Well, it seems that most of us agree that no matter what happens, console cycles could be longer, but who knows... it's not just 4K and RTRT, and who knows what other milestones will appear in the future.
Will next-gen be the last generation of consoles?
- Thread starter eloic
- Start date
As I’m sure you know, there is no IF about it.
My first 25 years of computing 32-bit CPU performane increased a factor 10000. The last ten years it has increased a factor two.
GPUs paint a slightly less grim picture, but still performance per watt has only increased roughly a factor four in the last ten years.
Lithography is up against an exponentially rising wall. 5nm looks kinda healthy, but the proposed 3nm process shift so far seems very anemic, and beyond that we simply have no idea.
The major way the industry tackles this is through packaging technology. Unfortunately the big power burners that characterize consoles don’t lend themselves too well to stacking, any 3D arrangement around a 200W (high energy density!) chip is going to be problematic.
There are basically two reasons to introduce new consoles.
1. Technology progress unlocks substantially new capabilities. (That can be used to lure consumers.)
2. To produce a New Shiny using Buzzwords. (That can be used to lure consumers on the basis of novelty.)
While #2 might work in a limited way, consumers will figure out (before or after purchase) that the new devices offers little over the old, and unless completely compatible also means functionality loss/depreciation of their existing solution.
Basically, for the hardware iteration to be long term viable, #1 has to be valid. It’s important to note that the software side is of the console business is under no such pressure. While software being able to offer new visuals is a positive, it is a fact that that biggest and fastest growing segments of gaming are those where graphics rendering is deemphasized. Simply put, it’s just not that strong a sales argument any more, the visual balance of importance swings ever more over towards art direction and asset creation vs. rendering technology.
While that would imply that the next generation of consoles might be the last for a good long while, personally I believe something new will be introduced at rougly the typical cadence (i.e. sometime second half of the 2020ies) mainly for market manipulation reasons that will have little to do with absolute performance per se. After that, I’d say crystal balls go completely dark.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yup, and agree with most of what you wrote.
Hence, why I think iterative consoles that maintain software compatibility forwards and backwards, becomes a way to keep console hardware relevant for marketing even if it doesn't offer the large visual upgrades that past console cycles did.
It's entirely possible that the cost of each iterative machine may increase as it gets more and more difficult to differentiate between iterative consoles. But if each console is likely to be able to play games for 8-12 (or more) years, then it's only the obsessive upgraders (analogous to PC gaming "enthusiasts") that will buy new console hardware everytime a new console comes out. More normal consumers can just wait 8-12 years between console purchases.
As console revenue is mostly about software and accessories, the manufacturers will be fine if console hardware sales decrease as each console potentially lasts longer being able to play games for longer. Console maker's will have to focus more on games and services to differentiate themselves (Sony has arguably a large headstart here with their string of quality first party titles the past few years), although MS appears to have the lead in subscription services, with Game Pass arguably being a bit more compelling than PS Now. Although that could change rather quickly if Sony also started putting their 1st party exclusives on a subscription based PS Now day and date with their release to retail.
And then the final point being that with faster iterative cycles, a company is more able to capitalize on any changes in hardware no matter how small or how large. And then it just comes down to when consumers feel compelled to upgrade. "Enthusiast" console players then, just like "Enthusiast" gamers on PC, will likely buy every single console iteration. While more normal consumers will wait until price/budget/features makes a new console a compelling choice.
Perhaps in a system like that, console hardware makers will subsidize a console iteration that represents a significant inflection point in order to move more players to that iteration? In effect making it cheaper in order to more quickly move people to it so that it's base feature set becomes the new base feature set. Meanwhile the intervening consoles get a higher price point reflecting the fact that your general console player won't be upgrading each console "generation".
While that console still wouldn't be large upgrade over the immediately preceding one, it may represent a large upgrade over the last "cheap" console. Of course, all the while maintaining a certain amount of forwards and backwards compatibility.
Regards,
SB
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I did not follow this thread, but if it hasn't been said already...
I think the future is not necessarily the thin client-server model, it could also be a networked many SOCs / wearables model, where consumer compute power is not centralized but spread.
So you could play games on your phone, swipe them to your 8K TV after coming home, and it runs on whatever hardware that is available at necessary latencies. So the fridge processes game AI, the home server GI, the phones do multiplayer netcode, and the washing machine does physics.
