Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2022]

With same 1440p in last generation game, taking into account hw diff ps5 vs ps4pro is like bare minimum (120 in 1080 is for me useless mode playing close to big tv)

 

So of course I bought it, and upgrade issue aside, it’s crazy that this game still looks much better than most “next gen” games. Sure it has that PS4 look to it but other than that, and at 60fps, this looks crazy good even today. It’s a 2016 game!

 

I get this completely. The reality, as you know, is because of the way console games have been coded for generations - i.e. minimal adaptability for the game to use more computational power than its designed for - the only way to take advantage to new hardware is to spend man hours to make it work. It costs, they charge, they profit.

 

To be fair, there are plenty of examples of games on Xbox going BC or getting framerate boosted and getting a a price hike. It's just that if you purchase a game you sort of expect that title updates are a thing that's included in the purchase price. Looking closer at the Uncharted bundle, can you upgrade the base Uncharted 4 to the collection for $10, or just Lost Legacy for $10 and get the collection? Or do you need to own both? Because $10 for the visual upgrades and the other game is actually a great deal.

 

I agree, but not in perpetuity. Uncharted 4 released on PS4 in 2016 and Lost Legacy in 2017. There is a practicability in maintaining games year after year. Unless you have a dedicated team (which costs money), that's a distraction for the Naughty Dog team working on whatever they are currently working on.

Plenty of places are reporting that as long as you own at least one of the two titles, then you'll qualify for the £10 upgrade. I own both anyway, so it's showing £10.

 

This was equivalent of a patch, just so happens the patch is to current gen platform.
Not a remake, remaster, general improvement, substantial or otherwise DLC.

I guess there was the whole discussion at one point if patches should be charged for. The answer for some people was yes back then, and yes now.

I'm not against some things being charged for, but let's not pretend this was anything other than the most basic of patches.
Talk of cross generation as if this is different architecture that can't be cross compiled is out of place imo.

 

And it feels like Sony are experimenting here. I don't think it's random that there is no consistent approach for their first party games. God of War, Days Gone and The Last of Us Part 2 all received free patches to unlock the frame rates of PS4 games running on PS5. Ghost of Tsushima got a free patch to unlock the frame rate of the PS4 game running on PS5 and a paid-for enhanced PS5-build. Uncharted only has a paid-for enhanced version.

I think we're rats in the Sony's maze to find the most popular and profitable cheese.

 

Well, I guess part of the problem, why they have to charge for the upgrade is, that they now bundled the two games and it seems that you can upgrade if you have uncharted 4 or lost legacy. So that would explain the $10 price.

The overall upgrade is nice though. Didn't expect much more of a "simple" port as the hardware just doesn't have the power to brute force everything to 4k60. For that we would need at least 1.5x of the PS5 power (+bandwidth). I guess they could get it running at 4k60 if they rewrite the whole game and engine and redesign some thing and use new features of the RDNA2 architecture. But than they would need much, much more time.
The biggest problem here is again the mid-gen refresh which leads to the impression that not much haven't changed (expect for loading times). PS4 Pro had already show a really good picture in this game, just at 30fps but it looked great. PS5 has only a bit more than double the power of the pro, so the power is only available to increase resolution (and some better effects) or increase framerate but not both at the same time.
The fact that the PS5 has more than 2 times the power of the PS4 Pro is quite good highlighted in this title (because of the overall image improvements). The xbox has more problems with such mid-gen upgraded games as this console has exactly 2x the theoretical power of the mid-gen refresh so it struggles sometimes even with 60fps as brute-frocing the hardware to do double the work without using new features is not the best idea if you have just double the theoretical power. MS should really have increased the clockrates a bit more to don't run into this small issue.

 

From big titles only Bloodborne is missing so not much room for more experiments

 

Nintendo switch streaming seems to be really bad. I wonder what the solution is on the back end. I couldn't imagine using this as even through ethernet its bad and I have a launch switch with really bad wifi. This cements my choice of buying a steam deck

 

PSPgo used some kind of (pretty rare) MemoryStick standard. I love mine!

 

There is a difference between patching a title to fix things that aren't working as intended and patching to boost performance or providing additional features. Some developers may give away skins while charging for others as microtransactions. Just because both share the same underlying mechanism that adds those objects to the game doesn't mean the act of charging for skins is wrong.

Whats the biggest difference between a patch and DLC other then one is required for all copies and the other is restricted to those who purchase it?

 

I already found it abit 'over-done' when DICE started charging for extra DLC expansions (new maps for MP included) for the multiplayer modes of BF3/4 etc, this used to be free in the BF2 days.
Paying for a patch which simply increases slight settings/framerate and resolution.... Things that usually can be done using the settings menu in most games i play. Lets just pray this wont become common..

