Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progress?

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RIP-Felix
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by RIP-Felix »

nmalinoski wrote: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.
Well, the used game market has kinda shot itself in the foot (Gamestop at least). E-bay and craigslist are much better options to sell used games and actually get a decent value out of them. GS has to make money, but their trade in values are ridiculous.

I only buy physical media. I was burned by DRM when Musicmatch Jukebox went under and I lost my music library. Wii VC did the same thing. So I'm not a fan of it, but that's because I'm old enough to remember when physical ownership was a thing and that gave you property rights (like the right to sell). Digital ownership is different and strips you of those property rights. You have the right to use that game on your console as long as long as it is supported. Until then you can DL the game again on another console if you transfer the rights over, in the event something happens to the console. But that will eventually expire, the console will lose support, or whatever. It gives them all the cards and you nothing. They can obsolete your purchase when they decide to. And you cannot ever sell it. They will be able to charge full price in perpetuity (they wont, but could), not having to compete against the used game market. They will have completely captured the market. That's the direction things are headed.

However, it's more convenient than driving to the store or waiting for it to arrive in the mail. Just DL from the couch and play then and there. As you said, it reduces cost for Developers. That's a good thing if it allows them to take more risk developing better games. And the younger generation are more comfortable keeping their entire media pile in one online basket, despite the lack of property rights. I cringe from a preservation standpoint, but I'm not their target market anymore. Their decisions are made to attract youths and young adults. They like convenience, graphics, multiplayer, and social. The way I see it, the PS6 will be a controller. The game will stream from SONY servers, no console or games required, just a monthly subscription. Then advertising and micro-transactions will fill out the monetization scheme. Thats the future where I, like my dad before me, stop playing video games (well new ones anyway). Although, I'm already 90% of the way there (I have such a backlog of retro games I've been meaning to get to).
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by nmalinoski »

RIP-Felix wrote:They like convenience, graphics, multiplayer, and social.
Do you have an independent source for this bit? All I've really seen regarding "what people like" (or want) is what game publisher execs say people want, which comes with a degree of bias.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Jdurg »

nmalinoski wrote: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.
An independent study on this would be interesting, and I'm sure the gaming industry would like to see it as well. My statements are based on direct observation of young members of my own family, their friends, the offspring of my own friends and what they tend to have interest in. Once done with a game, they don't ever go back to it. Just toss it aside and go after the next big thing.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by tacoguy64 »

There's definitely has been a noticeable difference from the start of the generation to the end of it which is where were at now. It always takes devs time to get familiar with all the latest tech. I'm actually quite surprised how much some of the devs are able to get out of these consoles that have hardware from 2013. They do it all the time. I'm most surprised how much they are getting from the Switch. It will be the same all over again, we might not see that big of a jump right off the bat but 2-3 years in games will start looking better.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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Jdurg wrote:
nmalinoski wrote: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.
An independent study on this would be interesting, and I'm sure the gaming industry would like to see it as well. My statements are based on direct observation of young members of my own family, their friends, the offspring of my own friends and what they tend to have interest in. Once done with a game, they don't ever go back to it. Just toss it aside and go after the next big thing.
Most kids I know through similar means as yourself are this way as well. Currently, it's mostly still Fortnite here. Everything is disposable.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Xyga »

Jdurg wrote:
nmalinoski wrote: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.
An independent study on this would be interesting, and I'm sure the gaming industry would like to see it as well. My statements are based on direct observation of young members of my own family, their friends, the offspring of my own friends and what they tend to have interest in. Once done with a game, they don't ever go back to it. Just toss it aside and go after the next big thing.
Indeed. It doesn't require a study though, that's just how things are.

Really depends on age, the way I see it cultural influences from the decade before people are born bleed over their first one, blending together with their childood decade's own material. And so on until the stuff of their youth loses most of its flavours somewhere when they reach near mid-life.

So you'll see millenials share part of their cultural references with X-ers, and zoomers with millenials. But zoomers with X-ers ? they can but it's not for the same reasons.

The fact that most of the 20th century material is still there available immaterial, whether commercially or with emulation, simultaneously with the 21st that accumulates too of course, kinda makes the whole deal of 'retro' and 'nostalgia' much less important, it's just one of many categories among an ocean of games.

