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

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PS5 NOT THE "WORLDS FASTEST CONSOLE"?
"Project Scarlett will set a new bar for console power, speed and performance, arriving Holiday 2020 alongside Halo Infinite."
Of course it will set a new bar for console power above One X and PS4 Pro?. Pretty useless comment without a reference
 
I agree. Nintendo tried it with Wii U controller and they miserably failed. Something that forces you to look away from the TV breaks the immersion. The Switch is a totally different story. There is one screen only on Switch.

Particularly when the screen is so tiny. A tiny screen on a controller is absolutely a gimmick and I can't imagine it'll get any more support than other gimmicks. DualShock 4's touchpad gets moderate support because touchpads/gestures are readily easily supported. As the worst, the DS4's touchpad can function as one big extra button.
 
A bright background like this would be horribly annoying.

Couch multiplayer can take advantage of a private screen. It's the only way to unlock a multitude of strategy, cards, and board games.
 
The proposed screen is too small for that. Use a mobile/tablet. The tech already exists.
It's definitely big enough, it's just to show the minimal amount of private info. A few cards. The game is on the main screen.

A bunch of $50 tablets is not a replacement for this.
 
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Particularly when the screen is so tiny. A tiny screen on a controller is absolutely a gimmick and I can't imagine it'll get any more support than other gimmicks. DualShock 4's touchpad gets moderate support because touchpads/gestures are readily easily supported. As the worst, the DS4's touchpad can function as one big extra button.

Better to invest in better battery life, quality etc.
 
It's definitely big enough, it's just to show the minimal amount of private info. A few cards. The game is on the main screen.

A bunch of $500 tablets is not a replacement for this.

Why $500 tablets when a $30 Kindle Fire will work? Or the phone already in your pocket? Jackbox, Playlink, and other games are already doing this. Frankly, the market for local multiplayer games where you need private info isn't big enough to saddle every controller with an expensive screen.
 
Why $500 tablets when a $30 Kindle Fire will work? Or the phone already in your pocket? Jackbox, Playlink, and other games are already doing this. Frankly, the market for local multiplayer games where you need private info isn't big enough to saddle every controller with an expensive screen.
I was thinking mobiles when I wrote 500, yeah a complete 7" tablet can be found for 50 nowadays.

Still not at all the same thing I'm talking about. I mean having a game on the TV. Played with a controller.
 
It's definitely big enough, it's just to show the minimal amount of private info. A few cards. The game is on the main screen.

A bunch of $50 tablets is not a replacement for this.
Everyone already has a tablet and a phone. If the only value is competitive local multiplayer, it's a high cost addition with niche functionality. Cheaper to just build a mobile-phone cradle into the controller. ;)
 
Everyone already has a tablet and a phone. If the only value is competitive local multiplayer, it's a high cost addition with niche functionality. Cheaper to just build a mobile-phone cradle into the controller. ;)
How much do you think it costs?
 
The other guys have an idea much better than this ;)

trackball_controller_xbox360_2013-88040.jpg
 
What would be so distracting about a screen on the controller? In an age where graphics are consistently stunning enough to warrant the absence of a HUD, moving banal but requisite information onto your controller is desirable.

Easy, simple, non-distracting uses:
  • Counters. HP, MP, ammo etc. Too many would be unbearable, but used sparingly it could unclutter the main HUD. If I was playing an Uncharted-esque game, I'd be quite happy with the ammo counter off the screen and on my controller.
  • Colour coded counters. For example, fade from green to orange to red when losing HP. Combine it with the above, and an action adventure shooty blamsplosion game could keep the screen full of only the most presentable image.
  • Extra buttons. Think of Horizon Zero Dawn, and having the bow equipped with several ammo types available. When you equip the bow, the DS5 screen changes to display the ammo types.
  • A minimap skibbidipap. I don't think this really bears further elucidation other than "I'd dig it."

The WiiU has been brought up as an example, which is fair enough to bring up as an example of the pitfalls such a controller can face, but not to write off everything about it entirely.

There were a couple of substantial problems IMO:
  • Too big. Sure, there was plenty of screen as a result, but it was too unwieldy, and too easy for that unwieldiness to be unwarranted by virtue of its many features going unutilised.
  • Only one per console. This limitation is understandable from a technical perspective, but unforgivable from a user perspective. Had the enormous controller been an expensive accessory, and the WiiU capable of pairing with 2/4, we'd have seen some typically Nintendo asynchronous multiplayer goings on, in a way that the other consoles could only have matched via online multiplayer.

This hypothetical, screen possessing DS5 needn't succumb to the shortcomings of the WiiU, not if it maintains the right kind of focus. We've had confirmation that they're evolving the trigger design. IIRC we've also had confirmation that they're using the same sort of tech as the Switch's evolved rumble. Evolving the DS4 a little further to the point of a simple touchscreen doesn't seem so outlandish to me. And hopefully a microphone too, which would've been far more welcomed on the DS4 than a bloody speaker.
 
Easy, simple, non-distracting uses:
  • Counters. HP, MP, ammo etc. Too many would be unbearable, but used sparingly it could unclutter the main HUD. If I was playing an Uncharted-esque game, I'd be quite happy with the ammo counter off the screen and on my controller.
  • Colour coded counters. For example, fade from green to orange to red when losing HP. Combine it with the above, and an action adventure shooty blamsplosion game could keep the screen full of only the most presentable image.
  • Extra buttons. Think of Horizon Zero Dawn, and having the bow equipped with several ammo types available. When you equip the bow, the DS5 screen changes to display the ammo types.
  • A minimap skibbidipap. I don't think this really bears further elucidation other than "I'd dig it."

Basically, all of these are better being on screen where they are easy to see, or offer no advantage forcing you to look at you hands rather than popping up on screen at a button press. WiiU proved this pretty conclusively. It's not like a DS/3DS situation where both screens are literally on top of eachother so looking at both is very convenient. Having to look down from your TV to your hands and back is, in contrast, very obnoxious.
 
I have a quality 65" screen in front of me, I don't want to be looking at a crappy 2" led in my hands to find out how much ammo I have.

Don't you think there's anyone that could turn that into an interesting dynamic? Imagine, say, a survival horror game set in a world in which guns are silent every time you fire a round; they're also sentient, and any time you try to fire them when empty, they're stricken with existential dread and let rip blood curdling screams, thereby alerting nearby baddies. Such a straightforward premise as this could bring forth moments where you're torn between keeping your eyes on the baddies who are furiously pacing about looking for marmalade/you, or glancing down at your controller, which relays your ammo count to you, but only in square roots of multiples of pi. Basically, if it doesn't say "0" you're fine.

Basically, all of these are better being on screen where they are easy to see, or offer no advantage forcing you to look at you hands rather than popping up on screen at a button press. WiiU proved this pretty conclusively. It's not like a DS/3DS situation where both screens are literally on top of eachother so looking at both is very convenient. Having to look down from your TV to your hands and back is, in contrast, very obnoxious.

I think it proved pretty conclusively that it's undesirable to hold a fridge's vegetable drawer in front of your face to simulate shooting one space ship from another. I could've told Nintendo that when I was 5. And therefore their target audience.

Really though, it depends on the tradeoff the user wants. Do they want an image without a HUD, or do they want to never flick their eyes from one screen to another?

HUD's which fade in and out have become pretty commonplace over the last few years as a means of satisfying both desires. A couple of dollars' worth of additional controller BOM could hand that choice over to the user.
 
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