Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progress?

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Classicgamer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

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Oh come on now. Never seen God of War, Spiderman, Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit Become Human, Days Gone, Forza 7, Forza Horizon 4, Gears of War 4 or the upcoming Last of Us 2? Just to name a few. All of these games are lightyears ahead of anything on the PS3 or Xbox 360. Saying the step from the previous generation is small is incorrect. Xbox One X has 24x the RAM, 15x the memory bandwidth, 30x the raw graphical horse power and a better CPU compared to Xbox 360. PS4 Pro albeit weaker still is a huge upgrade compared to Xbox 360. The weakest link in current consoles is it’s Jaguar CPU but that’s still much more powerful compared to Xenon and Cell processors.

I don’t like the trend of all these online shooters or sandbox with nothing to do games either. However saying this generation isn’t that much better than the previous generation is incorrect.

For example a simple port job like Last of Us 1 can run native 4k compared to 720p on PS3. In resolution alone that’s 9x the resolution and that’s even ignoring the graphical upgrades and more stable performance. Most games I’ve mentioned couldn’t run on previous generation.[/quote][/quote][/quote]


You are proving my point. They can show a supercharged jump in specs no doubt. They always do. What I am saying is that the games don't look or play that much better as a result. There is no quantum leap over the best PS3 games with any of the PS4 titles listed.

The visual boost you get from Things like outputting the same moving content in 4k instead of 1080p is usually immaterial to the overall image quality or clarity. It's one of the reason why you need to pause Spiderman and zoom in 3x to see a difference between the regular and pro PS4.
Classicgamer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

H6rdc0re wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:
Xyga wrote:There are more meaningful basic vs. pro comparison videos out there, some games benefit on graphics, some on framerate, and it's often only a little improvement.
consensus is that you can't see an actual difference with the Pro during normal moving gameplay.
Sure they can see it, they just don’t care and aren’t to spend more money. Same with something like OLED. Nobody in the world can tell me with a straight face they can’t see the difference compared to LCD, they just don’t care. Similar to optical media versus streaming media.

No, they literally can not see a difference unless it is pointed out to them. Sometimes they can't see it even then. The difference is tiny.

I have seen them side buy side in person and I can hardly tell. The PS4 pro reminds me a little of the Emperor's new clothes story.
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Lawfer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Lawfer »

Classicgamer wrote:Oh come on now. Never seen God of War, Spiderman, Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit Become Human, Days Gone, Forza 7, Forza Horizon 4, Gears of War 4 or the upcoming Last of Us 2? Just to name a few.
So it's pretty much the same thing as last generation, just with better graphics? That's not really a "meaningfull progress", just natural evolution of graphics and technology.

Meaningful Progress would be more than just a bump in graphics, 16-bit to 32-bit or even 32-bit to 128-bit, these were "meaningful progress", after that the game's gameplay kind of started to be more of the same, just with more modern graphics.

Don't get more wrong, I got a PS4 Pro, a Wii U, a PS TV, a 3DS etc, but yeah there hasn't been a huge leap in a long time. And as mentioned, modern consoles are starting to become glorified pre-built computers, so you can expect that whatever advances you will be seeing on PS5 or whatever you will be seeing it on PC sooner (as long as you have a good gaming PC that is).
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orange808
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by orange808 »

Lawfer wrote: ...And as mentioned, modern consoles are starting to become glorified pre-built computers, so you can expect that whatever advances you will be seeing on PS5 or whatever you will be seeing it on PC sooner (as long as you have a good gaming PC that is).
Of course. :) That's perfectly natural.

From a hardware standpoint, virtually all the R&D dollars for maximum performance (with little regard for power consumption) gets funnelled into developing PC hardware components. Pushing the boundaries at this point is so prohibitively expensive (in terms of money and IP) that no individual console manufacturer could possibly develop a groundbreaking all new console on their own.

Consoles get the "hand me downs" from the bleeding edge PC R&D cycle

But, that's just hardware. Software is king. Always has been. Great games design trumps raw power.

Also, I adore new games. I just wish I had more time and energy to play them. I'm not bored at all. :)
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gray117
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by gray117 »

What would be meaningful to you?

The problem you have here is a medium and genre maturation - you get that an action movie is an action movie right? A comedy is a comedy? Etc. Etc.

