not denying anything you said Timing is important, indeed, but does it make a change necessary? Especially if both direct competitors (keeping Ninty aside for the moment) are set to launch some motion control addition to their current systems. They're not going to pull the plug on their own new additions after only a year. Talk about burning their fans.