Official Xbox: Series X | Series S Thread

[TheSantader25]

Gotta say pretty disappointed. We really have hit a point where we can't see big graphical jumps anymore. Game-wise nothing grabbed my attention. Anyways the highlight of the show for me was the XBOX shaped fridge in the background. f*cking hilarious. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by TheSantader25

[Turan]

Boy, they really shouldn't have made the Xbox Series X the centre of this showcase. Most of the games on here were not only from smaller studios, but they were also in-game footage rather than actual gameplay. And they are ALL current-gen games that get ported up to Xbox Series X. 

 

Microsoft really messed this one up. This is not how you get people excited for next-gen. 

[GTA3Rockstar]

1 hour ago, DEALUX said:

There is no such a thing as next gen anymore. Yes, the new consoles will have more power but not that huge.

 

A true "next generation" leap will be when we'll actually be able to do full ray tracing in real time.

 

There's only so much you can do to improve raster graphics.

 

What are you talking about? Next gen is a HUGE leap from current gen. Graphics, fps (60 is minimum now), ray tracing, custom SSD, etc.

 

It is real-time because it's hardware-accelerated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Turan said:

Boy, they really shouldn't have made the Xbox Series X the centre of this showcase. Most of the games on here were not only from smaller studios, but they were also in-game footage rather than actual gameplay. And they are ALL current-gen games that get ported up to Xbox Series X. 

 

Microsoft really messed this one up. This is not how you get people excited for next-gen. 

 

This wasn't gonna be a big show. lol

 

 

They're doing a show each month, July will be the one to watch because that's when they'll show their exclusives, alas Halo.

Edited May 7, 2020 by GTA3Rockstar

[DEALUX]

1 hour ago, Turan said:

Boy, they really shouldn't have made the Xbox Series X the centre of this showcase. Most of the games on here were not only from smaller studios, but they were also in-game footage rather than actual gameplay. And they are ALL current-gen games that get ported up to Xbox Series X. 

 

Microsoft really messed this one up. This is not how you get people excited for next-gen. 

I think people are failing to realize that the old console era where each new generation meant completely different hardware (thus no backwards compatibility) is over. There's no clear difference between each generation other than the improved specs. Consoles have become PCs.

 

If PS5 wasn't backwards compatible with PS4 games and vice versa (which would have been a huge mistake) I don't think Sony would have launched Last of Us 2 on the PS4 for instance. Not this close to the PS5 launch. It's just that the difference between generations has become a mere upgrade in terms of specs. Fundamentally it is the same console.

 

55 minutes ago, GTA3Rockstar said:

 

What are you talking about? Next gen is a HUGE leap from current gen. Graphics, fps (60 is minimum now), ray tracing, custom SSD, etc.

 

It is real-time because it's hardware-accelerated.

It kinda isn't. This is why:

Spoiler

 

Technically speaking it is hybrid rendering. They are still relying on rasterization for most things but ray tracing is used for more realistic aspects of lighting. Full blown ray tracing is much more taxing on hardware but it is also more difficult to implement (I think even stuff like texture assets are not raster based anymore but rather determined by the interaction between light rays and a given surface). I think this still technically uses some textures for the interior but this is much closer to real-time ray tracing:

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by DEALUX

[Mister Pink]

6 hours ago, DareYokel said:

None of what was shown looked next-gen. I guess it will take some time, since they're still not willing to abandon the Xbox One. But I remember first gameplay footage of Xbox 360 and the PS3 games, and the first footage of Xbox One and PS4 games. You could see the generational leap quite clearly.

I disagree. I don't think there was a massive generational leap at all from PS3 to PS4 or from 360 to Xbox One. There certainly was from PS2 from PS3 because we also went from analogue TV's to digital around the same time. 

 

It has nothing to do about Xbox abandoning the Xbox One. You think third party developers care about developing their new title that may release 5 years from their first start, to develop a restrained game for suit 2013 hardware? That's insane. They're going to develop for Series X and scale the game down to run on old hardware. Game development across the architectures is pretty scaleable. 

