Next-gen Cross-Platform Strategy [2020]

Gotta wonder what sorts of features could be next-gen exclusive. RAM amount won't be as huge a factor as it was moving on from the PS360 era. Most people don't have 120Hz displays. Split-screen is cute.

Ridiculously fast online loading would be a big plus, and then there's just better post-processing/graphics stuff for those that care.

I guess they could do something wonky like locked 30fps vs 60fps Royale to echo the Battlefield 4 transition. (I haven't followed royale tbh)

 

Some games would do fine cross-gen if they were just planning to increase graphics res and asset detail. But...

Racing games can have better physics. Specially more dynamic aero.

Much more cars/players/vehicles in the same game.

A studio making a completely rewritten engine with hybrid RT, it might be too much work to down-port.

Multiplayer open world gameplay where you need to move fast, teleport instantly. Calling a medic from anywhere. Giant battlefields.

There will be much more cross-gen titles than previous gens simply because it's much easier this time with a similar architecture. Some games will have to showcase more than just the same game with better graphics, otherwise next gen is DoA. If there's a too slow uptake, it means not enough userbase to design a game that require that hardware. It doesn't need to be right at launch or even the first year, but it needs to be shown.

 

Aren't online games mostly dependent on server performance? These simulate the entire area, while the client only needs simulate whatever is local to the player for low latency (syncing with the server to ensure accuracy).

It's an interesting question what next-gen's improved performance can bring. Personally, I think it'll bring a landmark shift in gameplay types because there'll be an excess of performance for indies to play around with. Take something like Form Dust on PS3. It had great terrain modelling. That game concept hasn't progressed at all this gen where it could be modelled far better. Going into next gen, indies without the know-how to write compute shaders to model the world will be able to lean on the CPUs, or write coarse compute shaders that aren't great or efficient but can do the job, and bring such a game type to life. I don't know how much the AAA level of games will improve beyond what they are doing now, maybe a few landmark AI improvements and games with more realistic 'living' NPCs, but everything below that level should be markedly better.

 

I actually think this genre, specifically, is relatively easy to do cross-gen. You certainly don't have to have parity across new-gen and prior gen. So, for prior-gen you use the old physics model (maybe with some tweaks/optimizations), upgrade the visuals, install the new game systems and call it a day. Next gen gets a new physics model, more cars, a new graphics engine, etc. Even with those differences, it's still fundamentally the same game.

 

I could see that being fine for Forza Horizon 5. For the mainline simulator games though, I'm not sure it'd be worth splitting the online userbase between the physics models (for fairness). That said, maybe Turn10 will come up with a worthwhile offline mode for casuals In Forza Infinite.

 

A fair point. But if you're worried about competitive balance with differing physics models, what about xCloud and the impact of multiple levels of lag? That ”level playing field" boat may have already sailed.

 

I'll accept the answer when there is evidence of this. I've not seen anything to suggest that a significant body of console gamers will pay more for better performance. Evidence suggests that at most, PS4 Pro/One X, About a quarter will. If there is evidence that demonstrates that consumers will pay for performance when those gains are significant - even when performance is not a priority for them - then I would really like to see it.

I don't believe the buying habits of PC owners gamers equate to the buying habits of console gamers.

If yje server can accommodate a fast change in position for the player but the local client cannot because loading is slow, then that's a mechanic the server can't use. Online games have had to manage this for decades and even games with relatively basic environments, like World of Warcraft, struggle with loading on the local client on anything except a pretty-well specced PC with SSD. Even then, you're also bound by your internet bandwidth. No point being able to load the world fast, if you can't download the data to know what needs to be loaded.

 

If you can't see reason, you'll just have to wait until the consoles launch. What are you expecting sales of XBSX to be without any next-gen exclusives? Zero?

It's not the buying habits of PC gamers but the buying habits of consumers.
It's the buying habits of people who have a TV that works fine who then go buy a new TV to experience exactly the same content only a bit better. They don't need it to watch content exclusive to newer TVs.
It's the buying habits of people who have a GPU that works fine who then go buy a new GPU to experience exactly the same content only a bit better. They don't need it to play games exclusive to newer GPUs.
It's the buying habits of people who have a car that works fine who then go buy a new car to drive to exactly the same places only a bit better. They don't need a new car to access places restricted to new-car owners.
It's the buying habits of people who have a computer that works connecting to the internet and printing out Word documents who then go buy a new computer to do exactly the same things only a bit faster. Word and the Internet don't exclude them because they're computer is old.
It's the buying habits of people who have a tape player HIFI system and music tapes that work fine who then go buy a CD player and the same library on CD to experience exactly the same music only a bit better. They didn't need a CD to hear the latest music because all the latest music released on both old-gen and next-gen music formats simultaneously. The music companies didn't stick all music on CD exclusively in order to force people to transition on from tapes. People moved on their own accord because the experience was better.

In all these cases, consumers don't need a particular new opportunity to be enabled by a purchase; they just want the improvement over their current solution to be good value for them. Tapes to CDs was a huge improvement so everyone wanted to transition, and they transitioned when the pricing came down to what they valued the improved quality at. SACD flunked because the improvement wasn't good enough for most consumers at any price. The mid-gen consoles are akin to CD -> SACD whereas a next-gen console is akin to tapes -> CD in improvement, or SDTV -> HDTV. The mid-gen refreshes aren't any indicator at all about how gamers feel about a next-gen platform.

