What's a rolling generation? What are the pros/cons?

[mrcorbo]

Sure it makes sense for the console maker in order to move new hardware, but makes almost no sense for a 3rd party developer.

Now envision the scenario that MS is likely moving towards. The Xbox, just being a cheaper alternative to a PC with a more limited scope and one where they control the store.

In such a scenario, MS would "in theory" be able to always push better graphics then the competition (make the best version of a "MS exclusive" run on the top of the line PC hardware available, then scale that down to the Xbox with similar specs to the competition) if they desired.

Meanwhile, they'll also be able to address all segments of the console market at all times. No need to wait until later in the generation for that cost reduced "slim" model to attract more budget conscious buyers.

No more resetting of generations with a potential fall-off in software licensing revenue and then having to recoup that later in the generation when sales finally take off.

3rd parties being less at risk during generation transitions as they're always targeting the latest hardware (PC with only light modifications needed to run on this hypothetical PC lite Xbox game console). They can still target the console first (less hardware needed to test for QA) while using whatever level of assets from the "uber" version of the game is appropriate for whatever level of console they are releasing on.

Imagine if MS had the balls to become the graphics pushing publisher analogous to how Crytek used to push the PC. Always push the envelope on PC and port what you can to the console. Only in this case, they know what the consoles will contain ahead of time and so can have their studios tailor the engine to be more friendly towards that (not limited by it, but not engineered in such a way that you can't easily port it to those consoles).

In such a scenario, even if the next console doesn't feature RT hardware, they're already prepared for console level RT hardware because they'd have been pushing it on the PC versions of their games.

Regards,
SB

I told you I wouldn't argue that there. But I will argue it here.

None of that requires a rolling generation. You just have to be willing to support cross-gen games, continue to allow games to be published and sold for the prior generation for a longer period past the launch of the new-gen systems (this is easy with digital distribution) and the new-gen has to be able to play all of the games from the prior gen.

A rolling gen would have the platform holder take two or more SKUs that had been, up to that point, part of a product family, with shared games and shared branding and then sever that tie with part of that product family and forge a new one between some selection of that existing product line and a new SKU. And this would have to be done in such a way that it was clear what games going forward would and would not run on the SKU being dropped off the bottom of the stack. Yeah, good luck with that.

Secondly, the hardware design decisions made when all the games that will be running on a new design are going to have to also run on a prior iteration of hardware are different than ones you might make where you are free to establish a new baseline hardware spec unrelated to what came before (with the caveat of having to at least equal the prior gen's performance when playing prior gen titles through BC). The One X, for example, was designed the way it was because of its relationship to the One. It didn't get an upgraded CPU because the upgraded CPU wouldn't have benefited the games that would be running on it. If Scorpio had been intended as a new generation, and was set to get exclusive games, a CPU upgrade might actually have made more sense as it would have allowed for games that were materially different. Of, course that (Scorpio being a new generation) also would have been a bad idea. So, if you keep creating these links between products without allowing for some hard cuts you are going to end up boxing yourself in on hardware innovation since every new gen will be tied to hardware that at some point was directly tied (as part of a product family with a shared game library) to older hardware that at some point was directly tied to even older hardware an on and on...

A rolling gen has exactly one benefit that can't be realized by some other means and that's that it makes later members of a product family a better investment than they would be without it. Everything else is a negative, or is a benefit that can be realized equally or better by a different model.

 

[manux]

It's pc experience in flowered garden.