Next-gen Cross-Platform Strategy [2020]

[Cyan]

There's no right or wrong. The traditional way has been to cut and move forward. I can't judge MS' move yet until seeing it play out. I know it sounds like on paper that they won't be able to really utilize the hardware to the fullest; but I've have yet to see proof of it. And MS is not commenting for all their titles, but I believe for their own 1P output.

all I see is another sale for a game that won't sell on new hardware just because most people won't have it. It's not like we're rich and are going to buy the new console launch day and then, 2 million sales for a game just from consoles sold alone because they won't be selling in droves. It's not a viable strategy anymore, specially considering the cost of new consoles.

In addition, as explained earlier this is going to happen the first two years of the new generation or so. I wonder how current consoles could match a CPU like the Ryzen of the new consoles in future games.., John has tried with a Jaguar

 

[BRiT]

I wonder how current consoles could match a CPU like the Ryzen of the new consoles in future game

The same way games are released on current-gen consoles and on PC. It's that simple. The developers will need to scale CPU requirements exactly the way they already do.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

There's no right or wrong. The traditional way has been to cut and move forward. I can't judge MS' move yet until seeing it play out. I know it sounds like on paper that they won't be able to really utilize the hardware to the fullest; but I've have yet to see proof of it. And MS is not commenting for all their titles, but I believe for their own 1P output.

IMO, most developers just aren't used to this in this day and age where technology progresses so relatively slowly, ESPECIALLY when it comes to CPU scaling.

Take a look at one of the great posterchilds of CPU and GPU scaling back in the day, the original Far Cry by Crytek. It was fully playable on low end systems at the time while also fully taking advantage of hardware that had yet to be released.

At launch, similar to Crysis no system could run it at max settings. And similar to Crysis this was a combination of CPU and GPU limitations at the time of launch. Being single threaded, it was greatly reliant on CPU speed for some of it's effects.

One reason that Crysis is a posterchild of "can this system run it" is that CPU scaling abruptly ground down to a snails pace right around the time it released. IE - CPU's could no longer scale as they had when Far Cry released.

And despite that large range of scaling it was still one of the best, if not the best looking game of the time. I can't remember any other game coming close to what Far Cry was doing back in 2004.

I know console gamers are worried, but coming from a time when developers used to have to regularly deal with CPU discrepencies as large or larger than we're seeing going from XBO to XBSX, I'm not terribly concerned that the graphics aren't going to reflect what is possible for next gen for launch titles.

Especially when you consider that launch titles will be FAR FAR more limited by time available for development than hardware when it comes to "maxing out the hardware."

To put it another way, I fully expect Halo Infinite to look as good or better than, say Godfall which won't be back ported to current gen systems (or at least it hasn't been announced).

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

all I see is another sale for a game that won't sell on new hardware just because most people won't have it. It's not like we're rich and are going to buy the new console launch day and then, 2 million sales for a game just from consoles sold alone because they won't be selling in droves. It's not a viable strategy anymore, specially considering the cost of new consoles.

In addition, as explained earlier this is going to happen the first two years of the new generation or so. I wonder how current consoles could match a CPU like the Ryzen of the new consoles in future games.., John has tried with a Jaguar

I think certain games will live and die based on population, so in some sense it really depends on what MS is working towards for those launch exclusives.

To put it another way, I fully expect Halo Infinite to look as good or better than, say Godfall which won't be back ported to current gen systems (or at least it hasn't been announced).

Agreed!

Take a look at one of the great posterchilds of CPU and GPU scaling back in the day, the original Far Cry by Crytek. It was fully playable on low end systems at the time while also fully taking advantage of hardware that had yet to be released.

At launch, similar to Crysis no system could run it at max settings. And similar to Crysis this was a combination of CPU and GPU limitations at the time of launch. Being single threaded, it was greatly reliant on CPU speed for some of it's effects.

One reason that Crysis is a posterchild of "can this system run it" is that CPU scaling abruptly ground down to a snails pace right around the time it released. IE - CPU's could no longer scale as they had when Far Cry released.

Yea, I mean today's poster child is probably Star Citizen for example.
It really _only_ does absolutely everything. If that is a shining example of what a next-gen game is capable of, then that's awesome. But the issue is looking at how hard it's been for them to make everything so beautiful. content creation is insanity to fill everything out. They can't possibly make everything amazing, and you've got all this goodness that will never be good. Our tools haven't caught up with the amount of creation required to build out this high fidelity worlds and star citizen has got to be the furthest out on this front and they have a _metric_ ton of funding.

So I get where everyone wants to talk about last gen holding back next gen titles. But I really think we're just looking at FPS differences. We aren't going to see Star Citizen type games at launch for either console, and that's not a insult to any developer or the hardware. It's just not realistic from the content creation and budget standpoint. That's too much content, too much game, too much $$$, for a small player base at launch.

 

[Xbat]

For me first party games in the beginning of a generation is all about selling the hardware by using all the fancy features.

Any game designed to take advantage of the SSD of next gen will not work on current gen.

