now THAT's interesting.

I disagree. The PC market is shrinking and MS is having trouble gettting a foothold on the tablet market and the PS3 nearly bankrupt Sony and they haven't really ever recovered. Both companies can't afford to subsidise a console that only turns a profit after a year or two.

The market has changed a lot. Last generation was pretty much a competition PC vs. Console. Nowadays, smartphones and tablets have entered the market and are usually running on the same budget as PC and console sales.

The cake has gotten a lot smaller. Additionally, with Steam and DD taking off, the console is no longer the big cash cow for gaming companies.

I'm not not upgrading my PC for the next few years. I can play FC 3 on high. I really don't need more. And I won't invest 600 $ - 1000 $ to replace a perfectly good machine.

The next generation of consoles will add a lot of "PC features" and move closer to the PC. But we won't see a significant upgrade in costly processing power.

I've tried using built in PS3 browser once... It was a very slow and painful experience.

Meh, I gave up on Bioware after Dragon Age 2. My time is much better spent anticipating Chaos Chronicles & Project Eternity.

Sigh Though I would rather take this open/elder scrolls than Dragon Age 2s gameplay given the choice, still it is sad that Dragon Age became a follower instead of its own game style.

Now instead of standing its ground as a pause and play party rpg like Baldur's Gate, they just add things from other games that are popular like Skyrim.

(Fecking Skyrim and its overhyped trailer)

I've seen you say this multiple times but gaming journalists have all confirmed months ago that new consoles are coming and that they are a significant leap over the current Xbox and PS.

I think it's stupid, but they're doing it.

"Gaming Journalists" aka PR department.

I'm not buying any of this until I hear an official statement and see some specs. I think we all remember those "gameplay vids" the PS 3 was revealed with....

Even if they are PR that would be MORE reason to trust their information on a future release.

Anyway I think some aspects might end up different but the basic idea of getting new consoles next year that are more powerful than the current ones is likely a done deal. On the Sony front their gaming business makes money, TVs are what is killing them, so I don't see much of an issue. With MS of course they are fine.

A modest upgrade would be best but rumors are it's a hefty one. We shall see exactly at the next E3 I guess.

When do you think we see the peak what computers/consoles can do in terms of graphics and visual stuff? Can we ever achieve photorealism? Would we even want that?

And as for DA2, I understand the complaints for it, but it is a good game. Very good. I believe most of the bashers bash it for the sake of bashing and because the person next to him/her does too. It's always "cool" to bash certain games, even when they don't fully deserve it.

DA3 is on my to-buy -list, even when ME3 almost managed to shove me off from Bioware.

Personally I think anything past Crysis is futile and has diminishing returns, but publishers are convinced otherwise. They see the stagnating market not a result of rehashed sequels and a dying retail market but a result of consumers wanting flashy new graphics. They think the excitement over new graphics will cover increased costs that already cause most AAA titles to fail.

We shall see. Seems like a ready-made mixture for collapse to me but I am not a pro analyst.

I enjoyed the game, even played through it twice, but there are a long list of things fundamentally wrong with it. You can't mock people for complaining about a very flawed game.

IDC for graphics, and by saying that, I've been playing madworld on the wii today, Really love the art style

Yes, It all comes down to art style, that's why I love borderlands, madworld, Vanquish etc. They all have their own distinct vibe/art style

The way I see it:

Dragon Age 2 as an

RPG/game: very bad
interactive fantasy soap opera: good, enjoyable to some extent, but easily forgettable

Seems to me that Bioware/EA doesn't really have a set "theme" or "agenda" with this franchise other than "sex sells".
It's no secret that the commercial success of DA1 was due to the game containing a sort of "mini dating sim feature", - Bioware games actually have a much bigger female fanbase than most western game franchises I believe, even so since DAO - the like of which was first popularised by KOTOR, and is actually rooted in BG2.
Therefore EA decided to capitalise on the success of this feature, and DA2 contained almost nothing but romances and NPC relationships. However, due to the very short time spent on actually developing the game, sales fell much shorter than they had expected. Then, at the end of the year, Bethesda made a shitton of money by releasing Skyrim, the main feature of which was a huge open world and freedom of exploration. And that's where EA sees the porfit at the moment, and that's the direction they'll take DA3. Which, I suppose, is reasonable, as the point of a commercial business is to produce the most amount of money (with the least amount of effort, although this part is still up for debate when it comes to DA3).