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

[JPT]

Insomniac then backtracked and produced 60 fps games, offering users choice.

Actually, metrics on which mode people prefer to play would answer this well and truly! Games come with performance and quality modes on consoles. Which one are people choosing? That'll tell us precisely who cares about better framerates and who doesn't.

Yes, but this was back in PS3 days if I remember correctly, anybody remember what they did on PS4?
On PS5 they do of course give multiple options

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I remember the blowback on the forum here, when Insomniac did their 30fps games sell more and went with 30fps.

And here is a Mr Leadbetter covering this for Eurogamer.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The market analysis was IMO flawed. Without AB testing, gamers didn't have a choice, and 30 fps isn't going to stop them buying a game. Indeed, I highly doubt 30 or 60 is going to sway sales any measurable amount for any title save a few dependent on higher framerate like Wipeout - that at 30fps likely wouldn't have sold so well, according to my gut's scientific analysis.

If chasing sales, framerate likely counts for squat. I think it's more just a case of giving users a good experience by making the best game you can, picking a vision that works, and giving options if possible. Then there'll be a subset of gamer for whom higher framerate is a must and they'll pay for that.

Anecdotally, one of my keen memories on framerate was playing Neverwinter Nights on PC after playing BGA on PS2. I reduced the detail to a minimum to get a higher framerate but it was inconsistent and suffered screen tear. As I could never get a decent solid experience regardless of settings, I just put the graphics settings back up and chugged. That consolidated the view that gaming was best for consoles and PC's were a bit naff. (PC's offered a different experience with a different type of game consoles couldn't handle)

 

[tuna]

I remember the blowback on the forum here, when Insomniac did their 30fps games sell more and went with 30fps.
Which is also an interesting metric to track, since in the end it comes down to the cash. I do not know if that conclusion still holds up today, but back then they said their research told them prettier pixels was more important than fps in regards to sales.

Mike Acton excluded sport games and (IIRC) CoD in his "research".

 

[see colon]

Mike Acton excluded sport games and (IIRC) CoD in his "research".

So the most likely games to sell gangbusters and be 60fps...
That's like researching burritos but excluding all of the ones that include beans.

 

[Seanspeed]

Which one are people choosing? That'll tell us precisely who cares about better framerates and who doesn't.

I dont think that's a good way of telling, cuz the vast majority of games the past few years have been cross/early gen games that dont require huge sacrifices to get 60fps. And it especially doesn't speak to the benefits of making a game with a sole 30fps target from the get-go.

Obviously 60fps is preferable to 30fps all else being equal. Nobody disputes this. It's about what we're giving up to have '60fps for every game', which cant be measured. There's a lot more devs can do when working with a 33ms budget versus 16 than simply pushing resolution or including some ray tracing feature like many people seem to believe.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I dont think that's a good way of telling,

Can you think of a better way?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's about what we're giving up to have '60fps for every game', which cant be measured.

I mean you can also just flip that around.

What are we giving up to have 30 FPS and no 60 FPS in a game? Lots, including improved image quality while the game is in motion.

It's always a trade off between better visuals in still shots (30 FPS with more demanding settings) and better visuals while in motion (60 FPS with less demanding settings). Granted, that doesn't hold for everyone. But it does hold for quite a few people.

You can't just hand wave that away and say that visuals are across the board better at 30 FPS, when that just isn't true for a lot of people.

Regards,
SB

 

[Seanspeed]

Can you think of a better way?

Just because I cant doesn't mean we should accept the results of a super flawed (hypothetical) test.

My claims are made by gaming since literally I can remember, and by looking at obvious examples of how 30fps games have been highly popularly heralded as amazing experiences, even up to til this day.
For me, this proves without any doubt that gamers, at least console gamers, are entirely fine with 30fps. If 30fps was really any hindrance, there'd have been some constant theme amongst the reception and reviews of these games that 30fps held them back and perhaps were even unplayable, but we literally saw NONE of that. None. At all.

And this can never be measured, because we can never take a game that was built with a 33ms frametime budget locked in mind from the get-go, and wonder how it would look and sell if it had a 16ms frametime budget instead. Cuz games ambitious enough to need that extra performance headroom will likely have been fundamentally changed if they needed to fit that same game in half the frametime budget.

 

[Seanspeed]

I mean you can also just flip that around.

What are we giving up to have 30 FPS and no 60 FPS in a game? Lots, including improved image quality while the game is in motion.

Huh?

For one, there's barely any games that are 30fps with no 60fps option. So the sample size is miniscule.
And the idea that you're giving up image quality to get 30fps is completely backwards. In most games with 30fps vs 60fps modes, the 30fps mode has much better image quality. In fact, so much of the constant complaining about image quality this generation is coming from people who are playing in 60fps/performance modes, and so are playing at base resolutions of like 900-1200p.

 

[Sonic]

Huh?

For one, there's barely any games that are 30fps with no 60fps option. So the sample size is miniscule.
And the idea that you're giving up image quality to get 30fps is completely backwards. In most games with 30fps vs 60fps modes, the 30fps mode has much better image quality. In fact, so much of the constant complaining about image quality this generation is coming from people who are playing in 60fps/performance modes, and so are playing at base resolutions of like 900-1200p.

For some people the fluidity of 60 fps compared to 30 fps will provide a more pleasing visual experience in motion despite the 30 fps mode providing a better image quality per frame.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Huh?

For one, there's barely any games that are 30fps with no 60fps option. So the sample size is miniscule.

Wait are you kidding me? Almost every game I've played since the 90's has been able to be played at 30 FPS or 60 FPS or anything in between or even greater than 100 FPS? It's the main reason I could never get into console gaming. 30 FPS was just plain bad visually ever since I was exposed to higher than 30 FPS gaming.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

For me, this proves without any doubt that gamers, at least console gamers, are entirely fine with 30fps.