 

Last gen we had to wait a least year until games started utilizing the tech better.  If you even google other threads about the best generational leap, most people or at least a big sizable portion say the PS3 to PS4 leaps was probably the most flacid of all generational leaps. But then again, we're playing games, absolutely optimized and pushing the hardware to the maximum of capabilities and then seeing new games on new hardware. I never expect launch titles to be overwhelmingly great. 

 

If you want to see a real differences compare these launch titles to the launch titles of PS4/Xbox One and don't compare them to games in the last 3-5 years. 

4 hours ago, DEALUX said:

It kinda isn't. This is why:

Ah...but you are comparing the One X to Series X. But how many people own a One X? A majority of the 50+ million people that own an Xbox One (assuming they're going with Xbox again) are upgrading from 2013 Xbox One. That's a huge leap. The GPU in the Series X will far overshadow anything the One X can do and the One X is gave us enhanced graphics and better performance on the current title and old titles. It was never truly developed for when it comes to new games or had the same life as normal consoles that have been developed on for 5+ years. It's a console-refresh that enhanced old titles. 

 

I'm not an expert but comparing teraflops as the metric on a Series X and a One X isn't reliable at all, and especially since RDNA2, different architecture and far superior GPU as well as SSD. 

 

Quote

Where things get interesting is the PC that Martin Fuller is using for comparison to the Xbox Series X. Inside that rig is the current creme-de-la-creme of graphics hardware, the $1,200 Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Now it isn't a straight comparison, as the PC is hooked up to a 1440p screen, while the Xbox Series X is plugged in to a 4K display. But still the fact that the Nvidia card is seen rendering the same scene at the lower resolution in 72 microseconds initially, dropping down to 32 microseconds with the best culling algorithm, indicates that the Xbox Series X is packing comparable power when it comes to Mesh Shader might. (time-stamped below)

 

 

A lot of Xbox games run at 720p and 900p natively to reach 60fps and a lot of games are running 900p natively on PS4 to get 60fps, never mind some games like Destiny were running at 900p 30fps (before a patch). Series X games are targeting 4K 60fps natively. That's a huge leap. 

 

This goes back to my earlier point that this generation wasn't a huge leap. And, a lot of people like myself are only going to be upgrading their TV to 4K with this new generation of consoles. I argue that this is the biggest generation leap since the Xbox 1 to the Xbox 350. 

[DEALUX]

GPU power might not be telling the whole story but it is difficult to compare them otherwise. Point was that the 360 and PS3 were the last generation where the leap in performance was truly huge.

[Turan]

20 hours ago, GTA3Rockstar said:

 

This wasn't gonna be a big show. lol

 

Then they shouldn’t have hyped it up as they did. 

[Jason]

Microsoft marketing has been really good until this week. Particularly when they let Aaron Greenberg start tweeting non-sense:

 

 

The backtrack is that 60fps will be the standard output signal, not that games will run at 60fps as standard.

 

Which is not what the person tweeting to Greenberg was asking and it's puzzling that anyone would be confused about that.

[GTA3Rockstar]

On 5/7/2020 at 4:56 PM, DEALUX said:

GPU power might not be telling the whole story but it is difficult to compare them otherwise. Point was that the 360 and PS3 were the last generation where the leap in performance was truly huge.

 

Well, yeah it went from SD to HD lol

 

Though, this is probably the second biggest leap after that.

 

 

 

20 hours ago, Turan said:

Then they shouldn’t have hyped it up as they did. 

 

Yeah, definitely over-hyped but something must've f'd up on Ubisoft's part because that was nowhere close to gameplay footage. lol

[Creed Bratton]

On 5/8/2020 at 1:08 AM, Mister Pink said:

They're going to develop for Series X and scale the game down to run on old hardware. Game development across the architectures is pretty scaleable.

If you're thinking in terms of scaling, you're not thinking big enough. The new system should be powerful enough to run games that are impossible to run on the old system.

