Do you think there will be a mid gen refresh console from Sony and Microsoft?

[Deleted member 11852]

I think Next gen can be defined as "will have games that are not playable on the previous console" vs. an in generation "Pro" console, which has 0 exclusives, but guaranteed compatibility with all games on the previous console

That's a high bar indeed and would mean many so-called "next gen games" from being classed as next gen. I mean, Cyberpunk ran on 2013 console hardware.. just - feature-wise all the mechanics were there. And if Sony had made the same quality concessions with Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart akin to the PC potato settings, they could probably have have gotten it running on PS4.

Few games are really next gen if you're wiling to slash their technical ambitions enough.

 

[Karamazov]

a game is a game, it can be ported to anything with various amount of sacrifice.
Then there are features in the game, unachievable on a previous gen at any acceptable performance no matter how hard you try, like raytracing, or ultra fast loading of assets, you'll never get that on PS4 generation.
Then dev choose if they bother to port a game on previous gen with the risk of downgrading too much the quality and their vision of the game.
Project red tried hard and even if they got something playable on last gen, it did more harm than good for the promotion of CP77.

So "next gen only game" is more of a PR term, we should talk more about next gen only features.

 

[Cyan]

can't see it this time. In the previous generation consoles were underwhelmingly weak at some point, plus it was a long generation. But this generation is still young, with little content, and also the new consoles are much more capable. Sure upscaling might play a big role at some point but I don't see the need of a PS5 Pro that does the same and nothing changes other than some extra pixels.

 

[Karamazov]

but it's like saying in the pc space a 3090 is good enough and don't see the benefit of a 4090 which just brings extra pixels/FPS.
a pro model is not destinated at the majority of PS players, only the ones willing to get those extras.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

but it's like saying in the pc space a 3090 is good enough and don't see the benefit of a 4090 which just brings extra pixels/FPS.
a pro model is not destinated at the majority of PS players, only the ones willing to get those extras.

PC space isn't the same as the console markets. PC upgrades are continuous and refresh GPUs are every 2yrs. The consoles are fixed hardware and don't need to change that frequently as the consumer won't buy them.

 

[Globalisateur]

can't see it this time. In the previous generation consoles were underwhelmingly weak at some point, plus it was a long generation. But this generation is still young, with little content, and also the new consoles are much more capable. Sure upscaling might play a big role at some point but I don't see the need of a PS5 Pro that does the same and nothing changes other than some extra pixels.

This gen is very weak at rendering RT in games (notably multiplat). Context is actually similar.

 

[Cyan]

This gen is very weak at rendering RT in games (notably multiplat). Context is actually similar.

and do you trust AMD to revert the situation? If it was nVidia of course, but AMD? Their GPUs -except 6600, 6700 and 6800/6900- are very mediocre, and when it comes to RT they are laughable compared to nVidia, also on closed hardware meant to be fairly priced, their efforts are going to be even weaker

 

[Karamazov]

PC space isn't the same as the console markets. PC upgrades are continuous and refresh GPUs are every 2yrs. The consoles are fixed hardware and don't need to change that frequently as the consumer won't buy them.

but the console players are not a big uniform blob, some like a mid gen refresh, and this is the target.

 

[Globalisateur]

and do you trust AMD to revert the situation? If it was nVidia of course, but AMD? Their GPUs -except 6600, 6700 and 6800/6900- are very mediocre, and when it comes to RT they are laughable compared to nVidia, also on closed hardware meant to be fairly priced, their efforts are going to be even weaker

They are going to supposedly improve it for PS5 Pro / RDNA4 by adding more hardware dedicated to it. We'll see. It's not like it's a total mystery how Nvidia and others are doing it.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

PC space isn't the same as the console markets. PC upgrades are continuous and refresh GPUs are every 2yrs. The consoles are fixed hardware and don't need to change that frequently as the consumer won't buy them.

And yet here we are anticipating PS5 Pro, meaning Sony sold enough PS4 Pro consoles to repeat the strategy. From where I sit, the console and PC markets look remarkably similar. The majority of not upgrading regularly and those that do represent a small minority.

 

[Seanspeed]

That's a high bar indeed and would mean many so-called "next gen games" from being classed as next gen. I mean, Cyberpunk ran on 2013 console hardware.. just - feature-wise all the mechanics were there. And if Sony had made the same quality concessions with Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart akin to the PC potato settings, they could probably have have gotten it running on PS4.

Few games are really next gen if you're wiling to slash their technical ambitions enough.

That's not a high bar, that's basically the standard, textbook definition of 'next gen' all throughout the history of consoles. And yes, that would mean Cyberpunk isn't a next gen game, cuz it just isn't. It didn't get some late downgraded port to work on last gen consoles, they were a priority to begin with.

And this doesn't strictly have to mean 'this game could never, in any shape or form, run on older hardware'. Obviously with enough effort and downgrading, you can make 'next gen' titles work on weaker hardware. The Witcher 3 was obviously a next gen game when it came out on PS4/XB1, and it's still a next gen game(by that period's standards) even though it also now runs on Switch. One look at the Switch version shows clearly how utterly divorced from the original releases it is on a technical level.

I think the only place it really gets murky is when you get games like Horizon Forbidden West and Forza Horizon 5, which I'd say were clearly built to show off what the new consoles could do, while still having a day and date last gen version, technically making these cross gen games. It doesn't help that both these studios are technical wizards so can make the last gen versions look at least in the same ballpark as the next gen versions, but I'd say even here, the gulf in the actual visual end result is still stark enough.