And your eye implants keep you gaming even while you're asleep. $$$$
I did not follow this thread, but if it hasn't been said already...
I think the future is not necessarily the thin client-server model, it could also be a networked many SOCs / wearables model, where consumer compute power is not centralized but spread.
So you could play games on your phone, swipe them to your 8K TV after coming home, and it runs on whatever hardware that is available at necessary latencies. So the fridge processes game AI, the home server GI, the phones do multiplayer netcode, and the washing machine does physics.
And your eye implants keep you gaming even while you're asleep. $$$$
In such a distopia, the only proper place for DRM to be processed is in our anal probe.
more likely there are going to be handheld consoles based on PCs, I guess, and the typical desktop consoles are going to be a thing of the past whenever they become more powerful. If anything, Nintendo is going to prevail in the console world with their original technology, but the other two might go to a single piece of desktop hardware- and streaming.
Streaming though, is not for everyone. At least not for me. I prefer getting a machine that actually handles the pixels being drawn rather than downloading a video stream
Oh no - games will be free then. Machines will want to keep us busy somehow while they take over...
But seriously, i see indeed some danger here with cloud gaming. No more modding, no more... ok, it's all almost gone already right now, but i would feel like a consumer kept busy with dumb games that i can't control anymore.
And i'm not alone. But is this just a matter of generations or habit? I would be curious about statistics how younger people are more tolerant to the idea than older people. We will see soon anyways.
Also i think this could cause a split in 'AAA consumer gaming' and 'underground geek gaming'. The geeks will keep using their own hardware, and they will make and play games made by grown ups for grown ups, not games made by old boys for teens.
Maybe it's just a dream, but so many people are disappointed from current games. Indie vs. AAA seems not really the solution for this problem, and i doubt the cloud will help it as well.
So if the big boys all jump on streaming, it could be some kind of opportunity for alternatives...
Given the constant growth of the gaming sector, and more money than ever being spent on it, I'd love to hear how many 'many people' actually is.
There's nothing new possible that can't be done now. If there's a market for some alternative that you speak of, it can be made now and sold however you want on an existing platform or on your own store, or given away free old school shareware. You can make a mobile game and make it buy once instead of F2P MTs if you want. Or a PC game that's paid for by Patreon or PayPal donations. It's certainly not a case that people are reluctantly playing the big boy games wishing there was something different but waiting until everything moves to streaming before they bother creating that different. Looking at everything from 'Minecraft' to 'PUBG' to 'Return of the Obra Dinn' to 'Goat Simulator' to 'Apex Legends' to 'The Last of Us' to 'Threes' to 'Baba Is You' to 'Dwarf Fortress' to 'Stardew Valley' to 'FIFA' to 'Sea of Thieves' and everything in between and beyond, I don't know where you're seeing an opportunity for something new to satisfy gamers who aren't finding anything to enjoy these days.
From a American perspective... NOPE!
As long as there is; inadequate broadband access, broadband deserts, lack of interest in broadband services, costly broadband services, limiting broadband services (data-caps, etc.), and all of the negative trappings which can affect broadband services (i.e., bad weather, cut/down lines, switching services, etc.), dedicated consoles will always have a place servicing those with the aforementioned broadband issues, at least for the foreseeable future IMHO.
Just belly feeling, but i think the growth is over. Next gen will hide this for some time, but actually all generations play games finally, so growth can no longer be expected?Given the constant growth of the gaming sector, and more money than ever being spent on it, I'd love to hear how many 'many people' actually is.
How many people, i don't know. But just read various user comments on announcements, all those shit storms, all this whining about repetition in never ending franchises.
I think is we have ignored this for too long because of all that growth. 20 years ago there was upcoming critique about too much cutscenes and too less game. But we did not listen, and nowadays the quality standard of cutscenes became so high, it almost is impossible to make a proper game around this even if it's linear. Only the biggest studios get this right, and all others fail at trying to copy. To me it's a dead end at least for single player games.
So i'm quite pessimistic and expect many studios to close in the next years. Dev's will form smaller teams and try go on with lower costs. Resulting games have to utilize other strengths.
Surely that's just personal speculation, but not offtopic. Cloud gaming will split the audience and the market will adapt in one form or another. Former niches can become a bigger part within their platform, and the offer in games hopefully becomes more diverse.
