Baseless Next Generation Rumors with no Technical Merits [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[Shortbread]

See the rumors regarding price ? Some are saying they're going to be high because of the specs, even up to $800. I can't see that happening but $500 -$600 Is probably more like it.

$800 for scarlet with the full add ons mabye

Console gamers already complain about spending a penny over $399, yet Microsoft is willing to offer a $799 dollar console for them? Um, Ok... SMH






And please, no niche / hardcore gamers will buy them comments.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I guess his concern is that there isn't a hard generation cut.

There isn't with cloud computing either.

But to his point though, people hoping for there to be this massive separation away from our mid-gen consoles, I'm fairly positive the mid-gen refreshes will be able to keep up wth next gen games for a while.

I don't think that was his point. "More of the same" can mean 20% more or 20x more. Again, he points to cloud as an enabler when it's not anything different. So I don't see a reference to performance here at all. In fact, SSDs should be an enabler of sort, and Cerny thinks as much. Plus strong CPUs should mean better games than ever before (without having to bend over backwards to make them!). I really think it's just a nostalgic remark about how interesting it was with the different consoles. We can all agree with that, but we don't want to go back to it (unless it enables something absolutely revolutionary) and we certainly aren't going to suggest that Cloud Computing and game streaming is going to fill the void.

 

[Entropy]

TBH though, he's an idiot. Games are about software, not fancy-pants hardware.

He's a tool.

So, dear mods, what in his finding it "hard to be excited" about what the new consoles will bring is actually controversial?
I mean, they will bring a bit more oomph that will presumably be used to target 4k output, possibly with somewhat better or at least different Ambient Occlusion from RT. We should be super excited about this?
He's just saying what at least to me is bleeding obvious, and doesn't make any other claims really, he even politely avoids calling them "boring".
Every rumour about the new consoles says that they are more-of-the-same. Nothing bad in that per se, but nothing particularly exciting either. And as he points out, that level of performance with similar architecture has been around in PC space for years. We know exactly what to expect.
The only problem I see is that he doesn't contribute to hype in an industry that depends on it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Check the conversation. I don't disagree with the idea that now modern hardware is boring. However, it's better for everyone. The idea that we'd be better off going with hard-to-use, library breaking, esoteric hardware is silly, and the idea that game streaming is where the exciting new frontier lies is also silly, because game streaming is exactly the same hardware he's complaining about, just with added lag and compression artefacts.

To be clear, he's not explicit, but implicit. He's finding it hard to get excited about the new consoles which are more of the same. As a software dev, he should be looking at what the new consoles enable, and not how they enable that. The implication is he'd be excited if Sony was introducing a Cell2 with a voxel-only GPU machine, which would be a catastrophic move by Sony. Yeah, very exciting to discuss, but a really dumb move. He's grumbling about the Switch being just a Tegra, ignoring all the other stuff on it like Labo and portable local multiplayer on the one machine, as if the only thing that makes a machine exciting is the originality of the chipset.

Every other dev is looking forwards to producing better, faster and cheaper. the new consoles inherit the old tools that are constantly being refined. Barriers to software development are coming down shifting the focus more squarely on the act of creating the art. And for those who like the nitty-gritty, there's a whole world of shader and compute based solutions to explore, and challenges in realising ones vision without, "how the frig do you we draw a frickin' triange on this damned thing?!" being one of them.

 

[Entropy]

Check the conversation. I don't disagree with the idea that now modern hardware is boring. However, it's better for everyone. The idea that we'd be better off going with hard-to-use, library breaking, esoteric hardware is silly, and the idea that game streaming is where the exciting new frontier lies is also silly, because game streaming is exactly the same hardware he's complaining about, just with added lag and compression artefacts.

To be clear, he's not explicit, but implicit.

I think you over interpret what you think he is implicitly saying. To me, that he points out game streaming as new, illustrates that he's looking for something disruptive, something that shakes up the market, the deal that is offered to consumers a bit.
If I were the head of a game studio, I would also have trouble seeing the new Sony and MS consoles as stirring the pot, or affecting the kind of games produced much.
You are probably right that this is indicative of a mature market. Even this thread illustrates that. In this baseless rumour thread where no technical merit is required, you would expect to find the raving lunatics frothing at the mouth predicting reality warping experiences. Instead, the most adventurous go "Maybe we could have 30% higher FLOPS? Please?"
Not much frothing going on about the new consoles, to be honest. And your right, it's probably better for everyone. But it is also, well, a bit boring.

