Post Xbox One Two Scorpio, what should Sony do next? *spawn* (oh, and Nintendo?)
- Thread starter mpg1
- Start date
There are always pc gamers with better rigs. So they will just take the pc edition and find what settings the PS5 works best at and lock that in and ship it without the options to change.
If PS5 has something additional that they can take advantage of at some point they will but i'm sure it will just be branches in the code.
For developers they will only really need to make two version of the game and adjust from there. DX12 for MS and cover xbox one , scoprio , xbox two , xbox three and PC as examples. And a branch of the engine that works on sony's dev platform and just adjust settings for ps4 , neo , ps5 , ps6 and so on.
that's if you code to ps4 and use ps5 bc.
right now, I can't see much of a reason to break fc unless there's architecturally a big change in hardware or os/apis which would cause a hard reset.
maybe:
1. generations as had been up to now with hard reset.(with/out bc)
2. mid gen not allowed exclusives at any point in time
3. soft next gen where fully compatible like mid gen but allowed exclusives from the start
otherwise what differentiate a mid gen from a next gen?
marketing? People are scared, they just invested into an entertainment device that they weren't planning to get another in a couple years time.
I'm pretty sure it operates FC and BC go forward for both, but that doesn't mean consumers are necessarily happy about their purchases even if that were the case.
This coming 'mid/next' gen will be a hard lesson in change management.
@MrFox
For some reason the scene from the last episode of Game of Thrones comes to mind but with Cersei Lannister saying "What? Now? Today? You're not going to get clear messaging."
agree with most of this.
I was talking about ps5, next gen.
people seem to just about except mid gen because all the games will work on it, but I wonder if they would if their told that there will be a standard next gen in a couple years time so games on ps5 won't work on neo.
that's a relatively expensive investment given it will be more expensive than standard ps4.
and given what ms is saying about moving away from the gen model, I think Sony will find that a difficult message.
Tkumpathenurpahl
Veteran
It's not that difficult of a message though. Buy a PS4 or a Neo and play PS4 games or, assuming the PS5 is backwards compatible, buy a PS5 and play PS4 or PS5 games.
Are people confused by Blu-ray players playing DVD's?
Are people confused by Blu-ray players playing DVD's?
Like past gens, there will be a 1-2 year period where most big titles are cross generational. I think with the shared x86 AMD architecture (assuming sony sticks to it) devs will be even be even more likely to make their titles cross-gen. I find it very likely, by then these cross-gen games will be bc/fc, meaning the same disk will work both on ps4/neo/ps5. I just don't see much of a point of a dev making a game neo/ps5 only. The difference is just not there. Neo is just a ps4 with a slight upclock and twice the gpu. Its still the same processor, memmory amount, with barely better bandwith etc. If a dev ia gonna go through the trouble of making a game still work on psNeo, they are 80% of the way into making it work on ps4 as well, which will probably have a considerably bigger install base. It will be a no no brainer. Sony could allow devs to target only neo and upwards all they want and yet pretty much all devs would not do it. There would be one or two niche dd games that would make it into digital foundry because of it maybe.
There in lies the fallacy of your logic, "assuming". There is no historic precedent for any console to be fully backwards compatible in which your entire library follows you with the next console.
People have no reason to believe that it should either, quite frankly it hasn't been done. People may not be as smart as the posters here on this forum, but DVDs and CDs have been around since PS2 and none of the newer consoles could play those games either.
They may not get why it doesn't work, they just know it doesn't work.
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If ps4 & neo released at the same time, then both would have had a reasonably long life span.
If ps5 is a reset, then neo could end up having half the life span, and cost more than ps4.
Where as Scorpio is a mid gen device like neo, but if ms are not going the standard gen route which is what they've said then the life span should be longer than neo. It being a rolling gen.
Is the average persons expectations that a mid gen device should last as long as the base model (overall years), or it ends at the same time even though it was released years later and is a higher end more powerful product?
This is one of the reasons I'm saying that messaging would be harder if one company doesn't do a full reset.
Also a new gen does not guarantee bc (especially full), no matter how much we think it should, or expect it to. I do except that unlike all previous gens we are taking it for granted that it will though.
If ps5 is a reset, then neo could end up having half the life span, and cost more than ps4.