You are equating acceptance with endorsement. These are not the same. Repeating what I said earlier; many people are resigned to - and will accept - a subpar experience over no experience and missing out entirely.

If frame rates were not perceived to important for gamers, technologies like VRR wouldn't be a feature of consoles. and games would even have the option of 60fps mode, or VRR, of 120hz/40fps mode options. These features are not the work of bored programmers trying to fill their time.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just because I cant doesn't mean we should accept the results of a super flawed (hypothetical) test.

My claims are made by gaming since literally I can remember, and by looking at obvious examples of how 30fps games have been highly popularly heralded as amazing experiences, even up to til this day.

So based on equally (and I argue more) flawed test.

People buyign 30 fps when they haven't the choice of 60 fps doesn't indicate preference. People picking 30 or 60 fps modes within a game at least gives an indicator of people's preferences. It's never been an option to A/B test framerates on console until now. That's at least got to be a positive!

In contrast, PC gamers have had the choice of framerate and visuals for a long time. I wonder if there's any stats from that sector showing what people prefer?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

You mean market research.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So based on equally (and I argue more) flawed test.

People buyign 30 fps when they haven't the choice of 60 fps doesn't indicate preference. People picking 30 or 60 fps modes within a game at least gives an indicator of people's preferences. It's never been an option to A/B test framerates on console until now. That's at least got to be a positive!

In contrast, PC gamers have had the choice of framerate and visuals for a long time. I wonder if there's any stats from that sector showing what people prefer?

Not much, the only thing I can think of is back during the PS3/X360 era, some publishers/developers tried to release games locked to 30 FPS on PC and they almost all universally failed to sell many copies. But that could also have been because they weren't great games, although they sold relatively quite a bit better on console than they did on PC. /shrug. For example, I remember EA tried that with at least one of the NFS racing games. It was so bad even the physics and simulation speed in the game was locked to 30 FPS, so people hacking in 60 FPS mode still didn't get a good experience.

Regards,
SB

 

[dobwal]

Different metrics matter to different gamers. It's a given that some console gamers care a lot about 30 vs 60 fps. Same for resolution.

However, there is a question of how much these matter to the user base as a whole. How many 60 fps console gamers are there and can they drive sales of a high-performance premium product? Notice while there have been premium consoles, console manufacturers have either released premium-priced products that just have better performant ancillary features (bigger HDDs) or waited to release higher-performing parts at price points that align with launch prices. None of the big three have felt comfortable enough to release higher-performing parts at premium prices. That might change with the 5 Pro which would give us some idea of how much more sophisticated console gamers are today versus years past and herald that we are potentially now in an era where premium console at premium price points is a reasonable investment.

It has worked for controllers and there are other avenues where gamers can pimp out their device to drive up the cost of ownership, but bigger and better socs warrant billion of dollars in returns before they can reach profitability. So there may be a lot of gamers who strongly prefer 60 fps games but not enough to warrant the release of a second set of hardware that can support it.

Also, it should be pointed out that no console is technically restricted to 30 fps, so the prevalence of 30 fps games is either the preference of developers themselves or the focus groups they are using.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You mean market research.

You can bet your arse that the publishers who are offering 30fps/60fps options, and other nuanced graphical settings, on console are looking at how users are choosing to experience games and using that in future projects.

 

[Seanspeed]

So based on equally (and I argue more) flawed test.

People buyign 30 fps when they haven't the choice of 60 fps doesn't indicate preference. People picking 30 or 60 fps modes within a game at least gives an indicator of people's preferences. It's never been an option to A/B test framerates on console until now. That's at least got to be a positive!

In contrast, PC gamers have had the choice of framerate and visuals for a long time. I wonder if there's any stats from that sector showing what people prefer?

Well it's not a 'test', just more of a very obvious and pretty undeniable observation. My point here is that there is no actually worthwhile way to actually 'test' or measure this at all.

As for PC gamers, it's not necessarily the same market, but even then, it's not something super obvious because PC gamers often dont have to choose one or the other. With adequate hardware, you can have both! And it doesn't always require something super expensive to do so, which was typically the case last gen where you could have the visuals of 30fps console games at 60fps with very affordable hardware. It's clearly a bit harder this generation, but as newer GPU's come out it'll get easier.

PC gamers also just have their own quirks and expectations. Before reconstruction came around, the idea of playing at below native resolution was nearly universally avoided, for instance. To get more performance, you reduced graphics sliders/settings. And this is usually enough because more often than not, there's a set of reasonable settings that grant good visuals and good performance.

Lastly, there's the issue that most PC gamers use keyboard+mouse, which genuinely feels worse at 30fps than when using a controller.

 

[Seanspeed]

You are equating acceptance with endorsement.

No I'm not. I'm saying that acceptance is all that is required to prove my point. When I say console gamers are "happy to play games at 30fps", I dont mean they are going to around spewing the gospel of how amazing 30fps is, just that it doesn't get in the way of gamers from absolutely adoring and loving games, the way y'all make it seem like it would if it's such a deleterious thing to the experience. And for the benefits, I am arguing that it is very much worth just having that 'good enough' playability while being able to enjoy the boosted graphics and/or scope and ambition of developers that come with 30fps as a target.

I loathe to think how drastically cut back something like Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom would need to be to hit 60fps on Switch. I also think GTAVI will be another good example of the benefits of targeting 30fps rather than 60fps. GTA is known for going big or going home, and that comes with a cost. I would be very sad if they watered down their ambitions just to hit this '60fps or bust' mentality.