[deelowe]

Agreed. I've been trying to put my finger on why this console launch feels lackluster to me, and this is it. There's simply nothing novel here with either device (wii-u doesn't count does it). I'm bearish on consoles at this point. While the launch numbers look good, I'm wondering if these units really have legs. It's clear gaming isn't the top focus with either of the parent companies, so this will be interesting to watch.

Valve/Steam/Steambox OTOH, is a fresh and exciting prospect(to me).

[foobarian]

The sad thing, from a technical perspective, about most of the recent consoles, is they are basically PCs. There is no more crazy ASIC design leading to graphics performance light years ahead of non-console computers, or the last console generation. For a while there we got used to the new gen consoles being leaps ahead of the current state of the art anywhere (including PCs). However, once GPUs got commoditized and mass produced, continuing that trend became impractical. The good news is that while next gen consoles won't be leaps ahead of state of the art, this is not necessary to have good games, and an extremely fun gaming experience not possible on any other platform.

The sad thing I mentioned above is at the same time very exciting to me--once there is no crazy custom ASIC design, developers won't have as much trouble writing games. You basically get a PC with a blessed system configuration and a well known API that will lead to more and better performing games than during the last generation.

As far as console vs. phone or PC, I don't see them going away any time soon. They have many advantages over both.

[venomsnake]

Well iPad is as close to a console as a device could be. 3 year support, yearly refresh that brings good incremental improvements and probably they will surpass consoles when the cycle moves on - so they will only need a way to stream and controller.

[berntb]

I love my iPads. But where can I get something like Dark Souls for them? The console niche puts more GBytes of graphics etc into a world. You just don't do that for the iPad. Not this year and probably not the next either, anyway. (Edit: Please prove me wrong :-) )

[venomsnake]

I was envisioning the future. But the iPad model is a perfect console - long enough to make sense, short enough to not stall innovation.

Now I cannot predict the future. But we have had amazing games running on way less cpu, gpu and ram - and install base in a way is king. Right now we are in the GameBoy era of the iPad. The games grew with their auditory - if you have demand for quality writing, deep story and mature games - they will show up.

[JoeAltmaier]

I was never a fan of consoles - the interface is so low-bandwidth I give up in frustration in a few minutes.

So I find nothing to be sad about, that quality gaming has become available on more platforms.