[Mister Pink]

3 hours ago, DareYokel said:

If you're thinking in terms of scaling, you're not thinking big enough. The new system should be powerful enough to run games that are impossible to run on the old system.

I'm just being optimistic. I don't claim to know how or what they would cut out to get some the best version of the game on the best hardware and be able to run a game that is of the essence the same game but on a smaller scale. I'm definitely not thinking big enough, because I'm not being paid to do that job.   But I don't think it's impossible. It wont be the same game. It might have the same title, story, characters but vastly reduced graphics, AI and and whatever else has might have scalability.  Not that launch titles are ever that amazing anyway.

 

Besides, it's only for about year. Xbox said that all titles will be cross gen for a 1-2 years. Basically, only the hardcore fans by consoles day one. Most other people wait a year until they upgrade.  Basically E3 next year will be showcasing Series X games without any other console in mind. 

 

I think thinking of generational leaps is a bit outdated now. What this is more like a a blended crossover the the next gen. Cross-gen support for a 1-2 years and then full on. It's consumer friendly. They are lowering the barrier to entry. With smart delivery, I'll you can buy Cyberpunk on your One S, then upgrade to your Series X and then get the best version of that game enhanced and no extra cost.

 

For me, it's still going to be a generational leap because I'm upgrading the TV.  I'm using a HDTV from 2010 or thereabouts. I'll be getting a 4K TV for the first time and getting a Series X. Halo is going to look great. We can probably expect some enhancements again, better frame-rates, SSD and HDR, so my first replay of RDR2 will be fresh on a 4K TV.  

 

[Turan]

I prefer Sony's approach where they make next-gen games right from the start exclusively for their new console. The sooner the studios can take advantage of the new system the better imo. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Turan

[TheSantader25]

Experience has taught me that buying new consoles is unnecessary until the 2nd/3rd year of the generation. The first two years kinda suck. 2014 as an example was a horrible year gaming-wise. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by TheSantader25

[Retro_Causality]

https://boards.4channel.org/v/thread/507212860#p507212860

 

Planned to be announced at Xbox July event (as of April 22) - Announcement for new open-world RPG from an unidentified Microsoft owned game studio. Set in modern-day Chicago, where you play as a . Meant to be the first game in a new franchise that seems to be competing with GTA or Mafia. Apparently very ambitious with talks of adding the ability to talk to every NPC (similar to RDR 2) but with a full dialogue tree. This game is utilizing an open voice acting freelance community website to get as many people as possible as NPCs walking around its world. Watch Dogs Legion is doing something similar, except in this one you only control one character. Which has a gender-neutral name but is a fully customizable protagonist (similar to Cyberpunk and AC Valhalla). The game will also feature a massively multiplayer mode where apparently "obeying the law really matters, so keeping your illicit business secret is crucial."
 

 

take with a grain of salt, but interesting none the less

 

[Mister Pink]

17 hours ago, Turan said:

I prefer Sony's approach where they make next-gen games right from the start exclusively for their new console. The sooner the studios can take advantage of the new system the better imo. 

Yeah but games like the new Halo and Senua will be next gen. Everyone has seem to have written off Xbox before they've seen their games. Next month we see Xbox exclusives. And after the feedback they got from last show, I'm hopeful, they'll show us something decent. And we are getting monthly reveals, so although the "gameplay" introduction was piss-poor, we have to think of the games shown on May 7th are just a brick in the wall of content to be revealed. 