 

[borntosoul]

Console gamers already complain about spending a penny over $399, yet Microsoft is willing to offer a $799 dollar console for them? Um, Ok... SMH






And please, no niche / hardcore gamers will buy them comments.

Granted $800 is excessive, if I was to guess I’d say $599. In this day and age it’s not a lot of money to spend considering it has a ssd drive, super fast loading times and most likely 2080 rivalling performance.

Pc gamers spend that and more on a graphics card.

 

[borntosoul]

Check the conversation. I don't disagree with the idea that now modern hardware is boring. However, it's better for everyone. The idea that we'd be better off going with hard-to-use, library breaking, esoteric hardware is silly, and the idea that game streaming is where the exciting new frontier lies is also silly, because game streaming is exactly the same hardware he's complaining about, just with added lag and compression artefacts.

To be clear, he's not explicit, but implicit. He's finding it hard to get excited about the new consoles which are more of the same. As a software dev, he should be looking at what the new consoles enable, and not how they enable that. The implication is he'd be excited if Sony was introducing a Cell2 with a voxel-only GPU machine, which would be a catastrophic move by Sony. Yeah, very exciting to discuss, but a really dumb move. He's grumbling about the Switch being just a Tegra, ignoring all the other stuff on it like Labo and portable local multiplayer on the one machine, as if the only thing that makes a machine exciting is the originality of the chipset.

Every other dev is looking forwards to producing better, faster and cheaper. the new consoles inherit the old tools that are constantly being refined. Barriers to software development are coming down shifting the focus more squarely on the act of creating the art. And for those who like the nitty-gritty, there's a whole world of shader and compute based solutions to explore, and challenges in realising ones vision without, "how the frig do you we draw a frickin' triange on this damned thing?!" being one of them.

Fully agree with this, no company is going to spend millions and millions on R&D to make a bespoke cpu/gpu and then the same on software to run the darn thing, and devs spend millions fine tuning their software - Sony learnt the hard way from the ps3.
It’s much easier and better to go the boring way and use off the shelf parts modified to their needs.
Everyone knows the hardware and pretty much so its a no brainer. The money saved on R&D can be used to bump up performance so in the end there’s not much that they can gain by going bespoke.

 

[Entropy]

Fully agree with this, no company is going to spend millions and millions on R&D to make a bespoke cpu/gpu and then the same on software to run the darn thing, and devs spend millions fine tuning their software - Sony learnt the hard way from the ps3.
It’s much easier and better to go the boring way and use off the shelf parts modified to their needs.
Everyone knows the hardware and pretty much so its a no brainer. The money saved on R&D can be used to bump up performance so in the end there’s not much that they can gain by going bespoke.

Thing is, he never said this was a bad thing. He didn’t even go into those areas.
He simply said he didn’t find the new console twins very exciting. Which, well, duh.
Remember - he can now see what he and his team will be working with for the next decade or so. If you consider that it is pretty much the same thing that they were already targeting the last several years, maybe his lack of hardware excitement is easier to accept.

 

[Xbat]

So, dear mods, what in his finding it "hard to be excited" about what the new consoles will bring is actually controversial?

I feel the massive improvement in streaming capability will be quite transformative and possibly having by far the best CPU a console has had in ease of use and performance ever?

I honestly don't see what they could of done differently to make it more exotic and have better performance.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Granted $800 is excessive, if I was to guess I’d say $599. In this day and age it’s not a lot of money to spend considering it has a ssd drive, super fast loading times and most likely 2080 rivalling performance.

Pc gamers spend that and more on a graphics card.

Console gamers are not PC gamers, though. And your average PC gamer spends nowhere near that much on a graphics card either. Back then you got a hell of a lot of hardware for 600 bucks with the PS3 as well. Didn't go over well with the vast majority of gamers regardless. I think 500 bucks is already pushing it. Especially if we're looking at machines that'll ultimately deliver games that look exactly like the ones we're playing right now, except at ultra settings and with quicker loading times. Maybe some hard-to-notice RT goodies shrown in if we're lucky.

The gap between a PS4/One launch title (Killzone and Ryse respectively) and top of the line PS3/360 games (Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 for example) was pretty damn obvious. The quality gap between that Halo Infinite trailer and your average Uncharted 4 cut-scene is only perceptible if you're watching a Digital Foundry video. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect these machines will be hard sells for the average consumer unless they're priced incredibly competitively.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In the case of diminishing returns, even if next-gen isn't a huge leap, I don't think it'll matter because of expectations. A new console comes out and you get it as it'll be far better. It'll be the following generation when consumers think, "hmmm, last time I upgraded really didn't make much of a difference, so I'm not sure it's worth it." to the average Joe not following the hardware, there's little reason to doubt the new boxes will be any less spectacular.