Third party will keep the cross gen going for the first two years.

 

[cheapchips]

Any game designed to take advantage of the SSD of next gen will not work on current gen.

It might be a lack of imagination on my part but it's hard to imagine a launch title that requires an SSD for some sort of relevitory gameplay. The ball's very much in Sony's court there. Interested to see what they show.

 

[chris1515]

It might be a lack of imagination on my part but it's hard to imagine a launch title that requires an SSD for some sort of relevitory gameplay. The ball's very much in Sony's court there. Interested to see what they show.

Not so sure, some teams like Guerrilla Games works since long time on PS5 games since 2017.

Mark Cerny told the work on PS5 began in 2015 and reading the patent the job was done bet ween 205 and 2016. The teams working on title for launch period know since a long time than the console will have a SSD.

 

[Nesh]

MS did say this will only be for about a year or so. I think we'll be fine. Some people blowing this way out of proportion. Not here obviously.

Two years

 

[cheapchips]

Two years

The exact quote is:
“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices"

So it's only around a year as far as the Series X is concerned. You could squeeze Xmas 2021 between that wording for exclusive 1st party titles.

Not so sure, some teams like Guerrilla Games works since long time on PS 5 games since 2017.

What gameplay improvements would you add into H:ZD2 or a Killzone game that mandate an SSD? They don't have a new IP on the go unless I missed that rumour.

Maybe a fully modelled city in Killzone with a battle raging across it might be a real showcase next gen.

 

[Nesh]

Maybe a fully modelled city in Killzone with a battle raging across it might be a real showcase next gen.

That I d like to see

 

[iroboto]

Maybe a fully modelled city in Killzone with a battle raging across it might be a real showcase next gen.

takes $$$. Problem with modern game design is that most people expect these crazy set pieces. Use once and toss away. Investing so much into a set piece for 10-20 minutes of gameplay is extremely costly.

 

[PSman1700]

Sony never really had a great 1st party exclusive lineup at launch for their consoles either. PS2 didn’t even. In modern times it is even less expected. They can’t drop a 100+ million users either in the first year.
Guess it will be like other times, a game or two showing off the new gfx, then later in the lifetime real next gen pushers.
This is what MS means, some are quick to turn it into a advantage to either console, whilest both are going to do the same thing, about.

 

[chris1515]

The exact quote is:
“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices"

So it's only around a year as far as the Series X is concerned. You could squeeze Xmas 2021 between that wording for exclusive 1st party titles.



What gameplay improvements would you add into H:ZD2 or a Killzone game that mandate an SSD? They don't have a new IP on the go unless I missed that rumour.

Maybe a fully modelled city in Killzone with a battle raging across it might be a real showcase next gen.

I doubt we will see a new Killzone and A SSD is not only goes fast. It is crazy density. We can imagine a biggest city than Meridian in HZD or a reimagination of Meridian with more NPC, more unique assets and assets density. Being able to use dinobot to fly and so on.

And they have other teams working on games.

Sony never really had a great 1st party exclusive lineup at launch for their consoles either. PS2 didn’t even. In modern times it is even less expected. They can’t drop a 100+ million users either in the first year.
Guess it will be like other times, a game or two showing off the new gfx, then later in the lifetime real next gen pushers.
This is what MS means, some are quick to turn it into a advantage to either console, whilest both are going to do the same thing, about.

Wait and see I think the launch lineup and the three first years of the PS5 will be much better than PS4.

 

[Xbat]

What gameplay improvements would you add into H:ZD2 or a Killzone game that mandate an SSD? They don't have a new IP on the go unless I missed that rumour.

The whole way the game streams? In fact any open world game like H:ZD 2 made explicitly for next gen using the ssd storage wouldn't work on a mechanical.

I don't see how people don't see this? It's one of if not the biggest jump ever for a piece of hardware between generations.

Maybe I'm overrating the impact super fast storage will have, with my limited knowledge I think it could have a massive impact.

 

[PSman1700]

Wait and see I think the launch lineup and the three first years of the PS5 will be much better than PS4.

Historically, games that exploit the hardware like HZD, UC, tend to come after a year or two, or even mid-way. We might see some, like shadowfall and order1886, tho. First year, most games will be cross-plat. I think this is is what MS is communicating. HellBlade 2 might not actually be there at launch, for example.

 

[chris1515]

The whole way the game streams? In fact any open world game like H:ZD 2 made explicitly for next gen using the ssd storage wouldn't work on a mechanical.

I don't see how people don't see this? It's one of if not the biggest jump ever for a piece of hardware between generations.

Maybe I'm overrating the impact super fast storage will have, with my limited knowledge I think it could have a massive impact.

There is tons of other little things like no sequences to hide load time, very easy to do interior/exterior sequences, much better and gradual transition between two biomes, bigger speed if gameplay needed. Crazy setpieces for example God of War game designer said hey wanted much more destruction and crazyness in the gameplay fight against the stranger. One punch was supposed to send Kratos in other part of the map. We can imagine crazy pre baked destruction too. The density and quality of assets will be crazy nothing like current gen.