 

I don't buy in for exclusivity. I just want the best experience to play games on a console. There will always be too many games for me to complete. So, exclusives, while nice are just a bonus. I'm actually prefer just meat and potatoes stuff, like the controller suitable to my hands, UI/UX, download speeds, network and services. If it wasn't for those things, I would have jumped ship and abandoned Xbox altogether this gen. The hardware was wasn't impressive. Exclusives, I brush off as I said there are more games in the world that I can play or finish. Of the 5 or so exclusives  I might want to play from Sony. it's like missing out on a band or some music I've never listened to. I'll just listen to something else. If there's a good exclusive on Xbox, it's a bonus because it's a good game and I can play it on my platform, great.  But exclusives probably make up for around 5% of my play time. GTA, RDR, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, FIFA, Metro, whatever it is, will be take up about 95% of my time. Having said that, I have got in to Halo, enjoyed State of Decay, might give Gears ago and I love Forza Motorsport and Horizon series. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Mister Pink

[Mister Pink]

*merging this with the Series X topic because it pertains to a possible upcoming Xbox exclusive. Best not to make whole threads on rumours.

 

7 hours ago, Retro_Causality said:

Planned to be announced at Xbox July event (as of April 22) - Announcement for new open-world RPG from an unidentified Microsoft owned game studio. Set in modern-day Chicago, where you play as a . Meant to be the first game in a new franchise that seems to be competing with GTA or Mafia. Apparently very ambitious with talks of adding the ability to talk to every NPC (similar to RDR 2) but with a full dialogue tree. This game is utilizing an open voice acting freelance community website to get as many people as possible as NPCs walking around its world. Watch Dogs Legion is doing something similar, except in this one you only control one character. Which has a gender-neutral name but is a fully customizable protagonist (similar to Cyberpunk and AC Valhalla). The game will also feature a massively multiplayer mode where apparently "obeying the law really matters, so keeping your illicit business secret is crucial."

 

We might find out next month. Next month Xbox showcase their original games. This should be a big one in lieu of E3. 

 

Their might be some truth to this rumour. I've heard that one of the Microsoft studios is working on a "AAAA" game. If any studio was doing this, it would be The Initiative. 

 

Quote

The company employs Christian Cantamessa, the writer and designer of Red Dead Redemption, as well as God of War producer Brian Westergaard. The Initiative also has veteran employees of Respawn, BioWare, and Naughty Dog among its ranks, while former Square Enix and Activision boss Darrell Gallagher is heading up the studio

More recently they hired a top artist Sylvia Chamberlain from Naughty Dog, which made gaming headlines. 

 

Now, this could all be conjecture based on Chamberlain's concept art on her website which features a cyberpunk looking vista that looks like a Chicago-like city. I know it's not modern-day but it could be "present-day" if it was like a alternative reality timeline, a bit like Wolfenstein. 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Mister Pink

[Turan]

1 hour ago, Mister Pink said:

Yeah but games like the new Halo and Senua will be next gen. Everyone has seem to have written off Xbox before they've seen their games. Next month we see Xbox exclusives. And after the feedback they got from last show, I'm hopeful, they'll show us something decent. And we are getting monthly reveals, so although the "gameplay" introduction was piss-poor, we have to think of the games shown on May 7th are just a brick in the wall of content to be revealed. 

The new Halo is an Xbox One game. It will be ported up to Xbox Series X, so it is not really a next-gen game. 

 

1 hour ago, Mister Pink said:

I don't buy in for exclusivity. I just want the best experience to play games on a console. There will always be too many games for me to complete. So, exclusives, while nice are just a bonus. I'm actually prefer just meat and potatoes stuff, like the controller suitable to my hands, UI/UX, download speeds, network and services. If it wasn't for those things, I would have jumped ship and abandoned Xbox altogether this gen. The hardware was wasn't impressive. Exclusives, I brush off as I said there are more games in the world that I can play or finish. Of the 5 or so exclusives  I might want to play from Sony. it's like missing out on a band or some music I've never listened to. I'll just listen to something else. If there's a good exclusive on Xbox, it's a bonus because it's a good game and I can play it on my platform, great.  But exclusives probably make up for around 5% of my play time. GTA, RDR, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, FIFA, Metro, whatever it is, will be take up about 95% of my time. Having said that, I have got in to Halo, enjoyed State of Decay, might give Gears ago and I love Forza Motorsport and Horizon series. 

