Next-gen Cross-Platform Strategy [2020]

[Deleted member 11852]

I will agree but under the circumstances that the alleged power gap significantly hurts Sony hardware or software sales.

Weird, because Sony have released a bunch of consoles of lower theoretical power than their competitors and sold gangbusters. Your average gamer has no idea what a teraflop is and most don't care. Consoles have long been the province where consumers not predisposed to high-performance have enjoyed games at lower resolutions, lower graphical settings, lower frame rates and slower-loading times.

Why is that suddenly set to change now?

 

[dobwal]

Weird, because Sony have released a bunch of consoles of lower theoretical power than their competitors and sold gangbusters. Your average gamer has no idea what a teraflop is and most don't care. Consoles have long been the province where consumers not predisposed to high-performance have enjoyed games at lower resolutions, lower graphical settings, lower frame rates and slower-loading times.

Why is that suddenly set to change now?

Probably nothing.

But last gen is the first gen where social media is a thing. And I'm not sure how much the PS4 being a performance leader of last gen affected its sales and how much of that may have been influenced by youtube videos, twitter and whatever other social media platforms out there at the time.

Back in the olden days it was mostly your friends but these young whipper snappers have all type of sources that can influence their purchase behaviors.

It will be interesting to see how the new gen plays out.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But last gen is the first gen where social media is a thing. And I'm not sure how much the PS4 being a performance leader of last gen affected its sales and how much of that may have been influenced by youtube videos, twitter and whatever other social media platforms out there at the time.

Facebook launched in 2004, YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006. But even before there were a lot of people using sites dedicated to insulting other people over the internet in short bursts, there already existing massive communities on gaming websites and if you wanted the video experience, GameTrailers launched in 2002.

Back in the olden days it was mostly your friends but these young whipper snappers have all type of sources that can influence their purchase behaviors.

Cue the Hovis music as we think of it in the UK.

 

[cheapchips]

Cue the Hovis music as we think of it in the UK.

This plays through my head everytime MS mention the Hovis method. I'm not sure it's the image they want to portray.

 

[Xbat]

Toning down physics and AI are all possible. Plus this gen, a ton on hardware performance is going to be wasted on pixel pushing.

Yes but having loading hidden away by clever gameplay mechanics like crawling through a gap or going through a tunnel or whatever which was needed which won't be needed next gen is not a trivial thing to change.

I still believe the speed of the storage next gen will be one of the biggest differences between the gens and as you say it's very doable to tone down graphics, not so much CPU usage.

In fact I'm quite confident that at Sony's conference there will be a lot of this won't be possible on current gen pointing out and it will probably be part of there marketing.

 

[chris1515]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-01-17-microsoft-goes-all-in-on-the-evergreen-platform

 

[BRiT]

Snippet from that article talking about the continual and rolling update hardware model:

At the core of Microsoft's strategy is the firm's belief that it can pull off the 'evergreen console' -- a device that's just a continually upgraded and evolving platform (like a PC, or a smartphone). If it's going to reach that point, though, at some point it was going to have to bite this bullet -- launching a major new hardware update and saying "this isn't going to have any exclusive titles, because it's just the next device in a series that already exists." A new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy doesn't have new software titles you can't use on the previous hardware. Your new PC or Mac doesn't run applications you couldn't run on your old PC. They run them better, as a rule, but if you continued to use the old hardware you'd still be able to use the same apps and games -- albeit with a degraded experience to some extent.​

That's the future Microsoft believes in for consoles. A little more complex than that, perhaps -- with streaming and other live services being a major part of the offering, with an eventual goal of offering a seamless experience regardless of the platform you're playing on -- but essentially one that's not a million miles from the regular update cycle and evergreen platform offered by something like the iOS or Android ecosystems that exist now. After articulating that vision for years, with Xbox Series X the company clearly realised that it was time to put up or shut up; that launching a new console which broke the series (i.e. destroyed forward or backward compatibility of titles) would essentially be a repudiation of its own strategy and vision.​

 

[DavidGraham]

According to Mat Piscatella, an "Industry Analyst", increasing access to gaming will be the hallmark of gaming in the decade following 2020.