Very fast loading for example Harada from (Namco Tekken Team) was teasing loading as fast as in arcade
https://twinfinite.net/2019/05/ps5-...ada-share-their-impressions-and-expectations/

Here he compares it to 0.3 to 0.5 seconds to load an arena after choosing the fighters.

Very dense and rich city with the improvement in CPU and streaming

or portal gameplay like in a new Soul's reaver without limitation or fast travel

EDIT:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1216685259980509189

 

[Xbat]

There's also this excerpt from the Wired article.

'there’s something else that excites Cerny even more. Something that he calls “a true game changer,” something that more than anything else is “the key to the next generation.” It’s a hard drive.'

Cerny being an actual game developer should know what his talking about and it seems like something that he has seen and has prioritised because it's where there can be the biggest impact going into next gen.

 

[iroboto]

Very dense and rich city with the improvement in CPU and streaming

Ahh, you're going to have to recall that DX12 wasn't out when a great deal of many games were designed. Most of them have not yet fully adopted DX12 based engines. Most still support DX11
So even with a super processor you may not have been able to run super rich and dense games on PC either.

All I'm saying is, I wouldn't generalize how CPU and SSD is enough to unlocking all this potential that was locked away by crappy jaguar CPUs. It's not representative of the entire landscape.
Keep an eye on CPU % below 4x more processing power is the same thing as 1/4 the load too

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dire...proves-performance-greatly-reduces-cpu-usage/

Max McMullen, Principal Development Lead for Direct3D and DXGI at Microsoft, demoed Intel’s Asteroids benchmark in order to show the performance difference between DX11 and DX12, as well as DX12 Bindless and DX12 ExecuteIndirect.

As we can see below, DX11 ran the demo with only 29FPS. CPU 21% - could not submit enough draw calls

DX12 CPU 38%

Lastly, via Execute Indirect, Intel’s Asteroids demo ran with almost 90FPS. CPU 9%
What’s really great here, however, is that the CPU usage was reduced significantly, meaning that more CPU intense scenarios will be possible via this rendering method.

 

[chris1515]

Ahh, you're going to have to recall that DX12 wasn't out when a great deal of many games were designed. Most of them have not yet fully adopted DX12 based engines. Most still support DX11
So even with a super processor you may not have been able to run super rich and dense games on PC either.

All I'm saying is, I wouldn't generalize how CPU and SSD is enough to unlocking all this potential that was locked away by crappy jaguar CPUs. It's not representative of the entire landscape.
Keep an eye on CPU % below 4x more processing power is the same thing as 1/4 the load too

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/dire...proves-performance-greatly-reduces-cpu-usage/

Max McMullen, Principal Development Lead for Direct3D and DXGI at Microsoft, demoed Intel’s Asteroids benchmark in order to show the performance difference between DX11 and DX12, as well as DX12 Bindless and DX12 ExecuteIndirect.

As we can see below, DX11 ran the demo with only 29FPS. CPU 21% - could not submit enough draw calls

DX12 CPU 38%

Lastly, via Execute Indirect, Intel’s Asteroids demo ran with almost 90FPS. CPU 9%
What’s really great here, however, is that the CPU usage was reduced significantly, meaning that more CPU intense scenarios will be possible via this rendering method.

Did I say the CPU will be use for draw call?, I said more dense city I include NPC to be credible. It is good to render NPC but it is better when they all have a good physics and have at least simple AI. There is much more in the CPU than drawcall...

Same we speak about exclusives games strategy, I speak about what will be possible to do for first party Sony studio, because the game will only be for PS5.

Depending of SSD speed I don't even expect Rockstar to push the PS5 I/O.

 

[iroboto]

Did I say the CPU will be use for draw call?, I said more dense city I include NPC to be credible. It is good to render NPC but it is better when they all have a good physics and have at least simple AI. There is much more in the CPU than drawcall...

Same we speak about exclusives games, I speak about what will be possible to do for first party Sony studio. Because the game will only be for PS5.

Depending of SSD speed I don't even expect Rockstar to push the PS5 I/O.

Sure but it’s a big part of it. Density means over draw. Over draw means depth/ordering. Over draw means culling. These are things we do on the CPU before we issue draw calls as well. As the scene gets more complex so does the process to set the scene up for drawing. The asteroid test wasn’t a draw call test; there is another test for that.

I don’t agree that the idea in the launch of these consoles that we will have AI so great and physics so great that people will take notice of over what we have today, is unlikely.

AI and physics weren’t pared back because of the lack of available power. They were pared back (like audio) because people didn’t notice. The better AI got; the more people thought it was cheating. Physics didn’t even matter; unless we have gameplay built around it (problem solving) it’s still all very limited.

animations for a lot of NPCs will probably kill a CPU. But perhaps there is also a way to do that on the GPU as well.

I’m not saying we don’t need more power. Just the idea that somehow we are going from 0-100 in during launch window is not believable to me. Launch window games will be about what people can notice immediately: higher frame rates, higher resolution, faster loading speeds, better graphics and audio.