 

But there are plenty of examples of developers supporting titles as long or longer than that. UT2004 (released in 2004 of course) had it's final patch in 2010. Witcher 3 released in 2015, so a year before Uncharted, and it's getting a free "Next Gen" update this year (maybe). Red Faction Guerrilla released in 2009, and Remarstered in 2018, and it was a free update on PC. Oh, and Titan Quest. Came out in 2006. Changed developers and the publisher went bankrupt, bought out, that company rebranded, and it's still getting DLC and patches.

 

Don't forget that The Witcher 3 was announced as getting a free graphical upgrade for PS5, XBS, and PC. But then, that's nothing new for them as they also did that for The Witcher and The Witcher 2 on PC.

Apparently they also recently announced upcoming free story DLC based on the Netflix series.

That said, not all developers/publishers try to treat their customers as well as other developers.

Regards,
SB

 

At the same time you need to provide support for the product you are selling. Sales didn’t stop 6 years ago (or whenever). This is normal and has nothing to do with being nice. What is other alternative? Should we pay for every patch becouse it costs man hours? Should every patch realased cost let’s say dollar ? I think this is extremely greedy and annoys me more than loot boxes or nft. But this is mine 5 cents and I am not willing to support it with my wallet.

 

Sure, there are examples - they are the exception rather than the rule. How many games have this type of support? Maybe 0.001%? The norm for a developer is to build a game, ship it, bug fix it - maybe do some DLC - then move on. I bought Skyrim on PS3 and had to re-buy for PS4. Bethesda did a free-patch for PS4/XBO to PS4/XSS/X for free but assure you that it's little more than a frame rate unlock and improved textures - which were always low on lastgen consoles. Not that I don't appreciate it, because I absolutely do. Getting something for nothing is nice.

Publishers and developers can build long-term support into their business models, but something has to give - effort here, or profits there. If the business plan is not long-term support from the outset then it can be really quite difficult to go back to a game you released several years ago.

Look at Sony's studios for example, many of them are using their own engines and their own tools. We've had really good deep dives into the processes at Naughty Dog, Guerilla and Sony Santa Monica. They build an engine for a game, changing it as required - sometimes massively, e.g. changing engine fundamentals for the train sequence in Uncharted 2 and the upside-down ship un Uncharted 3. Then a massive revamp for The Last of Us, which I think was a fork from the Uncharted 2 version of their engine. The tools will iterate and change over time too. Going back to something running on an old engine supported by old tools may be complex, particularly if many of the developers were not the same people who worked on the original game. People are having to learn a different engine and different tools. It's all time and time costs money.

There is also a middle-model, where you just plan to roll out DLC for years and part of that is improvements to the base engine. Ubisoft are actually pretty good with that, Assassin's Creed gets supported a long time, but that support is bankrolled by paid DLC. You don't have to buy the DLC to benefit from engine improvements but enough people do buy DLC that everybody's base version of the game gets support for a good long while.

 

almost all games that are not on ps5. And this is very true for big blockbuster games Witcher doom metro etc etc in this case it’s ps5 that is exception from this rule offering paid patches that should be free

 

I think we should wait for the Witcher 3 to see what actually appears given that's on an even vaguer timeline than Cyberpunk. Metro, Doom and Skyrim all had free updates from last gen to this gen, although Skyrim didn't from the original generation jump. GTA V gets no free generational updates on consoles, and nor did Mass Effect didn't offer that either. FIFA 2022 only gets the free update if you bought the bonkers expensive edition, otherwise you have to pay.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey got a frame rate unlock but not older games. Watch Dogs 2 got nothing. Diablo III got nothing. Far Cry 6 had a free patch, but not Far Cry 5. Greed Fall, so did Jedi Fallen Order. Fallout 4 got nothing. The Arkham games got nothing. Dragon Quest XI got nothing. Just Cause 4 got nothing. None of the zillion Lego games got anything. Shadow of War/Mordor got nothing. Tomb Raider got noting. Outer Worlds got nothing. Dying Light got nothing.

Most definitely not "almost all". The closer a game released to the launch of this generation of consoles, the better its chances of an update, otherwise is mostly games which operate as GaaS (Destiny, Call of Duty, No Man's Sky, Warframe etc) but a ton of games got nothing.

Easily, and overwhelmingly, most last generation games release got nothing.

 

I didnt mean only next gen patches, as see colon stated
"But there are plenty of examples of developers supporting titles as long or longer than that."
Wich you replied to
"Sure, there are examples - they are the exception rather than the rule. How many games have this type of support? Maybe 0.001%? "

I dont think this is true, games receive patches all the time even if they are not proper next gen version patches. Supporting title after realase is not uncommon and so far patches were free.