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

[Karamazov]

DF are not against PS5 pro. It's just Dictator expressing his feeling about the midgen refreshes, we can all agree that he has the right to have an opinion.
He is a PC tech enthusiast and we already know the Pro won't come close to what's already available in the PC space.
But i think he'll still be interested to do comparisons of the hardware when it comes out.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

DF are not against PS5 pro. It's just Dictator expressing his feeling about the midgen refreshes, we can all agree that he has the right to have an opinion.
He is a PC tech enthusiast and we already know the Pro won't come close to what's already available in the PC space.
But i think he'll still be interested to do comparisons of the hardware when it comes out.

Not just Alex, from what I remember John and Rich were also not in favour of it early on and were kind of dismissive of even the possibility of it existing about a year ago, or at least being able to be produced at any reasonable price point. They were basing that on the current market conditions, and the fact that MS basically told them how tight everything is with modern processes. That looks to have changed somewhat, also that we're now talking late 2024 when the early rumours had it coming sooner which would be far less feasible economically.

Personally I think a Ps5 Pro with ~2X the raster performance, in addition to the possibility of better upscaling/FSR3/Zen4/RT would be a very worthwhile upgrade, but I also get why people would not exactly be enthusiastic about it either. For one, the PS5 just finally became 'available' to many people after the shortages are finally under control (sort-of, digital PS5 and PS5's sold without bundles are still somewhat rare), you've got the increased prices of games, it's still above it's launch MSRP (save for the brief sale now) in most regions outside the US, and now we have hefty increases on PS Plus to boot. All that, and the extension of the cross-platform period with some rather...underwhelming releases. As we can see from some UE5 titles, more power is 'needed' - but these aren't exactly AAA releases either, they may not the best barometer on the performance we should expect from other studios using the engine, or just games in general.

So I do kind of get the feeling that due to all of what's happened in the world, that this 'gen' has barely even started. Part of that may be based on unrealistic hype of this gen's capabilities sure, but there has been quite a wrench thrown into the development process the past few years, and I get why some people may feel a new, more powerful console released in 2024 feels 'too soon', even though it roughly tracks with the release of the Pro's last gen.

 

[pjbliverpool]

By $500 console standards.

Really? 2x the performance of the previous console for a new console doesn't strike me as particularly beastly. In fact it would be just about the smallest performance jump for a new console in history, even by the previous mid gen standards. It'll be relatively powerful in the console space for sure but only due to a total lack of competition.

You get a lot of performance and more importantly lowest level optimizations for the money.

I wouldn't expect significant levels of low level optimization on a mid gen refresh. Even the base consoles have barely had anything to show for that this generation on the GPU side and a mid gen refresh will see even less on account if it simply scaling up settings from the base console.

I don't really put stock in on paper spec comparisons because I think dedicated RT cores and possibly AI upscaling will provide better results beyond 6800xt and 3080.

Well sure, but if you're going to start assuming (without evidence) that it will contain 'secret sauce' hardware components that will massively increase it's performance over what the actual specs could deliver then I guess any performance target is fair game.

But with specific reference to the 3080, what exactly do you think AMD is going to include in the GPU that is going to make it relatively so much better at RT, and particularly AI upscaling than Ampere?

 

[Karamazov]

if it can bring a little more than 2x the performance of the PS5, we could get something like fortnite UE5 graphics running in VR.

 

[snc]

By what standard? The rumoured spec put it around 6800XT/3080 level launching during the era of AMD's 8xxx series and Nvidias 50x0 series.

performence/price beast as I doubt it will be 2x more expensive than ps5 or xsx

 

[snc]

if it can bring a little more than 2x the performance of the PS5, we could get something like fortnite UE5 graphics running in VR.

fortnie graphics ? no thx ;d we already have better in village, gt7, horizon and red matter 2 ;d

 

[Karamazov]

Lumen would make a world of difference in VR !

 

[cheapchips]

Would decimate backwards compatibility for sure with such a move and would obsolete their cloud game streaming infrastructure currently ...

MS's ARM to x86 and visa versa are all quite performant and so should be in a console / xCloud environment.

I'm imagining gen 15, where there's this wobbling tower of VMs running ARM running x86, running ARM, running PowerPC....


It'll be beautiful. And that's before you get to the GPU part.

 

[Lurkmass]

MS's ARM to x86 and visa versa are all quite performant and so should be in a console / xCloud environment.

I'm imagining gen 15, where there's this beautiful wobbling tower VMs running ARM running x86, running ARM, running PowerPC....


It'll be beautiful. And that's before you get to the GPU part.

