The challenges, rewards, and realities of a two tier console launch
- Thread starter Tkumpathenurpahl
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Lol. I think this is the first time I’ve read enthusiasm linked to his running.https://wccftech.com/playstation-5-pro-reveal/
I would embrace a PS5 Pro at launch faster than Naruto could run.
Hard LOL if this turns out true. Some 4D chess Sony is playing causing MS to alter all of its plans.
Same thing RTX2080 owners get over RTX2060 owners, etc. There's generally always a high-price premium audience for new stuff who generally don't get as much bang for their buck but they have the money to spend and want the better experience and are happy to pay for it. So yeah, higher resolutions and better framerates is what they'll get and they'll be happy to have the chance (if this turns out to be true). As long as devs don't need to do anything to support a Pro model, it'll cause no issues.
At the base of the argument, if you ignore the finer details, consider it your standard marketing 101. Within the population of gamers there are those who demand the best and those who are generally more price conscience. If you have the most powerful console on the market, you by default scoop up that entire population. So regardless if it's actually that much better, the reality is that if you offer the most powerful console you'll grab those power enthusiasts off the bat. I think that there is sufficient information for both companies to look at their success of their mid-gen refresh and feel as though this is a reasonable launch maneuver.
That being said, the power envelopes of the 2 profiles is quite unknown. Did both companies start by revealing their pro variant? And will release a weaker variant at launch? Or did they reveal their weaker variant and have a stronger variant closer to launch. Dunno, really dunno.
I mean at this point, it would make some sense for both companies to offer an entry-level and pro-level models. And I think console warriors worry too much. If anything, both camps should support more consumer choices.
Oddly enough, that weird looking PS5 SDK could be housing dedicated chips... possibly a multi-chiplet GPU design.
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I still stand by my opinion that launching two performance tiers at the same time would be bad for their adoption and it's a huge risk.
Two tiers with e.g. different storage capacities is the most I'd say to be tolerable, but not something that will force game developers to optimize games for two performance tiers for the same console maker, and much less during the critical launch window period.
If there are two tiers then everyone with the possibility to do so, should make an effort to purchase the higher performing version IMO.
Two tiers with e.g. different storage capacities is the most I'd say to be tolerable, but not something that will force game developers to optimize games for two performance tiers for the same console maker, and much less during the critical launch window period.
If there are two tiers then everyone with the possibility to do so, should make an effort to purchase the higher performing version IMO.
Naruto running became a widely known meme because of the area 51 thing.
lol! I just had a vision; I didn't even have to look up the picture, but I will to confirm.
I haven't yet formed an opinion on this one yet. Part of me thinks because the architectures are all the same, it won't be much different than things are now. Developers just develop for all 4 consoles. The other part of me feels like you'll get a much more effective 'pro' variant if they wait 3 years into next gen.
Adoption rate how? The consumers whom are cheap, frugal, or just simply moderate gamers are only going to purchase the system within their budget, regardless of how many models are available.
Are we talking about the same game developers whom support the multitudes of PC configurations? If anything, engines like Gears 5 UE4 and the multitude of others, prove they can scale well between platforms. Developers will adapt.
Ever since consoles have adopted entirely into PC hardware, I'm generally ill confident we'll see the newer stuff appear on consoles before it hitting mainstream PC.
The rumored AMD GPU, dubbed the Nvidia killer...
Seriously, AMD could provide a multi-chip GPU design next year. Something that isn't crossfire related on PCB, but a newer process of their IF-tech designs allowing GPU chiplet scaling.
I don't think optimisation would be necessary or pursued. Devs will develop for and target the lower tier. The upper tier will just run with whatever gravy. Some devs will invest more in it, but realistically there's no extra gains to be had from the extra work, as you allude to. Why make devs have to develop another version of their game if it's just going to sell the same numbers? Sony may make more money selling a pricier console, but devs will be disadvantaged if they need to add another SKU to their efforts. So I reckon it'll just be a PS5 as far as the devs are concerned, and the issue will be minimal gains for consumers who buy it, but just turning up the resolutions and quality using the already-present-PC-settings should be enough.
Who's to say there won't be another mid-gen refresh? As the architectures converge on 'PC' and with more and more systems to worry about, eventually the devs will only target one platform, PC, with a bunch of quality settings, and leave it at that. We have had console versions of titles running like shit for years now, decades even, ever since the move to 3D. So just release a game that runs however, maybe a completely slide-show piece-of-crap on the lowest tier console. It's not worth the effort of fine-tuning a title to run beautifully on every box unless you can guarantee the higher sell-through. So something like Fortnite can work on optimising for a dozen different platforms, but everyone else will just get something that runs okay on mid-tier PC and let gamers choose their performance profile for said games by buying whatever hardware they want, knowing they get what they pay for.
1. That japan journalist is very close to industry so the PS5 Pro rumor is probably true.
and
2. PS5 base model is very likely much powerful than the rumored "lockhart with 4TF". So the situation is very different. On PS5 we may still see true next-gen graphic with > 1440p CBR and PS5 Pro may be a true native 4K gaming console.
Need to go back and catch up on other pages.
Regarding what you said though.
I think the console will be optimized, and pc will be used to brute force it.
Your forgetting also all the years of badly optimized pc games. Gets by through gamers throwing money at it and sometimes that's not even enough.
Agree with what you say about multiple sku, the higher end will be higher resolution and some graphic features turned up.
They wouldn't invest in multiple development streams etc, it will simply be turning up some settings and make sure it runs ok.
Funny thing is I swear 4TF was just thrown out there, too say TF is lower but just as powerful as 1X. It could've been 5.8TF navi for all we know But the 4TF became fact even though no one questioned how we would know that and not the top end model.
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Dev teams need to perform QA for two consoles instead of one -> longer dev times per game -> less games available on launch window -> less people buy the console during the launch window -> adoption rate hurts.
QA on PC is often a joke. Which is why I sometimes spend hours upon hours trying to figure out why the game isn't running, and then why it isn't loading the textures properly, then which IQ settings work best on a given game, then if it's an online game me and my gaming partners need to spend hours trying to figure out how to invite one another to the gaming session, then figuring out which voice system works best, etc.
Games are often released completely broken (see Borderlands 3 with game-breaking bugs), and other times some are postumously broken by random driver updates. Even in a world where we now only have two IHVs for gaming GPUs, things are super hard to keep stable.
I'm still a PC gamer at heart, but boy do I get ever less patient to put up with PC gaming crap as the years go by.
As I said above, even if we assume all devs can just work on a minimum target and then let variable framerate / resolution work their magic on the faster SKU (I doubt it would ever be that simple though), they still need to run QA on different platforms.
He is?
All I see from that wccftech article is that he "talked" about the Switch Lite before it was made official, but not that he broke the news about a 2nd Switch model.
That doesn't seem to be a problem with X1/X1X games so to me it's a non issue.