Personally i can't find anything currently. I want to play games, but after 10 minutes i'm bored and quit. I'm tired about being guided like a sheep from one cutscene to the next quick time event. This is true for most people that i know. (Surely there is one or two good games per year, but i would buy more.)
It's not meant as critique. I'm an old boy myself, and i do not know how to do better.
In the past it was often new tech that kept games evolving, but increased realism and production costs brought us to a paradox situation: On one hand we have linear motion captured movie like experience, on the other it is impossible to reach this bar with actual dynamic gameplay. As a result the gameplay becomes somehow predictable and lacks free will. Also the game appears ridiculous - It's hard to take a story serious when right after that you just have to run around and kill all those dumb ragdoll puppets. This is the real uncanny valley we stick in.
Indie games have similar problems because they better avoid using detailed characters / cutscenes at all due to high cost. So they lack tools for storytelling, and they also lack custom tech not offered by Unity / UE4.
With more platforms and so smaller markets there could come a better middle ground between AAA / Indie. Stagnation could force us to come up with better game design solutions finally.
I understand where you are coming from, especially as you get older. What broke me out that gaming boredom or restlessness was VR gaming. My PSVR and HTC Vive, really are gaming lifesavers for me. I'm enjoying gaming as if I were being introduced to my first gaming systems (Apple IIe & NES) as a kid.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
On the last IGN GameScoop podcast (ep. 521) somebody emailed in from Kentucky saying his Xbox One is basically unusable because the internet is so bad. If it's not system updates, it is massive game patches. And I though my internet is bad!
Well there is a system for this guy, and it's the Xbox 360.
-Don Mattrick
Seriously though, I'm very disappointed by how easily and quickly the industry allowed itself to get too comfortable with day-one patches and patch after patch, at absurd sizes. I consider it an utter disrespect to consumers.
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Given the unending chore of testing and fixing I have to go through, I've grown to excuse it now games have become so complicated. If you wait for a game to be 'fixed' before releasing, it'll never be released. That doesn't excuse all testing and QA of course, and plenty of games are released in a disrespectful state, but the invention of patching means games can actually be released and fixed. If everything were operated like PS2, games would be longer in development, cost more, release with far more and far worse bugs than ever before, and not be fixable.
When it comes to respecting non-internet users, disc-based games should be released after the internet release in a mostly fixed form, months later. Which sound impractical. So I think, like it or not, one needs to have good internet, and if your region doesn't have it that's just life being unfair without a realistic solution. I guess a more charitable company could offer a 'request a patch disc' and they'd send a physical disc with the game patches.
When it comes to respecting non-internet users, disc-based games should be released after the internet release in a mostly fixed form, months later. Which sound impractical. So I think, like it or not, one needs to have good internet, and if your region doesn't have it that's just life being unfair without a realistic solution. I guess a more charitable company could offer a 'request a patch disc' and they'd send a physical disc with the game patches.
I think one of Warren Spector's golden rules for game design was don't make a cut scene where the player character does something that can't be done during gameplay.
This is where I think physical stores like GameStop could serve a purpose. Offer some sort of kiosk where user can login and download game patches onto USB key, for a small fee or monthly subscription service or membership fee. Xbox has their dashboards available for download onto usb devices (in order to recover crashes etc) so this is just the next step.
Patches are good, but companies should try their absolute best to make it so they are few and ocasional, as small as possible, and a user should not have to download multiple different updates in succession. In short, it should be done properly, not as a hacky afterthought. Instead, they give absolutely no fucks about any of this. MS seems to be trying, at least, with Intelligent Delivery. Good on them!
Um, I don't think so. They're not going to risk their partnerships (i.e., HP, Dell, Digital Storm, etc.) over monopolistic practices. And it really doesn't make any sense for Microsoft to tie themselves behind fixed PC hardware, when DirectX and their APIs/toolchains work across the vast majority of PC hardware (hence, Xbox gaming on PCs).
What constitutes a gaming PC though? If XBN runs Windows 10, and can run Windows 10 applications, it's a PC. In fact, any console that supports KBM is pretty much a PC thanks to cloud-based applications, so you can already use you console for spreadsheets and word-processing. @Cyan really needs to define what he means.