 

[Seanspeed]

They are going to supposedly improve it for PS5 Pro / RDNA4 by adding more hardware dedicated to it. We'll see. It's not like it's a total mystery how Nvidia and others are doing it.

It's not a mystery no, but this is also why we all believed RDNA3 would have some proper dedicated hardware for it as well and that didn't materialize. And it's not like RDNA3 would simply have been too late in development by the time Turing came out to know this route was superior(as you could maybe argue for RDNA2). And 'supposedly' isn't really cutting it here and I sadly dont think AMD deserves any great benefit of the doubt on this stuff these days.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

And yet here we are anticipating PS5 Pro, meaning Sony sold enough PS4 Pro consoles to repeat the strategy. From where I sit, the console and PC markets look remarkably similar. The majority of not upgrading regularly and those that do represent a small minority.

I don't think it's because they sold enough PRO consoles as to why they will automatically repeat their previous upgrade. Remember that the PRO console last-gen was the first ever in the history of consoles. It came about because of an explosion of the 4k TV and massive complaints from developers about how weak the initial hardware was. That doesn't mean they will continue this pattern from here on out.

To me, the consoles have barely been mainstream to introduce another SKU. It could happen, but I would rather they just hold and release the PS6 earlier than normal. If they stick to this practice, a lot of people will not buy the initial console and just wait 4yrs after to get the PRO and it will be a burden for developers. I also don't feel the PRO version will be powerful enough to run native 4k/60FPS games (which requires a LOT more power).

 

[techuse]

Also worth considering the PS5 is at a much lower resolution than PS4 was. PS4 was typically at 1080p. PS5 is typically closer to 720p. A pro console isn't getting anywhere near 4k. Are they going to market this as a true 1080p/60 console?

 

[Globalisateur]

I don't think it's because they sold enough PRO consoles as to why they will automatically repeat their previous upgrade. Remember that the PRO console last-gen was the first ever in the history of consoles. It came about because of an explosion of the 4k TV and massive complaints from developers about how weak the initial hardware was. That doesn't mean they will continue this pattern from here on out.

To me, the consoles have barely been mainstream to introduce another SKU. It could happen, but I would rather they just hold and release the PS6 earlier than normal. If they stick to this practice, a lot of people will not buy the initial console and just wait 4yrs after to get the PRO and it will be a burden for developers. I also don't feel the PRO version will be powerful enough to run native 4k/60FPS games (which requires a LOT more power).

Native 4K 60fps means absolutely nothing those days and you should know it (this is just unreachable goalpost of yours in order to state this console will fail). Plenty of games dont do native 4K 60fps even with a 4090. What matters those days are framerate and settings (meaning mainly RT settings).

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't think it's because they sold enough PRO consoles as to why they will automatically repeat their previous upgrade. Remember that the PRO console last-gen was the first ever in the history of consoles. It came about because of an explosion of the 4k TV and massive complaints from developers about how weak the initial hardware was. That doesn't mean they will continue this pattern from here on out.

Let's be frank, if Sony had not sold a lot of PS4 Pro consoles to make it a visible business decision then there would be no rumours of a PS5 Pro at all. These projects do not exists because Sony's engineers are bored. And what you say about developer complaints may well be true but PS4 Pro did not to address the difficulties for developers still having to support 2013 Xbox One and PlayStation 4 hardware until 2020, so that's irrelevant.

As then PlayStation head, Andrew House, said to The Guardian:

Regarding the PlayStation 4 Pro, he suggested the Xbox wasn’t even being considered its main competition. Rather, it was the PC. “I saw some data that really influenced me,” he said. “It suggested that there’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro – and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement.”

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To me, the consoles have barely been mainstream to introduce another SKU. It could happen, but I would rather they just hold and release the PS6 earlier than normal. If they stick to this practice, a lot of people will not buy the initial console and just wait 4yrs after to get the PRO and it will be a burden for developers. I also don't feel the PRO version will be powerful enough to run native 4k/60FPS games (which requires a LOT more power).

Given sales of PS5, I don't think the Pro owning holdouts* will negatively impact next-gen adoption.

* don't all the Pro owners get the latest, greatest and hand their old console down/sell it on anyway?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also worth considering the PS5 is at a much lower resolution than PS4 was. PS4 was typically at 1080p. PS5 is typically closer to 720p.

Wot?

 

[Proelite]

But yea, if we're talking double the XSX(so 24TF RDNA2-equivalent), then yea I'd agree neither could pull it off.

Are you sure? Not even in 2024 on 3nm?

54 RDNA3+ Cus at 2.5ghz would be easily double the PS5 in traditional workloads, much more in RT workloads.
54 RDNA3+ CUs at 2.5ghz is ~35TF, which should be around 7900 GRE. A 7900 GRE is comparable to 6950 XT.

 

[techuse]

Wot?

When you look at games that aren't cross gen that is where it typically lands to get 60 fps.

Are you sure? Not even in 2024 on 3nm?

54 RDNA3+ Cus at 2.5ghz would be easily double the PS5 in traditional workloads, much more in RT workloads.
54 RDNA3+ CUs at 2.5ghz is ~35TF, which should be around 7900 GRE. A 7900 GRE is comparable to 6950 XT.

At what power and price though?