Even then, I'm (uncharacteristically!) optimistic next-gen is going to look notably better. I think by the end of the generation people will be surprised how much more was achieved than this PS4 gen.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

The gap between a PS4/One launch title (Killzone and Ryse respectively) and top of the line PS3/360 games (Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 for example) was pretty damn obvious. The quality gap between that Halo Infinite trailer and your average Uncharted 4 cut-scene is only perceptible if you're watching a Digital Foundry video. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect these machines will be hard sells for the average consumer unless they're priced incredibly competitively.

Well, this is an effect of people screaming "60fps 60fps 60fp!". Halo Infinite is a 4K native 60fps title, which means, compared to titles such as Killzone and UC4, it stresses hw much more to get same results duo to half a rendering budget + much more pixels to push. So even getting 4-5x more GPU power will not result in much better looking game duo to increase in pixel pushing and frame rate being doubled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The problem there really is going 4K. Certainly native 4K. Go 1440p and upscale via quality reconstruction and actually get visual gains. If people screaming "60fps 60fps 60fp!" worked, then good, because gaming is better at 60 fps.

 

[Nisaaru]

Console gamers already complain about spending a penny over $399, yet Microsoft is willing to offer a $799 dollar console for them? Um, Ok... SMH

Gamers complain about a lot of shit. In the end they will buy what they expect to enjoy. With game prices of 100++ bucks these days for full games easily or shitty gamepads designed with obsolescence in mind I can't take this idea of list prices serious anymore.

I would gladly pay more if I get a *quality* product.

 

[RDGoodla]

It is my understanding that sony's dev kits are faster than what MS has given to devs so far. However MS doesn't have the final specs in place and the surface team is working on a pretty interesting cooling solution for them.

I can say that MS is quite keen on the most powerful console title and will do anything within reason to have that marketing point again

It’s interesting it looks like SONY is keener on having the most powerful console.What has SONY done so that PS5 is more powerful? I begin to believe the HBM2 RAM rumor is true, and maybe PowerVR ray tracing is used for power efficiency.

 

[ultragpu]

So Reiner tweeted he heard new things since that PS5 being more powerful tweet but wouldn't share it due to aggression from fanoboys, I wonder if it's further affirmation of PS5 target specs being more powerful since he didn't retract his previous statement. Man feels like legit spec leak this time is way harder than last gen, we need to commission a pro hacker

 

[ultragpu]

It’s interesting it looks like SONY is keener on having the most powerful console.What has SONY done so that PS5 is more powerful? I begin to believe the HBM2 RAM rumor is true, and maybe PowerVR ray tracing is used for power efficiency.

According to That Game Informer head the PS5 specs has more Tflops at least, I have a feeling the difference in CPU, Ram amount/speed and SSD speed between the two are close enough. Maybe Scarlett would have a more advanced RT chip.

 

[BRiT]

This is all fanboy drivel considering final silicon not exist and beta devkits from both sides had not been sent outside of First Party.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Well, this is an effect of people screaming "60fps 60fps 60fp!". Halo Infinite is a 4K native 60fps title, which means, compared to titles such as Killzone and UC4, it stresses hw much more to get same results duo to half a rendering budget + much more pixels to push. So even getting 4-5x more GPU power will not result in much better looking game duo to increase in pixel pushing and frame rate being doubled.

Even if you eliminated those unfortunate requirements (I'd be a-okay with 1080p/60 and loads of bling myself. I think resolution is incredibly overrated), there's still the problem of hitting a wall of artistry. Kratos wouldn't look much different if you threw 4 times the amount of polys at him. Nor would loads of other details I'd imagine. And the kinda stuff that truly separates expensive pre-rendered CGI from real time graphics still takes an order of magnitude more power to pull off than a gaming console is gonna be able to offer any time soon.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

This is all fanboy drivel considering final silicon not exist and beta devkits from both sides had not been sent outside of First Party.

This is all there is too it. Dev kits sent before E3, especially in January cant have representstive silicon, it doesnt exist, its too early. They probably only had first samples back then...Last time around, June 2012, Sony sent PC boxes with 4 Core AMD (not Jaguars) and PC GPUs. From what I remember, MS had Nvidia...

So dev kits this early, without additional info are very muddy. If they have official target specs and documentation, then that is set in stone, and sooner someone leaks it, the better.