In the 2000s, connectivity was a primary growth driver, demonstrated by the emergence of digitally-connected platforms such as Steam, as well as services such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

Throughout the 2010s, service became the primary growth catalyst, represented most effectively by gaming franchises such as Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, FIFA, and Fortnite, where constant updates to the games allowed for extended engagement and corresponding massive market growth in downloadable content and microtransaction revenues.

For the 2020s, it is about increasing access to gaming, bringing more players to the market, for longer periods of time, with more avenues of engagement.

Be where the player is – Games that allow players to engage with content wherever, whenever and however the player wishes may have a greater selling opportunity than those relegated to an individual platform. Flexible design, an openness to new delivery platforms such as cloud and subscription services, as well as planning for potential porting across mobile, console and PC devices will be beneficial to plan for early in the development process.

Cross-play and cross-save – We are already seeing progress in the market here. Players wish to play with their friends and family, and they want their progress and content to follow them across devices and ecosystems. Games that do this will benefit in a much more diverse gaming world of the next decade.

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/...LCB6UQKTOS7h825FDTg5z7Z0hH7FRj8MadpCXt2tKQLoA

 

[Metal_Spirit]

I don't think people should expect mid gen consoles this gen. Huge APUs that may sell 10-15 million units over a number of years, doesn't look at that all that feasible at 5nm


This is expounded upon every generation. Lowest common denominator is a development strategy, it is not a reality forced on every dev who supports lower-end hardware. Supporting low-end hardware does not force you to gimp high-end offerings.

Plenty of devs use the most common platforms (consoles) as their base development platforms and pour money into making sure the base hardware is fully utilized. They then proceed to optimize (gimp) their games until it fits within the capability of lower-end hardware. Toning down physics and AI are all possible. Plus this gen, a ton on hardware performance is going to be wasted on pixel pushing.

Do you think id software, EA and Ubisoft holds or held back the capability of Doom, Fifa and Assassin Creed Odyssey on the Xbox and PS because those series or titles are supported on the Switch?

The biggest advantage of using a lowest common denominator strategy is that it is cheap. The disadvantages is that it can create competitive disadvantages on high-end hardware that have large userbases.

If you are a dev with limited funds the lowest common denominator strategy might be the best strategy to support multiple markets. But huge pubs with high profile titles aren't typically going to sacrifice competitiveness on platforms with large userbases to accommodate the wide support across all hardware.

So... tell me...

If a game doesn´t allow flying because the lowest common denominator has no HDD speed for the streaming, how do you add flying in the upper end machines??

If a IA model cannot be run on the CPU of the lowest common denominator, forcing to use a simpler one, do you improve IA on the upper end machines?

How do you do this, and still call it the same game?

What you are talking is about detail levels, efects and others... not gaming design, gaming experience, and gaming evolution. On these, a lower specs machine will limit you!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So... tell me...

If a game doesn´t allow flying because the lowest common denominator has no HDD speed for the streaming, how do you add flying in the upper end machines??

If a IA model cannot be run on the CPU of the lowest common denominator, forcing to use a simpler one, do you improve IA on the upper end machines?

How do you do this, and still call it the same game?

What you are talking is about detail levels, efects and others... not gaming design, gaming experience, and gaming evolution. On these, a lower specs machine will limit you!

Easy...

The extra speed that SSDs will allow for...

• Instant access with existing detail.
• Similar access with much greater detail.
• Similar streaming with much greater detail.
• Various combinations of speed versus detail tradeoffs that developers feel appropriate for their game.

The only thing it allows for is greater detail, faster speed with similar detail or a spectrum between those two points.

Flying has been possible on devices since the 1980's and even earlier. MS Flight Simulator came out in 1982.

The only thing that has changed when it comes to flying in games is how much detail is available. There are obviously gameplay elements that didn't exist back then but there isn't very much that you can do now that you couldn't do back then that is GAMEPLAY related. Now, there are certainly things that are GRAPHICS or presentation related that obviously weren't possible back then.

Hell, even something like Open World games have only progressed in detail, but not much in gameplay. The Elder Scrolls: Arena released in 1994. Everything Bethesda has done has just been a graphical evolution of that while polishing some gameplay elements while also reducing the scope of the games. Skyrim could have been done in 1994...with 1994 level graphics.