Where as Scorpio is a mid gen device like neo, but if ms are not going the standard gen route which is what they've said then the life span should be longer than neo. It being a rolling gen.
Is the average persons expectations that a mid gen device should last as long as the base model (overall years), or it ends at the same time even though it was released years later and is a higher end more powerful product?
This is one of the reasons I'm saying that messaging would be harder if one company doesn't do a full reset.
Also a new gen does not guarantee bc (especially full), no matter how much we think it should, or expect it to. I do except that unlike all previous gens we are taking it for granted that it will though.
Tkumpathenurpahl
Veteran
Except for the PS3, Wii, WiiU, and now the XboxOne to an extent.
The move to X86 makes backwards compatibility almost inevitable and, given that MS are trumpeting it, it would be foolish for Sony not to imitate.
Even if it's not, it's not a difficult message, just a bad one: PS4 or Neo plays PS4 games, PS5 plays PS5 games.
PS3 didn't really have BC by-and-large - only a smaller subset did. Maybe you meant PS2?
Tkumpathenurpahl
Veteran
Fair point, but its presence at all illustrates a precedent. And the PS2, which I forgot to put in that list.
I don't understand why anyone would want them to ditch forwards compatibility and start clean with PS5. I just don't see the value in doing that. People have this nebulous idea that they'll be able to do "magical" things if they have a clear cut generation. I just don't see it. Look at DX12 and now the Vulkan api. They are high-performance and highly programmable, and work across a broad range of hardware. Sony should make a slightly higher-level api (or use GNMX if it's suitable), enforce it as the default for PS4 Neo code-path and then use that as a transition for PS5.
If PS5 comes out and PS4 is effectively "put on notice" with limited support, then they'll have a $400 PS5 and a cheap PS4 Neo (probably at around $250). If it works like last gen, you can buy that cheap PS4 Neo but it will have a limited and half-assed library of new games once PS5 ships. Each year it would get worse and worse, effectively making PS4 Neo a platform for old games. If at the same time, Microsoft offers forwards/backwards compatibility and doesn't have a clear-cut break in generations, they can have an Xbox Two for $400 and an Xbox Scorpio for $250. Their story could be, "Go ahead and buy the Xbox Scorpio now, as it will play all of the new games for another three to four years, and you can upgrade to Xbox Two when the price is in your range." There's no way that Sony's option would be more consumer friendly.
Sony needs to kill off the idea of generations and just go ahead with overlapping products.
If PS5 comes out and PS4 is effectively "put on notice" with limited support, then they'll have a $400 PS5 and a cheap PS4 Neo (probably at around $250). If it works like last gen, you can buy that cheap PS4 Neo but it will have a limited and half-assed library of new games once PS5 ships. Each year it would get worse and worse, effectively making PS4 Neo a platform for old games. If at the same time, Microsoft offers forwards/backwards compatibility and doesn't have a clear-cut break in generations, they can have an Xbox Two for $400 and an Xbox Scorpio for $250. Their story could be, "Go ahead and buy the Xbox Scorpio now, as it will play all of the new games for another three to four years, and you can upgrade to Xbox Two when the price is in your range." There's no way that Sony's option would be more consumer friendly.
Sony needs to kill off the idea of generations and just go ahead with overlapping products.
Right. But lack of consistency means jack to consumers. One generation you have it, next generation you don't. That's not really a precedent, it's just luck really if you bought a console that has BC or not.
How many consoles have gone without BC vs those that have? Should we start with Atari and work our way through the generations?
And BC to an extent is quite different from full BC.
Once again I don't disagree but our knowledge of things is certainly more clear because of our technical backgrounds, even then we know it's possible that not every title will be 100% BC.
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You could be right, if a game is possible on neo it's possible on ps4. I just think that if a game is made to run on neo at 900p, would the compromises necessary to make it run on ps4 be worth it, even given the larger base?
It may be worth doing it on neo as that userbase may be enough to bulster the new ps5 at the time.
I'll have to have a search to see if there's a thread for what specs people expect/would like the next ten to have.
Tacked on, and then it was only a very small subset.
It could almost be argued that PS4 was the first machine Sony didn't have BC on - certainly at launch. Hell PS3 did most PS1 & PS2 games even tho PS2 was a PITB due to the hardware. Cost them dear, which makes you wonder why they are re-aligning everything to maybe support BC (or at least make it more possible).
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