I mean when the 'retro gaming' trend started at the turn of the century there were multiple reasons for it, motives...that aren't nearly as strong anymore today.
How many zoomers care about playing a PS2 game on a CRT, or with the best scaling and low lag, seek the best version etc ? they can just download the HD remaster or 'make' it with an emulator that's advanced enough now to provide a faithful-enough gameplay, and with that the 'original experience' doesn't mean shit in comparison.

For us old men though the older material we cared about had its physical requirements, we didn't have the internet for the first decades of our lives so there were thousands of games we couldn't play that we wanted to dig out from obscurity (specialized stores, flea market hunts, shady imports and deals etc), even the emulation side later was quite crude for several systems so collecting the used real stuff that was at the time considerably cheaper made the most sense.
"our time's retrogaming" has become niche now naturally as there's fewer of us silly old manchildren to hang on to it, and we're not millionaires.

But definitely the 'retro era' was much bigger and meant significantly more when it happened for the generations that were directly concerned, kind of a swan song for the original first decades of the history of video games, in a dimension the following generations can't really touch nor taste. And today understandably there isn't a 'new' one, there isn't a '21st century retro gaming' thing that can compare even a little bit, and there will never be another like the first one, because it's not needed.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by RIP-Felix »

nmalinoski wrote:
RIP-Felix wrote:They like convenience, graphics, multiplayer, and social.
Do you have an independent source for this bit? All I've really seen regarding "what people like" (or want) is what game publisher execs say people want, which comes with a degree of bias.
No, it's based on my experience with friends kids who come over to play my collection when we have parties. We had one Saturday in fact. I made an observation that I wouldn't have guessed. I set up an N64 with Mario Cart and four controllers, but they (ages 5-8) preferred the arcade cabinet (mario bros 3, bubble bobble and 1941 most of all). They commented that the graphics on the N64 were bad (compared to their switch), but they liked the pixelated look of the older gen games. I think it had alot to do whit how easy it was to figure out the controls and start playing. The N64 was 3D, but they're used to much higher fidelity and the controller confused them with it's trident design...pretty funny listening to their complaints actually.

I would like to read an independent study that trys to quantify what kids like about video games, but from reading posts on gaming sites and talking with people/kids, the social aspect seems to be up there with the immersive fantasy experience. Gameplay is still on that list, it's just that kids don't know what they aren't getting because they weren't spoiled with awesome gameplay mechanics and puzzling, like we were in the 90s. Games dazzle kids today with graphics and social aspects, the gameplay on some may suffer but it's really the lack of good games in certain genres that they don't get (like platforms). The next party with kids over I think I'll try Super Mario 64 and see if that grabs their attention.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by RIP-Felix »

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.
I think the move to RISC based architecture in ARM processors represents a bold move. Software designed to take advantage of it can be just a powerful as CISC based x86, but everyone liked to follow what the PC market did with win95 and it's been a bad habit ever since. ARM has come back in a big way with mobile, tablets, and laptops soon. I think the more efficient RISC architecture is the perfect marriage for Nintendo's switch. Less power, good performance, help force the software industry down the RISC path kicking and screaming.

It's a step forward, but people don't like being forced when they're set in their ways. IDK how much 3rd party support they'll get, but Nintendo never really cared about such things. They still have Mario, Zelda, Metroid, DK...and so on...to carry the torch.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by orange808 »

RIP-Felix 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.
I think the move to RISC based architecture in ARM processors represents a bold move. Software designed to take advantage of it can be just a powerful as CISC based x86, but everyone liked to follow what the PC market did with win95 and it's been a bad habit ever since. ARM has come back in a big way with mobile, tablets, and laptops soon. I think the more efficient RISC architecture is the perfect marriage for Nintendo's switch. Less power, good performance, help force the software industry down the RISC path kicking and screaming.

It's a step forward, but people don't like being forced when they're set in their ways. IDK how much 3rd party support they'll get, but Nintendo never really cared about such things. They still have Mario, Zelda, Metroid, DK...and so on...to carry the torch.
Nintendo's embrace of OpenGL--versus Microsoft's and Sony's "we made this dumb thing, so you have to use it"--is a good move.

Maintaining good middleware support and providing tools for devs are big keys to moving forward. Nintendo has really changed from their darkest days.