I'm pretty sure most emulators don't handle AVX or even SSE4a extensions so it's not even safe to swap to Intel CPUs for consoles! GPUs are far bigger disasters to modern system emulation ...

Microsoft would be forced to 'freeze' any advancements to their cloud gaming infrastructure until the next console cycle comes around since they'd have to develop a new console gfx API to coincide with their changes in hardware architecture if they do decide to make the switch ...

 

[Seanspeed]

Not just Alex, from what I remember John and Rich were also not in favour of it early on and were kind of dismissive of even the possibility of it existing about a year ago, or at least being able to be produced at any reasonable price point.

I think the price aspect is something to still be very skeptical about. I'm expecting PS5 Pro to be $600 minimum, and possibly even $700, from what we've heard about it.

A big tell will be how much the new PS5 costs that's supposed to come this year. If it's still $399 + like $99 for disc reader, then I think a Pro is almost certainly going to cost like $700(or perhaps $599 + $99 disc reader?).

It'll go against the general wisdom that consoles just cant cost more like than $500, but Sony may well feel this is the time to challenge that perception. Again...

 

[I'mDudditz!]

It's more the insinuation that "Digital Foundry shall be ashamed by their words and deeds" because they weren't sufficiently excited about the prospect of a new console 2 years out when the possibility was brought up, especially after the talk came so soon after Sony had just increased prices in territories outside the US. It's completely reasonable to think it's not a wise move when most people were struggling to still obtain a PS5.

Dude knock it off I said nothing of the sort. The nerve of you to use quotations around words I never said or insinuated. Either try to not be such a miserable prick or go pick an argument with someone else.

 

[I'mDudditz!]

I think the price aspect is something to still be very skeptical about. I'm expecting PS5 Pro to be $600 minimum, and possibly even $700, from what we've heard about it.

I would love for them to be bold and target $600. Hopefully they learned lessons from initial PS5 launch where they left money on the table for scalpers to run off with. $700 is a no-go however.

Well sure, but if you're going to start assuming (without evidence) that it will contain 'secret sauce' hardware components that will massively increase it's performance over what the actual specs could deliver then I guess any performance target is fair game.

But with specific reference to the 3080, what exactly do you think AMD is going to include in the GPU that is going to make it relatively so much better at RT, and particularly AI upscaling than Ampere?

It's a speculation thread buddy, I'm just going off of Cerny's public statements on RT and the Sony patent. Maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong, but no need to label my opinion as "secret sauce" as if I'm pulling out of my bum. For 3080 comparison, I don't think it needs to be drastically different, just needs to be similar in practice, aka have RT traversal hardware. You don't believe low level optimization has played a role in base PS5 performance, but I do. So I guess we just have to be content with this difference of opinion.

 

[Seanspeed]

I would love for them to be bold and target $600. Hopefully they learned lessons from initial PS5 launch where they left money on the table for scalpers to run off with. $700 is a no-go however.



It's a speculation thread buddy, I'm just going off of Cerny's public statements on RT and the Sony patent. Maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong, but no need to label my opinion as "secret sauce" as if I'm pulling out of my bum. For 3080 comparison, I don't think it needs to be drastically different, just needs to be similar in practice, aka have RT traversal hardware. You don't believe low level optimization has played a role in base PS5 performance, but I do. So I guess we just have to be content with this difference of opinion.

$600 would be respectable, but assuming it's a disc console, I think they'll need a bigger gap between it and the base PS5, meaning they'd have to drop the price of the normal PS5. And I'm just not sure they want to do that, or feel they need to given how much it's still selling.

Fingers crossed, I guess.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I think the price aspect is something to still be very skeptical about. I'm expecting PS5 Pro to be $600 minimum, and possibly even $700, from what we've heard about it.

A big tell will be how much the new PS5 costs that's supposed to come this year. If it's still $399 + like $99 for disc reader, then I think a Pro is almost certainly going to cost like $700(or perhaps $599 + $99 disc reader?).

It'll go against the general wisdom that consoles just cant cost more like than $500, but Sony may well feel this is the time to challenge that perception. Again...

I'd be very surprised at $700, $600 max but I don't think $500 - without a disc drive- is out of the question either. The fact they also put the PS5 on sale for the first time indicates maybe BOM has finally been reducing.

But I'm not confident enough at this point to put money down either way. The price of the PS VR, the Portal, the raised price of PS Plus also indicates they have some uh, flexibility in their price ceilings.

 

[RobertR1]

MS should launch a new console all together sooner than later. No more XSS + XSX type variants. Make one set of good hardware.