If you're happy with Mario, sf2, doom, forza and minecraft than yep obviously at a reductive level there'll never be as much new for you, especially if you don't care for vr or 4k or social crossovers or any number of weird and wonderful rabbit holes related to gaming.

Sony bothered with the pro, because it met evolving consumer demand, maintained a price point and offered good value for money. The results aren't always easy to trumpet about only because the core game is so finely honed for the base platform - which is the way it has to be, and the only way they can afford to fund such a game.

Please stop pontificating on the evils of practical and affordable hardware homogenization: This is nothing new - z80 anyone? What you do with it is still incredibly nuanced and potentially impactful... It's just it's rare for someone to make an incredibly unpredictable (dumb) move these days. It's like most movie theatres being much the same thing past... 1960? (idk some movie buff please correct me).

Raytracing is not just about casting to better account for bounce/energy transfer/reflections but whole raft of (software) sampling methods married to hardware solutions (or simply available processing overhead in some cases) whose maturation owes more to google than gpu providers. In that light there are conceivably ways to employ this tech beyond the traditional rendering methods (in fact the tracing remains pretty crude in traditional terms - what's amazing are the results they're able to interpolate)...

But it's bit of a red herring for the 'consumer' - it's like the equivalent of trying to hype up advancements in mpeg support or texture/aliasing/anisotropic sampling methods - to digital foundry this kind of thing is significant but too may people they only can/want to appreciate 'better' but only really attribute it to 8bit/16bit/32bit/multimedia/hd/online/4k vaguaries in (imprecise) generational terms... And it's here the tech boys are somewhat at a loss to define the next key feature battleground...

And that is fine. An action movie *is* an action movie... And after all it should be the games themselves your interested in, not the horsepower.

But for me the choice, accessibility, diversity and nuance in gaming has never been greater and more interesting. For those who aren't so quite far down the rabbit hole however it's also fine to get off (and on) the hype train... Shit, who's going to tell you that your wrong to play Mario again?
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orange808
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by orange808 »

Also, Nintendo has managed to build a very nice mobile console hybrid using the mobile low power hardware that has come from the ARM "mobile" side. It innovates by providing a "good enough" experience that's mobile and console.

It also helps that Nintendo is an excellent software house in their own right.

Breath of the Wild certainly wasn't as technically impressive as cousin games like Skyrim or Assassin's Creed Origins, but it's every bit as fun.
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Classicgamer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

Lawfer wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:Oh come on now. Never seen God of War, Spiderman, Red Dead Redemption 2, Detroit Become Human, Days Gone, Forza 7, Forza Horizon 4, Gears of War 4 or the upcoming Last of Us 2? Just to name a few.
So it's pretty much the same thing as last generation, just with better graphics? That's not really a "meaningfull progress", just natural evolution of graphics and technology.

Meaningful Progress would be more than just a bump in graphics, 16-bit to 32-bit or even 32-bit to 128-bit, these were "meaningful progress", after that the game's gameplay kind of started to be more of the same, just with more modern graphics.

Don't get more wrong, I got a PS4 Pro, a Wii U, a PS TV, a 3DS etc, but yeah there hasn't been a huge leap in a long time. And as mentioned, modern consoles are starting to become glorified pre-built computers, so you can expect that whatever advances you will be seeing on PS5 or whatever you will be seeing it on PC sooner (as long as you have a good gaming PC that is).
The meaningful progress found on those earlier generations went beyond hardware specs. Hardware certainly improved but it was a means to an end (as it should be). Having the most t flops was never the end goal on it's own. It was about the games. We all knew that was what mattered most. Now they seem to have forgotten. Their approach feels more 3DO-like.

Sony had a proposition in the early days. For the PS1 it was bringing home a credible port of top 3d coin-ops like Ridge Racer for the first time. The PS2 was their first console to make 3d look good. The PS3 overtook the arcades.

The Wii offered no technical leaps in hardware but it offered more innovation and progress than than the PS4 and PS4 pro ever will.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Gen 1 - 5 were all 240p/480i. That's almost 30 years of the same resolution.

I feel like we're going to be staying at 1080p for a while longer.
Classicgamer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

orange808 wrote:Also, Nintendo has managed to build a very nice mobile console hybrid using the mobile low power hardware that has come from the ARM "mobile" side. It innovates by providing a "good enough" experience that's mobile and console.

It also helps that Nintendo is an excellent software house in their own right.