Okay, instant fast travel will be determined by local speed, although that's not something particular to multiplayer games. It's a bit of a reach as a game-changer.

 

Hold my beer

Plenty of online multiplayer shooters have physics options that scale for performance, I can't see how a racing game would be much different. There are plenty, for example, that locally compute things like ragdoll physics, but the movement and destruction of important objects is handled server side and synced. The thing with a racing game, online, is that track position is the real important data that is transferred. The physics of your individual car are important to you, the driver, but once that's computed locally, and sent to the server with your speed, direction, and track position, it doesn't matter if other client machines are accurately simulating aerodynamics, grip, or the exact position of each of the pebbles kicked airborne by your tires because that stuff is superficial.

 

As someone who’s main gaming is only sim racing, Forza has drifted away from sim to simcade to the point it’s irrelevant in the sim community. It’d have a very limited uptake.

Project cars 2 is probably the closest I can think of where this experiment could be interesting as I recall the physics model being same on all platforms. While it’s not a highly regarded sim, it’s a step up from the console mainstays like forza and GT.

credit where due, GT has done a great job of building a competitive scene around its gameplay. While everyone knows it’s not a full on sim, they do enough right and make the online really shine so much credit to them.

AC, ACC, iracing, rfactor2 and soon AMS2 suck up all the oxygen in the PC realm and are truly well ahead in the driving experience. Not to mention support for all sorts of third party peripherals and VR.

 

From the financial results briefing of Square-Enix

https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/20q3outline.pdf

"Could you share your thinking on the development of new titles for current
and next generation game consoles going forward?
A: The next generation consoles will have backward compatibility, so we plan for the time being to make our new titles
available for both current and next generation consoles. It will therefore be somewhat farther down the road that we
release titles exclusively for the next generation consoles"

 

Sounds like the content will be scalable

 

If you put The Last of Us 2 on PS5 only, that's risky because its sales would decrease from 15 million or even 20 million to several million, and this will seriously affect the brand.

So basically if you want to release an exclusive game with potential sales above 10 million you have to wait 1 or even 2 years when there are enough PS5 players.


"But in the 2nd year console makers need exclusive games to force the users abandon their old consoles."

Some players may want to keep using the old platform. Console makers need to force them to leave old platforms with platform exclusives (best way ) or next-gen exclusives.

 

Why? Why not instead make your new box so desirable through its performance, its value or both that people want it on its own merits.

 

Oh, you mean 10-20 million seller as opposed to a $10-20 million budget? Sure. But if you're trying to force people to upgrade, you'd leverage those desirable IPs to0 get 20 million people to upgrade to play the game. The fact you can't leverage those IPs shows you can't make people to upgrade. instead, you have to wait until enough people have upgraded to target a large-enough market with your most expensive to make games.

Bad choice of words? Do you mean 'encourage' rather than 'force'? why don't people want to upgrade just to have better quality? Why did people upgrade from SDTV to HDTV to watch exactly the same shows?

 

You have not presented any "reason" (noun or verb meanings) that is based on citable evidence.

Let's re-state my position, just to be clear: without nextgen system game exclusives all that we know nexgen consoles offer at this time is better performance which I maintain will not sway the majority of gamers who are content to sacrifice performance if it means saving money.

You've alluded to "a whole load of other features" that will sell the consoles but presented no details of these features and continue to assert that "a console launching without exclusives but able to play older games in better quality" will sell, but again without evidence. As I said before, spending more money for performance has been for option for PlayStation owners since 2016 and Xbox owners since 2017 with the Xbox option offering tremendous performance improvements in many games over the performance on Xbox One and One S - which you have also disputed but presented no evidence for.

I expect the initial sales of both nextgen consoled to be pretty good as the first day adopters jump onboard but once that demand has been sated, I expect sales will drop for any console that doesn't have one or more very compelling exclusive games to overcome whatever price these things will sell for.

I've not seen any figures to suggest consumer (not sales to retail, commercial or industrial users TV sales in countries like the USA, UK and Western Europe have even been more than around a peak of 15% in a year are more around 8% of the install base which is not a big percentage at all. TVs do not seem to last as long as they did compared to analogue CRTs which generally failed slowly rather than immediately like TVs based on all digital-technology. But I'd like to see the numbers.

So what percentage of PC gamers are buying a new graphics card for moderate improvements of performance, relative to the size of the PC gaming community?

 

I think inclusion and proper support for an SSD will motivate a lot of people to upgrade. It will make more of an impact to the overall experience of playing these new consoles over the old than all of the other upgrades combined, IMO.

 

I agree, I also think loading times are a bigger issue than lack of graphical effects or frame rates - it can literally be a barrier preventing you from playing the game. But there there enough games with poor load times to warrant slapping down a few hundred quid for new hardware? There are some atrocious load-times in some open world games, the Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 stand out. And some really bad loading times in games like Bloodborne. But I feel these are mostly in the minority. If folks are playing COD, FIFA and Forntnite, or whatever it is kids play these days, these are all pretty slick experiences already so shaving 7 seconds off a 10 second load isn't going to but a huge deal. I feel they're more likely to invest in the microtransaction rat-fests that games like this have become.

 

It's part of an overall better experience along with visual and performance upgrades. That should be the main selling point, IMO. These systems are better at their core function than what you currently have so you should buy them.

 

So were PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. And they sold to a fraction of consumers.

I feel like this thread is going around in circles.