Sure they also beefed up things like Physics. But that's presentation, you could do the same gameplay with static animations as well or rougher physics approximations depending on what your hardware was capable of.

[EDIT] - I forgot to mention that Daggerfall also had an accelerated travel system that allowed you to travel across the existing world at greatly accelerated speed. You know, kind of like Sony showcasing greatly accelerated travel in their storage speed demos. Morrowind had exploits that would allow you to do something similar there as well.

Assassins Creed could have been done in the 90's. Thief: The Dark Project (1998) is largely similar albeit with a different focus (sneaky theft instead of sneaky assassinations). Reduce the graphics further from what Thief had and you could have done it in an open world...like Daggerfall (1996). Reduce the scale of Daggerfall to something similar to Assassins Creed and you could have increased graphical detail as well as not having to using procedurally generated dungeons.

So, yes, if you reduce the graphical detail enough most games today would run even on a potato (slight exaggeration ). Reduce the graphics enough in Crysis (2007) and it would have even run on consoles of the time (PS3/X360).

Hell, it took VR happening to finally see more games doing things that System Shock was doing back in 1994. Controls (like shooting a gun) being decoupled from the players view. Other games have experimented with that over the years as well, but traditional control methods made it complex. So what VR does is make it more convenient, but the gameplay was certainly possible even without VR.

Just because console gamers are used to console games being limited by the hardware, it doesn't mean that games and related gameplay are intrinsically limited by the hardware.

I struggle to think of any modern day game that couldn't have been done in the 2000's or even 1990's with reduced graphics. Spiderman, could have been done. HZD could have been done. God of War (2018) could have been done. Yadda yadda yadda. Graphics obviously would be much more dated and in some cases likely below the norm for games of that period.

The new consoles will enable new levels of graphics and convenience (less loading, for example), but I can't imagine any new gameplay elements coming into play that don't already exist.

Regards,
SB

 

[see colon]

Yes but having loading hidden away by clever gameplay mechanics like crawling through a gap or going through a tunnel or whatever which was needed which won't be needed next gen is not a trivial thing to change.

I still believe the speed of the storage next gen will be one of the biggest differences between the gens and as you say it's very doable to tone down graphics, not so much CPU usage.

In fact I'm quite confident that at Sony's conference there will be a lot of this won't be possible on current gen pointing out and it will probably be part of there marketing.

N64 had insanely fast storage compared to PS1, plus had more RAM, a faster CPU, more advance GPU yet PS1 still managed to have games that were comparable. I'm not saying this stuff isn't important, just that sometimes having huge advantages in hardware don't exactly translate to new levels of software.

 

[Xbat]

N64 had insanely fast storage compared to PS1,

Yes but it had only a capacity of 8-64MB if I remember correctly.
Now we dealing with Gigabytes, a lot more data being moved around.

If the N64 cartridges had 600MB like the CDs PlayStation used it would of possibly made a bigger difference.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

Easy...

The extra speed that SSDs will allow for...

• Instant access with existing detail.
• Similar access with much greater detail.
• Similar streaming with much greater detail.
• Various combinations of speed versus detail tradeoffs that developers feel appropriate for their game.

The only thing it allows for is greater detail, faster speed with similar detail or a spectrum between those two points.

Flying has been possible on devices since the 1980's and even earlier. MS Flight Simulator came out in 1982.

The only thing that has changed when it comes to flying in games is how much detail is available. There are obviously gameplay elements that didn't exist back then but there isn't very much that you can do now that you couldn't do back then that is GAMEPLAY related. Now, there are certainly things that are GRAPHICS or presentation related that obviously weren't possible back then.

SB

Every single word you wrote is true.... but it seems we are not talking about the same context.
We are not talking PC levels of detail. We are talking consoles.
Closed systems were the game experience is the very exact same on all of them, through out the generation.
Shure, resolutions can change, you can use your newer tv to the fullest. Other stuff can change too.
But game mechanics, gameplay, world interaction, world response, etc, etc, must be the exact same.