Breath of the Wild certainly wasn't as technically impressive as cousin games like Skyrim or Assassin's Creed Origins, but it's every bit as fun.
Yeah Nintendo's current approach is interesting and, in many ways, they seem to have a better grasp of what is happening in the market and what their customers want. I.e. Mobile multi platform gaming (on one device).
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by H6rdc0re »

Classicgamer wrote:
orange808 wrote:Also, Nintendo has managed to build a very nice mobile console hybrid using the mobile low power hardware that has come from the ARM "mobile" side. It innovates by providing a "good enough" experience that's mobile and console.

It also helps that Nintendo is an excellent software house in their own right.

Breath of the Wild certainly wasn't as technically impressive as cousin games like Skyrim or Assassin's Creed Origins, but it's every bit as fun.
Yeah Nintendo's current approach is interesting and, in many ways, they seem to have a better grasp of what is happening in the market and what their customers want. I.e. Mobile multi platform gaming (on one device).
Sure rehashing the same 5 IPs since the eighties. Nintendo sure has a modern handle on it. Fact is Switch won’t sell nearly as much as PS4.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Jdurg »

H6rdc0re wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:
orange808 wrote:Also, Nintendo has managed to build a very nice mobile console hybrid using the mobile low power hardware that has come from the ARM "mobile" side. It innovates by providing a "good enough" experience that's mobile and console.

It also helps that Nintendo is an excellent software house in their own right.

Breath of the Wild certainly wasn't as technically impressive as cousin games like Skyrim or Assassin's Creed Origins, but it's every bit as fun.
Yeah Nintendo's current approach is interesting and, in many ways, they seem to have a better grasp of what is happening in the market and what their customers want. I.e. Mobile multi platform gaming (on one device).
Sure rehashing the same 5 IPs since the eighties. Nintendo sure has a modern handle on it. Fact is Switch won’t sell nearly as much as PS4.
Unless you are a stock holder, who cares?
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Lawfer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Lawfer »

orange808 wrote:
Lawfer wrote: ...And as mentioned, modern consoles are starting to become glorified pre-built computers, so you can expect that whatever advances you will be seeing on PS5 or whatever you will be seeing it on PC sooner (as long as you have a good gaming PC that is).
Of course. :) That's perfectly natural.
Consoles used to be able to do certain (exclusive) things that computers or other consoles couldn't replicate (at least not completely) due to their use of exclusive hardware nature, for example the PS2 had great "translucent texture" capabilities, which is not something that other hardware could replicate (at least not as well), so games developed specifically for the PS2 hardware that made heavy use of these capabilities and that were later ported on other hardware were not as hot compared to the originals due to the fact that certain things couldn't be replicated perfectly on other hardware.

Now, this "problem" has been eliminated due to the fact that all hardware are pretty much going to be homogenized as mere extensions of computers/mobiles rather than using exclusive hardware, just with a different OS.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Jdurg »

Perhaps also just a sign of the times with companies looking for people who will have the basic skills needed to get the job done without having to spend long times training them.

Make a custom OS and super custom hardware, and everybody you hire to work with that hardware has to be trained. Training takes time, and time costs money.

If all consoles are pretty much built on the same basic hardware, it makes hiring, and getting rid of, folks a lot easier.
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Lawfer
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Lawfer »

Jdurg wrote:Perhaps also just a sign of the times with companies looking for people who will have the basic skills needed to get the job done without having to spend long times training them.

Make a custom OS and super custom hardware, and everybody you hire to work with that hardware has to be trained. Training takes time, and time costs money.

If all consoles are pretty much built on the same basic hardware, it makes hiring, and getting rid of, folks a lot easier.
Yes of course it does make sense from a time and financial situation and also we are in a time when exclusives aren't exactly a thing anymore and almost all games are getting released on more than one platform. Compare this to the 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit generation were the majority (or at least a very big chunk) of games were exclusive to one console (the consoles they were specifically developed for).
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

I've almost never touched my PS3 since getting a PS4. I'd say it was a pretty big improvement. I still play old games too. I have a bunch of PS2 game clears this year but outside of a handful of games there is almost no reason to have a PS3. #DemonSoulsRemasterWhen?
Classicgamer wrote:The Wii offered no technical leaps in hardware but it offered more innovation and progress than than the PS4 and PS4 pro ever will.
I had been dodging posting in this thread but this one has me jumping in. I realize people experience things differently, so I wanted to put my experience on this out there.

Wii games I've cared to finish: 5-ish.

