Will beefier specs allow larger console lobby sizes?

Even though we know very little about the actual hardware specs for the Playstation 4, and we know even less about whatever the heck is coming down the pike from Microsoft for their next console, does anything we have learned so far lend itself to answer questions about more PC-like lobby sizes for multiplayer games? With Battlefield 4 on its way sometime in the not too distant future, it seems likely that the franchise will be developed for next generation Sony and MS consoles. My biggest hope, however, is that all of this technological mumbo jumbo means that the new systems and their respective online offerings will allow for a less restrictive server settings. I think Battlefield 3's use of the Rent a Server system was a bit misguided, but it was a step in the right direction. The next step would be allowing players to get in on some of that crazy 32 vs. 32 player action that we get on the PC version. Does anything we have heard so far seem to indicate that this will be the case to those of you who are more techically inclined than myself?

We're half way there with more memory. But the other half is on the system manufacturers allotting more bandwidth to multiplayer games.

The reason that Battlefield 3's player count was so limited is because it was so late in the console cycle and DICE (or EA) weren't willing to knock down the graphics settings enough to preserve those 32 v 32 battles. It isn't that the PS3 and 360 couldn't theoretically support such high player counts; it's that they aren't powerful enough to push those kinds of graphics and that sort of player count.

During the first part of the console cycle, when developers aren't pushing consoles to their very highest limits to squeeze the least little bit more out of them, you could potentially see higher player counts at the cost of graphics, but the closer we get to the next cycle, the bigger that chasm between consoles and PC is going to be and once again we might have cases where the consoles have a pitifully small amount of players and the PC has some crazy-high cap.

That is if we even have a next generation of consoles. We probably will, but there are those who say that day will never come. That we'll be stuck with the PS4 and next Xbox, or equivalents, because that's the highest that game development cost can go.

Sure, more power

Remember M.A.G?