As an example, Horizon Zero Dawn did not implement flying because of streaming limitations. This was stated by guerrilla themselfs.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

N64 had insanely fast storage compared to PS1, plus had more RAM, a faster CPU, more advance GPU yet PS1 still managed to have games that were comparable. I'm not saying this stuff isn't important, just that sometimes having huge advantages in hardware don't exactly translate to new levels of software.

I think you're looking at the wrong way around. Remember that there were plenty of third-party games that were released on PlayStation and Saturn but not viable on N64 because of the expensive cartridges, which at max capacity (64mb) were a tenth the capacity of a CD (640mb). Games were increasingly using FMV, fully sampled audio and pre-rendered backgrounds - all of which ate up space. CD's were cheap enough that even multi-disc games were a thing that happened quickly.

As an example, Horizon Zero Dawn did not implement flying because of streaming limitations. This was stated by guerrilla themselfs.

Yup, HZD's just-in-time rendering of the world, which just barely kept ahead of the player's panning around on the ground was impressive enough. HZD2 on PS5 though, you know they're going there.

 

[PSman1700]

Yup, HZD's just-in-time rendering of the world, which just barely kept ahead of the player's panning around on the ground was impressive enough. HZD2 on PS5 though, you know they're going there.

True on traditional hardware vs SSD or even Optane, it would be the difference between a stuttery mess or smooth gameplay as shown in SC.

 

[cheapchips]

HZD's just-in-time rendering of the world, which just barely kept ahead of the player's panning around on the ground was impressive enough.

Isn't that what modern engines do?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Isn't that what modern engines do?

True, but given what HZD was pushing on screen it felt like that margin of error was razor thin. Hence flying was out.

 

[milk]

True, but given what HZD was pushing on screen it felt like that margin of error was razor thin. Hence flying was out.

But that's thanks to the graphical choices they had made. They could have set out to make an openworld game that supports flying from day one of development, and kept the level of graphical fidelity within reasonable bounds for that target. GTA is a game that did just that, on ps360's gen, and it still looked pretty good and was very interactive even to today's standard.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But that's thanks to the graphical choices they had made. They could have set out to make an openworld game that supports flying from day one of development, and kept the level of graphical fidelity within reasonable bounds for that target.

Yup, it's all about the choices and compromises you're willing to make.

 

[see colon]

Yes but it had only a capacity of 8-64MB if I remember correctly.
Now we dealing with Gigabytes, a lot more data being moved around.

If the N64 cartridges had 600MB like the CDs PlayStation used it would of possibly made a bigger difference.

True, but most (all?) PS1 or Saturn games that filled a disc used that extra space for FMV or redbook audio. We are talking about gameplay innovation enabled by a massive increase in data storage speeds here. Strip out the redbook audio and FMV and I'm not sure I know of a PS1 that had 64MB or game left over.

Actually, if I was going to pick a game that I thought the storage speed mattered in that generation it might be Turok. The first one had a massive world, and while it was broken up and connected by portals, it felt like it was all connected because it never loaded. So maybe that's an example in N64's favor. I still think the game could have had a reasonable port to PS1, with added load times and somewhat simplified graphics. I think South Park ran on the same engine and it ended up getting ported. But that game felt more like a collection of levels than Turok did, so maybe the design was influenced by targeting PS1 alongside N64.

I think you're looking at the wrong way around. Remember that there were plenty of third-party games that were released on PlayStation and Saturn but not viable on N64 because of the expensive cartridges, which at max capacity (64mb) were a tenth the capacity of a CD (640mb). Games were increasingly using FMV, fully sampled audio and pre-rendered backgrounds - all of which ate up space. CD's were cheap enough that even multi-disc games were a thing that happened quickly.

It wasn't limited space that kept turned developers off from carts, it was cost. The risk was simply higher because carts cost more, and the larger the ROM size, the more it would cost. So plenty of N64 games were compressed even more than they had to be because of the 64MB limit because the smaller you could make your game the less risk/cost would be involved. Sure, having CDs filled with high quality FMVs is great, but plenty of N64 games used realtime scenes instead. Those are limitations you can work around. Hell, there are a handful of PS1 games that use FMV of in engine scenes because the storage was too slow to load in assets fast enough. At least a couple of Capcom fighters did this for their intros.

Also, I love that the NextGeneration article complains that N64 games are the same as SNES games, because Mario and Pilotwings.