The biggest hurdle for Nintendo Switch and third parties is the lack of general horsepower and storage. New AAA games would be more of a seperate parallel development team--versus the general "porting" between the consoles and (sometimes) PC.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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RIP-Felix wrote:I think the more efficient RISC architecture is the perfect marriage for Nintendo's switch. Less power, good performance, help force the software industry down the RISC path kicking and screaming.
PS1, PS2, PS3, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast, Xbox 360, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, GBA, DS, 3DS and 3DO all(*) used CPUs that are usually considered RISC, so why would it make a difference that the Switch is Yet Another ARM system? Also, some of them were a lot closer to the original RISC goals(**) than modern ARM chips are.

(*) I may have missed some.
(**) some of which aren't even relevant or desireable anymore, for example requiring more memory bandwidth to reduce the complexity of the decoding and execution stages of the CPU
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Einzelherz »

Can we rename this thread to "Old men yell at hi res clouds" please?
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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Einzelherz wrote:Can we rename this thread to "Old men yell at hi res clouds" please?
I almost spit out my tea.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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We only need to sub-title it "Tells youngsters what they like is inferior and garbage." :D
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Xyga »

Unless I've missed something no one said that excatly. My own interpretation was that approximately 20 years apart people have had a significantly different experience and relationship to video games.

For zoomers the topics of physical media, preservation, retrogaming, performance, etc can't have the same importance and value as they did to older generations.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by H6rdc0re »

RIP-Felix 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.
I think the move to RISC based architecture in ARM processors represents a bold move. Software designed to take advantage of it can be just a powerful as CISC based x86, but everyone liked to follow what the PC market did with win95 and it's been a bad habit ever since. ARM has come back in a big way with mobile, tablets, and laptops soon. I think the more efficient RISC architecture is the perfect marriage for Nintendo's switch. Less power, good performance, help force the software industry down the RISC path kicking and screaming.

It's a step forward, but people don't like being forced when they're set in their ways. IDK how much 3rd party support they'll get, but Nintendo never really cared about such things. They still have Mario, Zelda, Metroid, DK...and so on...to carry the torch.
Bold move by Nvidia? Nintendo didn't develop the System on Chip. It's a pure off the shelf part by Nvidia. In a pure gaming environment RISC is more efficient than CISC true. However consoles have been Home Entertainment devices for some time now. People don't just want to play games but also do lot's of other things. Things that are possible on PS4 and Xbox One consoles. Using something as simple as voice chat is a terrible experience on Switch and requires external hardware like a smartphone or tablet. How about something like streaming your content or even allow something like share play. Also the different media apps. These things are next to impossible on the very basic ARM (RISC) cores in Nintendo Switch without seriously tanking performance.

Next year with the launch of PS5 and Xbox "Whatever" things will become even worse for the Switch. It's already running multiplatform games very poorly with sub native resolutions, lower than low quality settings and framerates. Bold indeed... :lol:
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Guspaz »

Stop spreading made-up FUD. Support for voice chat has nothing to do with the CPU architecture. The Switch has orders of magnitude more performance than older consoles that support voice chat like the original XBox. The problem is strictly due to Nintendo's poor online services. There are games on the Switch that support headset voice chat directly on the console using third-party APIs. Fortnite does this.

RISC, CISC, it's irrelevant to modern developers. Few developers care about CPU architecture, such low-level details are mostly hidden away by compilers.

Byte order can cause some very minor differences if you're doing bitwise operations, but that's separate from RISC/CISC.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by orange808 »

Guspaz wrote:Stop spreading made-up FUD. Support for voice chat has nothing to do with the CPU architecture. The Switch has orders of magnitude more performance than older consoles that support voice chat like the original XBox. The problem is strictly due to Nintendo's poor online services. There are games on the Switch that support headset voice chat directly on the console using third-party APIs. Fortnite does this.

RISC, CISC, it's irrelevant to modern developers. Few developers care about CPU architecture, such low-level details are mostly hidden away by compilers.

Byte order can cause some very minor differences if you're doing bitwise operations, but that's separate from RISC/CISC.
Quoted for truth.

