I thought the juxtaposition of these two stories on Slashdot was pretty funny.

All mirth aside, the first article’s a pretty good summation of the concerns swirling around next-gen consoles. Here’s Warren Spector’s take on things from the CNet article:

“Once hardware guys give us the capability to do something spectacular, someone’s going to spend the money to do something spectacular,” Spector said. “The quality bar is going to be raised. Someone is going to spend $20 million or $30 million or $40 million, and the rest of us who don’t have deep pockets like that are going to have to find some way to compete.”

Or as I’ve pointed out before, it’s costing more and more to make these things, but the number of people playing ‘em aren’t growing at the same pace. Ultimately, no good can come of this.