The longer this gen goes on, the further behind the Xbox will fall in sales and tech wise, the XSS will continue to be a compromise as it's the L.C.D. that all games have to baseline to.

 

[^M^]

The main issue for a refresh is a that newer nodes are still quite expensive.

 

[iroboto]

MS should launch a new console all together sooner than later. No more XSS + XSX type variants. Make one set of good hardware.

The longer this gen goes on, the further behind the Xbox will fall in sales and tech wise, the XSS will continue to be a compromise as it's the L.C.D. that all games have to baseline to.

They may stick to one going forward. Another reason I think they launched 2:
1: Xbox
2: Xbox 360
3: Xbox one
4: Xbox series S
5: Xbox series X
6: Xbox 6

They can finally align numbers with Sony for next Gen.

 

[Seanspeed]

MS should launch a new console all together sooner than later. No more XSS + XSX type variants. Make one set of good hardware.

The longer this gen goes on, the further behind the Xbox will fall in sales and tech wise, the XSS will continue to be a compromise as it's the L.C.D. that all games have to baseline to.

There's no need for devs to treat Series S as the baseline, as it's the console specifically for people who dont care so much about technical aspects or performance or whatever. Devs can just make some harsh GPU cuts or whatever, maybe even let performance suffer a bit more, reduce detail and texture to scale memory if need be, and a playable Series S version should be possible. It may not be great, but again, if people wanted a great experience, they shouldn't be buying the cheapo model.

I'm not a fan of Series S and think it's a little too cut down to be a good console that I'd recommend to anybody except major casuals, but I dont think it should limit developers or anything, I just think it'll be a progressively lousier experience as the gen goes on.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's no need for devs to treat Series S as the baseline, as it's the console specifically for people who dont care so much about technical aspects or performance or whatever. Devs can just make some harsh GPU cuts or whatever, maybe even let performance suffer a bit more, reduce detail and texture to scale memory if need be, and a playable Series S version should be possible. It may not be great, but again, if people wanted a great experience, they shouldn't be buying the cheapo model.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. For me, XBSS is the current-gen console for 1080p TVs who don't care for 4K. It shouldn't be massively gimped below the XBSX/PS5 experience. Broadly speaking, you need 1/4 the power for 1/4 the resolution, so why should everything else including framerate suffer? And actual specs are 33% GPU, 95% CPU and 63% RAM, and 40% RAM BW - all figures above the 25% of a theoretical linear resolution scaling.

I guess it's only a issue if XBSS is being pushed to sub-1080p resolutions where XBSX games are sub-4K. But the XBSS isn't marketed that way and I don't think buyers should be expected to anticipated significantly downgraded games.

 

[Seanspeed]

I don't think that's a fair assessment. For me, XBSS is the current-gen console for 1080p TVs who don't care for 4K. It shouldn't be massively gimped below the XBSX/PS5 experience. Broadly speaking, you need 1/4 the power for 1/4 the resolution, so why should everything else including framerate suffer? And actual specs are 33% GPU, 95% CPU and 63% RAM, and 40% RAM BW - all figures above the 25% of a theoretical linear resolution scaling.

I guess it's only a issue if XBSS is being pushed to sub-1080p resolutions where XBSX games are sub-4K. But the XBSS isn't marketed that way and I don't think buyers should be expected to anticipated significantly downgraded games.

If you've bought a new TV in the past six years or so, it's almost definitely a 4k TV no matter what price range it was at. And the people doing so largely dont care that it's 4k and are likely playing 720p cable broadcasts on their 4k TV anyways half the time.

As for why everything else should suffer? Because Microsoft gimped the specs too much to where it's not just gonna be an easy matter of 'reduce resolution by x% and job done'. That's what it should have been, but it's clear that's not what it is, so devs have a prioritization choice here of whether to compromise the main versions of the game for PS5/XSX in order to ensure they dont have to make extra scaling work to get Series S to run properly, or they do all that extra work for Series, OR, they just let that version suffer a bit cuz they have a ton on their plate and it's the system for people who didn't care about technical aspects to begin with enough to get the better consoles. I think devs will almost always pick one of the two latter options rather than the first. Not saying that devs should all disregard Series S and let it suffer, just that when push comes to shove, it should get the short end of the stick in terms of resources.

The lack of RAM and bandwidth is a bigger problem than those spec percentages might indicate. These aren't things that scale linearly with resolution, especially RAM usage. And as devs push these new consoles harder, I do think there will be more and more examples of Series S falling behind. Maybe not in 1st party titles too much, but perhaps moreso 3rd party stuff.