My thoughts exactly.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Guspaz »

Another nail in the CISC vs RISC coffin: Intel and AMD CPUs have been RISC CPUs internally since the Pentium Pro days when they started decoding everything to micro-operations. They're RISC chips with a CISC decoder in front of them.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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Nevermind that. It has hardware encode/decode for the relevant codecs.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by tjstogy »

The current consoles intend to be a replacement for everything hooked up to your tv, and I like it just as much as I hate it.

I remember buying my first DLC for COD4 on Xbox, thinking it was pretty neat to get new maps. I didn't anticipate a couple years later my Xbox turning into something like primarily browsing social media, and secondarily you can play games.... you turn it on and you're bombarded with the social media style presentation complete with what all your friends are doing, the advertisements, the sales... just so much BS that is catered to the current generation of kids who are absorbed in their cell phones and with zero attention span.

I have zero interest in watching other people play games, I wish it would stop showing me that stuff in my "feed". Or showing me ANYTHING, for that matter. Then I start wishing it were more like a flashcart for SNES, with just a list of games... no internet, no DLC, no BS. But, then I still love joining a party and killing people on PUBG. Don't get me wrong, I love online gaming, I just hate what it has become lately (past 5 years or so).

Another side note... yes, Xbox One and SNES are both video game consoles, but they are like very distant relatives. It's strange to think that kids these days will never know what it's like to NOT play games online.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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I'm not sure I follow how the cost of making the latest games has an impact on progress. In many ways it is now easier and cheaper to develop games than it has ever been.

The old sprite based games required artists to draw every frame. With 3D graphics, you just need to make one model that can be posed in any position with no new artwork needed.

New (and existing) developers have a choice of risk free off the shelf game engines instead of developing their own. I am almost certain that using the Unreal Game engine for Time Crisis 5 reduced costs and development time for Namco compared to previous TC games.

Old games came on expensive cartridges. Recent games come on cheap disc's or with no physical media at all. None of these savings have been passed on to customers. New games are as expensive as cartridges were.

Making video games has always been a business and money is never an excuse to make boring games.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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Games that are boring to you. There are plenty of people that think gaming is better than it has ever been and think old games are lame.

But that aside, you are wrong on the financial stuff, games are extremely expensive to make now.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

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tjstogy wrote:I have zero interest in watching other people play games, I wish it would stop showing me that stuff in my "feed". Or showing me ANYTHING, for that matter. Then I start wishing it were more like a flashcart for SNES, with just a list of games... no internet, no DLC, no BS.
OMG yes. And it's not just consoles, and not just social media. I log into BFV and get bombarded with whatever in-game content crap EA are pushing that means nothing to me. 90% of the development money they spend on a game is on loot and badges and bite-size dopamine reward systems crafted on the addiction model. It drives me nuts that they focus on this shit, rather than trying to build a comp scene like CS does. BF 8v8 comp was glorious. I'm not saying CS is perfect, but it's light years ahead of EA's mindset. Comes from not having shareholders, i guess.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by RIP-Felix »

H6rdc0re wrote: Bold move by Nvidia? Nintendo didn't develop the System on Chip. It's a pure off the shelf part by Nvidia. In a pure gaming environment RISC is more efficient than CISC true. However consoles have been Home Entertainment devices for some time now. People don't just want to play games but also do lot's of other things. Things that are possible on PS4 and Xbox One consoles. Using something as simple as voice chat is a terrible experience on Switch and requires external hardware like a smartphone or tablet. How about something like streaming your content or even allow something like share play. Also the different media apps. These things are next to impossible on the very basic ARM (RISC) cores in Nintendo Switch without seriously tanking performance.

Next year with the launch of PS5 and Xbox "Whatever" things will become even worse for the Switch. It's already running multiplatform games very poorly with sub native resolutions, lower than low quality settings and framerates. Bold indeed... :lol:
This is the kicking and screaming I'm talking about. x86 represents the entrenched ways of the PC world. Nintendo didn't want to make a console that mimics what a PC can already do better, they wanted a power efficient solution that fit their Switch concept (handheld/console). ARM makes the most sense in this scenario, but it's definitely battling a reputation for being weaker than Intel/AMD. That's why the decision is bold.
Classicgamer wrote:I'm not sure I follow how the cost of making the latest games has an impact on progress. In many ways it is now easier and cheaper to develop games than it has ever been.
...
Making video games has always been a business and money is never an excuse to make boring games.
Except it is. Of course it is. Don't take my word for it. Read this article.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Xyga »