Games I've beat from this gen (on PS4 and PC): over 30.

The Wii was awful for me. The Wii-mote being one of the worst controllers ever made and Skyward Sword made me wonder why I ever liked Zelda in the first place since the change to 3D. It's a game library with a ton of gruel and hardly any steak.
Lawfer wrote: Yes of course it does make sense from a time and financial situation and also we are in a time when exclusives aren't exactly a thing anymore and almost all games are getting released on more than one platform. Compare this to the 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit generation were the majority (or at least a very big chunk) of games were exclusive to one console (the consoles they were specifically developed for).
I've been pretty pleased with this change. Sure the old consoles had more character because of the library differences but as a current consumer I love it. I was able to safely skip buying Microsoft's console this gen. I could have avoided buying a Switch if I had just waited on Octopath coming to PC but I really wanted to play it. I ended up selling it all and played the game for free so I guess it worked out. Sony still has me by the balls though with Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, Yakuza (I can't wait for the PC ports) etc...
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by evil_ash_xero »

They're going to have to have more powerful CPUs and GPUs (at least close to some of the higher tier computers). This gen they started showing their age way too early, and we got the "Pro" and the "One X". Which seem now like they didn't really have much of a point.
I know this costs a lot of money, and they have to make a profit, but with most stuff coming out on PC (Sony does have some nice exclusives), they're gonna have to kick it up a notch. I don't want sub 30 frames, you know?
I already have a Switch. :lol: And it can always use the excuse that it's a handheld. These others can't.
I believe the PS5 will be backwards compatible with the PS4. If so, I hope to god that it will increase the performance significantly of older games. Can we finally get Evil Within at 30fps? Dare we to dream?
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by bigbadboaz »

There will be a "Pro" and a "One X" this time around too. The GPUs available to fit into the first round of the new gen won't be good enough to last an entire 5-7 years - count on it. Again, the real point of upgrading at this juncture is the Zen 2 CPU cores, and it will be well worth it. The GPU side will be "good enough" for now, but seriously need a boost once the hardware makers start chasing the next wave of televisions.. pointlessly.. again.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by evil_ash_xero »

bigbadboaz wrote:There will be a "Pro" and a "One X" this time around too. The GPUs available to fit into the first round of the new gen won't be good enough to last an entire 5-7 years - count on it. Again, the real point of upgrading at this juncture is the Zen 2 CPU cores, and it will be well worth it. The GPU side will be "good enough" for now, but seriously need a boost once the hardware makers start chasing the next wave of televisions.. pointlessly.. again.
Good points. They will have to make them more powerful this time around. And I mean compared to PCs. They were really underpowered compared to contemporary PC hardware. I don't think that was the case with the 360 and the PS3.
Then again, this all may be too costly.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I would rather see new game designs than next gen graphics. The last console that made me go wow was the sega Dreamcast.

I would like disney to get involved next gen. Some of that 16 bit world coming to the new age consoles is the sort of shit I'd like to play. Honestly I'd rather play a Mickey mouse game than halo 10. Just make it AAA and beautiful with some of those PS2 era puzzles and I'm there.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by buttersoft »

I have to say i agree with the no-real-improvement side of the argument. And it's the games that count. Sure, humans are wired to love narrative structure. ~300 years ago the novel took off, thanks to the printing press. ~120 years ago we got film, and we're only just fully understanding how to tell stories with it. Games are much, much newer, and we're still figuring out what works and what doesn't. So far AAA gaming is up to the interactive-movie-meets-open-world stage, and it's getting more than a little stale. Nice examples, nice refinements, but is this all the medium can do? Hell no it isn't - and that's considering story alone.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

neorichieb1971 wrote:I would rather see new game designs than next gen graphics. The last console that made me go wow was the sega Dreamcast.
I can generally agree with this I think big AAA game design is in a pretty stale place. Graphics may as well improve though, we aren't talking about mutually exclusive things.
buttersoft wrote:I have to say i agree with the no-real-improvement side of the argument. And it's the games that count. Sure, humans are wired to love narrative structure. ~300 years ago the novel took off, thanks to the printing press. ~120 years ago we got film, and we're only just fully understanding how to tell stories with it. Games are much, much newer, and we're still figuring out what works and what doesn't. So far AAA gaming is up to the interactive-movie-meets-open-world stage, and it's getting more than a little stale. Nice examples, nice refinements, but is this all the medium can do? Hell no it isn't - and that's considering story alone.
The writing in video games needs to get a lot better for me to care about the stories much at all. The games that impress in that regard are very few and far between.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by neorichieb1971 »

The problem is that the industry wants to move into era's. Its was shmups, 2D platformers and then a transition into 3D. Up to that point I was enjoying the technological evolution into what I call "the reality engine". Even Gran Turismo took a month or two off my life.

But taking Polyphony as a prime example they haven't done anything else apart from GT since that moment in 1997-98. So they keep remodelling real cars, remodelling the same tracks and putting leaves on trees and blades of grass. Its got to the point where the next GT doesn't really do much different from GT1. Its just a baby step upgrade done for the 10th time. The problem for me is that we already know what they are gunning for as part of the endgame. They are gunning for what you would see if you were looking out of the real drivers eyes.

I've really wanted a Powerdrift 2019. Its one of my favourite games in the racing genre. Its bonkers, nuts and all that. But its completely surreal.

Game engines should put the player where you feel "Beyond reality", not in it.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

Yeah this notion of a video game being an interactive movie has always been more annoying than innovative. It all started with that full motion video on the god-forsaken Mega CD (or Sega CD here). Just because grainy footage fits on a disc does not mean you should force us to sit through boring and poorly acted cut scenes before and during every game.... if I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie... Games that don't let you skip are just cruel.

And... Just because the hardware is capable of realistic 3d worlds with real-time rendering does not mean we need it to be used in every game.

The death of the arcade industry has cost us a major innovation pipeline. Things were looking up for a while with the Guncon 2 on the PS2 with perfect Time Crisis ports. Then we were treated to full force feedback and 3d support on the PS3. And then.,,. Nothing. The PS4 doesn't even have a decent gun controller.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Classicgamer »

neorichieb1971 wrote:I would rather see new game designs than next gen graphics. The last console that made me go wow was the sega Dreamcast.

I would like disney to get involved next gen. Some of that 16 bit world coming to the new age consoles is the sort of shit I'd like to play. Honestly I'd rather play a Mickey mouse game than halo 10. Just make it AAA and beautiful with some of those PS2 era puzzles and I'm there.
That Dreamcast / PS2 / original Xbox generation was particularly special. It was the quality arcade ports that made it for me. It certainly isn't the FPS games that keep me coming back....
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by RIP-Felix »

nmalinoski wrote:It seems like, moreso than in years past, there really aren't many unique, fun games that are coming out, because they're not seen as profitable. Most publishers these days seem to be focused on arena games, microtransactions, and gambling mechanics; none of which is enjoyable.
^ This

I'm not a game developer, so I may be farting out my keyboard:

Creativity vs Risk is a balancing act. The risk of loosing money is real. The industry can't raise the price above $60/game, because that's already more than people are comfortable paying, even though that price hasn't kept up with inflation. Profit margins are diminishing and companies are forced to tactics like pre-orders, limited runs, collector editions, DLC, paid subscriptions, gambling mechanics, outsourcing QA engineers, and sure things like sports/racing/arena games or endless FPS iterations. These are stopgap measures used to keep an industry with too much overhead afloat. They are grabbing the sure money, because the margins for error are too small to go all in for anything but a sure thing. They won't take chances unless they can afford to. One AAA flop can bankrupt a 3rd party company.

There is a metric called the "exponential cost growth" to produce games. Basically the more complex the game the more it costs. The relationship is exponential.
Spoiler
ImageImage
It's a catch 22. The cost of producing games in the 90s was low enough that the potential for reward was worth the risk of going all in. The cost gets expensive quickly as you approach photo-realism. It gets worse for each successive generation of console. Now a AAA title can cost $300,000,000 and take a few years to bring to market. However, there will be no buyers if the games aren't fun. For 1st parties, games sell the hardware. So they focus on launch titles, successful franchises, and mascots to the hilt. 3rd parties have it harder, because they have to create a new space or find a way to refresh a previous success, licensing a character or revamping an in house title. It's costs more to produce certain genres of games than others and some sell more. This is why we see more MMO, FPS, racing, arena, and less platform, adventures, RPGs. We also see tedious schemes to generate steady revenue through micro-transactions, online access, DLC, expansions, and subscriptions. Some of the games will flop and that's a chance you can afford to take if your cost's are sufficiently low. So maybe don't tie up the A-team and $300,000,000 for a 2 year development cycle, unless your sure it'll pay off. Consequently AAA budgets for novel ideas or niche genres can rarely be justified.