It is, we've been whining about that since gen 7 because it's reality, the industry's landscape has Hollywood-ized and we're still there today.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by nmalinoski »

buttersoft wrote:
tjstogy wrote:I have zero interest in watching other people play games, I wish it would stop showing me that stuff in my "feed". Or showing me ANYTHING, for that matter. Then I start wishing it were more like a flashcart for SNES, with just a list of games... no internet, no DLC, no BS.
OMG yes. And it's not just consoles, and not just social media. I log into BFV and get bombarded with whatever in-game content crap EA are pushing that means nothing to me. 90% of the development money they spend on a game is on loot and badges and bite-size dopamine reward systems crafted on the addiction model. It drives me nuts that they focus on this shit, rather than trying to build a comp scene like CS does. BF 8v8 comp was glorious. I'm not saying CS is perfect, but it's light years ahead of EA's mindset. Comes from not having shareholders, i guess.
It really depends for me, but I may end up watching other people play games that I would not play myself for one reason or another. For example, I watched Game Grumps play Dark Souls because that game isn't the type of game that I want to play, but I still wanted to see what the hype was all about (and it was Game Grumps); and I watched Proton Jon play Superman 64 (while he was still doing it, anyway), because I'm definitely not going to play that, and he included the history of the game, its development, and the Game Boy version as well, which is a nice touch that kept it entertaining.

On the other hand, I have zero interest in watching someone play run-of-the-mill "AAA" games, like GTA, or any of the arena/deathmatch games, because none of that interests me.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by Guspaz »

Nintendo has used ARM processors in every single handheld console for the past 18 years, so using an ARM processor in their newest one is hardly a bold move, it's a continuation of what they've done for the last two decades. It would be far more surprising/bold if Nintendo had chosen something other than ARM for a handheld device. There aren't really any alternatives, AMD's power efficiency isn't good enough at TDPs that low, and Intel refuses to do semi-custom chips (it's why all the consoles went AMD).

They don't care about the public perception of ARM processor performance relative to that of x86 or any other, because 99.9% of their customers have no idea what an ARM is or what kind of processor is in the Switch.

The perception isn't accurate at comparable TDPs anyhow. If memory serves, the Apple A12X has performance comparable to an Intel i7 mobile chip with a comparable core count. Which makes sense, processor performance has little to do with instruction set.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I might be a snob when it comes to games. But I much preferred to import, show people what they are missing and teaching them whats coming down the road.

It created excitement in my world and to others as well. Nowadays everything is globally released at the same time and its streamable/downloadable and it doesn't represent a leap of anything to most. Just nicer graphics with the same old gameplay that for someone who is 20 years old, probably hasn't seen any other form of gaming.

About a year ago I showed my friends daughters a Super Famicom and they were asking where the games go and all sorts of silly questions. So for them, they probably saw meaningful progress for the first time in their eyes, because they saw something before their life time :lol:
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 Steamflogger Boss »

neorichieb1971 wrote:Nowadays everything is globally released at the same time and its streamable/downloadable
This is a huge positive.
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Re: Can the next gen of consoles show any meaningful progres

Post by buttersoft »

nmalinoski wrote: It really depends for me, but I may end up watching other people play games that I would not play myself for one reason or another. For example, I watched Game Grumps play Dark Souls because that game isn't the type of game that I want to play, but I still wanted to see what the hype was all about (and it was Game Grumps); and I watched Proton Jon play Superman 64 (while he was still doing it, anyway), because I'm definitely not going to play that, and he included the history of the game, its development, and the Game Boy version as well, which is a nice touch that kept it entertaining.

On the other hand, I have zero interest in watching someone play run-of-the-mill "AAA" games, like GTA, or any of the arena/deathmatch games, because none of that interests me.
TBH honest i watch a bit of streaming myself, it's just that i don't like the marketing model they use within games these days. I bought the damn copy of BFV (to use an example) to play multiplayer like i always did. I really don't want the experience dumbed down by having to navigate through ten f-ing menus to get to a server browser. Nothing makes any sense in game UI/UX design anymore unless it's designed on the model i described above.
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