So we've reached a tipping point where next gen hardware is too expensive to develop AAA content for. It's not management's fault either, that's just the economics of scale. The risk/reward balance has tipped too far to the risk end of the spectrum for 3rd party developers to thrive, who's games in the 90s made or broke console sales. That was the golden age, not because it was when I was a kid, but because the cost of AAA games was 1/10th what they are now. The exponential cost growth curve allowed for more risk than it does today, because the potential for reward was higher and costs were lower. It's just too expensive to take the same risks now.

Maybe Gamers just need to recognize that certain genera of video games will mostly disappear. Some will be given the AAA treatment, and others will either be stylized to reduce their complexity and thus the #of people needed to create them. Personally I would be fine if it lead to more 3rd party developers returning to developing 5/6th generation games, just abandon current gen and return to the golden era. That seemed to be the sweet spot for creativity and variety. It's already happening for 8/16 Bit consoles. Indie is on the rise, making games for contemporary systems using a similar development structures (limited team size, graphics, physics, localization, and etc). Basically doing what's necessary to strike the right balance of maximizing creativity by sacrificing development complexity. Keep it simple! I like the trend, but want it to fill the niche genres the big boys are neglecting. Maybe it's just too soon. Hopefully, they'll get bigger and be able to take on more ambitious projects.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

I missed that point by nmalinoski and yeah it's spot on. And I agree that there is a lot of good stuff going on with smaller companies. Plenty of my favorites this gen have been indies.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by nmalinoski »

RIP-Felix wrote:So we've reached a tipping point where next gen hardware is too expensive to develop AAA content for. It's not management's fault either, that's just the economics of scale. The risk/reward balance has tipped too far to the risk end of the spectrum for 3rd party developers to thrive, who's games in the 90s made or broke console sales. That was the golden age, not because it was when I was a kid, but because the cost of AAA games was 1/10th what they are now. The exponential cost growth curve allowed for more risk than it does today, because the potential for reward was higher and costs were lower. It's just too expensive to take the same risks now.
I understand that "AAA" games aren't cheap to produce, but I don't necessarily agree that they're too expensive to develop; I think it's more that these companies are businesses, and the entire point of a business is to make money. Microtransactions and gambling mechanics allow monetization after the initial point of sale (a continual revenue stream); and concepts like digital sales, DLC, and especially Google Stadia both eliminate the costs of mass-manufacturing and retail distribution and work to eliminate the concept of ownership by the customer, which in turn works to eliminate the used game market, likely with the expectation that unavailability of cheaper, used, physical copies will drive people to buy digital licenses.
neorichieb1971
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by neorichieb1971 »

The kind of games I like would cheaper than GTA. I prefer linear games, chip music and abstract designs.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
Jdurg
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Jdurg »

Do you honestly believe that "ownership" of games is what people now want? Perhaps I'm just an old fart, but the younger crowd doesn't seem to give one solitary shit about history or holding onto something. They are the disposable generation where EVERYTHING is a quick experience and then toss to the side never to look at again. It's why everything is moving to streaming.

We all either adapt to it, or leave.
nmalinoski
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by nmalinoski »

Jdurg wrote:Do you honestly believe that "ownership" of games is what people now want? Perhaps I'm just an old fart, but the younger crowd doesn't seem to give one solitary shit about history or holding onto something. They are the disposable generation where EVERYTHING is a quick experience and then toss to the side never to look at again. It's why everything is moving to streaming.

We all either adapt to it, or leave.
This ties back into unique works being too risky and that businesses exist to make money--it's not about what people want; it's about what sells and makes the most money. This has been seen clearly with Google--they kill services that don't make money, whether or not there's user demand for them.

As for what people actually want, I'd say I'm out of touch with what the public at large is truly interested in, but I'm sure that there are plenty of people, and I would say this skews younger, who go along with the "AAA" gambling/nickel-and-diming experience because they were introduced to games when these mechanics were already in place or later introduced into games they're heavily invested in (emotionally, socially, etc.); so many simply accept that as normal--that is their baseline of what videogaming is.

Also, I don't think it's fair or honest to assert that the entire "young-people" audience doesn't care about preservation of videogames and videogame history. It's possible a majority feels that way, but I'd need to see some stats.
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