 

Fair enough. If you know you are going to enjoy playing multiplatform games more than exclusives, then it makes sense to care more about hardware/service than exclusives. 

 

For me the most important thing is having the best games though (multiplatforms and exclusives), moreso than having the best hardware/services. 

 

 

[Mister Pink]

1 hour ago, Turan said:

It will be ported up to Xbox Series X, so it is not really a next-gen game. 

Where did you see this? It's my understanding that developers develop for the best hardware and scale down, not port-up. But I could be wrong. On PC, you don't see developers develop games for the weakest PC and then fluff up games for the best hardware. That way doesn't make sense. I think cross-gen is very consumer friendly, I don't see why people are trying to turn this in to a negative thing. Not saying you specifically.  It's also inconsistent with the philosophy of not caring about the hardware and just caring about the exclusives. 

 

The new Halo, is going to be much better on Series X than on an Xbox One. You seem to be willfully ignoring SSD/load times, the fact it's going to be 60fps and 4K native. And you don't think it's nex-gen because what? There'll be some version of it on an Xbox One? But I thought you didn't care for having the best hardware. My bet is that you would prefer to play GTA V on a PS4 than on a PS3. 

 

1 hour ago, Turan said:

For me the most important thing is having the best games though (multiplatforms and exclusives), moreso than having the best hardware/services. 

And I didn't say I only care for the best hardware.   But if 95% of all games aren't exclusive, then why make  hardware choices on based on 5%? By services, I meant Game Pass, which provides with with a library of over 150+ games, and exclusives arrive there day one.  Project X Cloud, is going to be a part of that service too. So if I'm interested in access to games, Game Pass is probably the most inexpensive way to get access to more games than I could afford if I was to pay for them per unit. That coupled with the vast majority of my gaming will be done on multiplatform games, this low number of exclusives I might miss out of is a drop in the ocean of videogames. This is why I put less value on exclusives. However, there will be huge exclusives this gen at Xbox; Halo, Hellblade 2, Forza, MS Flight Simulator, Scorn, Project: Mara, Fable 4 and whatever gets announced next month.  

 

To each their own though. PS4 exclusives look quality and they rate high. I'm still hoping to get a PS4 or maybe a PS5 as I haven't had a Playstation since the PS2.  For some people they don't need many games. Quality over quantity as they say. And if you want play mostly exclusive games (exclusive not an indication of quality just an indication that they aren't on another platform at least for a set time), than PS seems like a great platform. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

For those that keep raising the "Xbox One will hold back games" argument, I invite you to watch this video. 

 

Some points made: 

• The Witcher was ported over to Nintendo Switch
• Consoles always have a cross-over period: games like FIFA will release for 2 different generations
• It takes developers a long time to fully get to grips with new generations of hardware. Xbox is only supporting Xbox One for 1-2 years. By the time developers are utlizing the full potential of the hardware, they will not be supporting old gen. But they can still scale down, anyway. Until then, they can develop the best game they can for to the best of their knowledge of the hardware, which wont be 100% max potential now anyway. 
• When devs develop for PC it's in their interest to allow ability to toggle off certain things: lighting, textures, frame rates etc etc to cater for mid and low-end PC's. It wont be any different for consoles. We wont have the option of what we toggle on/off on consoles that is a choice that will be made by the devs. 
• Dynamic resolution scaling, if too much is going on at once, at the hardware is targeting 30fps the resolution might drop down to 900p or 720p

 

15:37: speaks about Halo: Infinite specifically. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Mister Pink

[Turan]

42 minutes ago, Mister Pink said:

Where did you see this? It's my understanding that developers develop for the best hardware and scale down, not port-up. But I could be wrong. On PC, you don't see developers develop games for the weakest PC and then fluff up games for the best hardware. That way doesn't make sense. I think cross-gen is very consumer friendly, I don't see why people are trying to turn this in to a negative thing. Not saying you specifically.  It's also inconsistent with the philosophy of not caring about the hardware and just caring about the exclusives. 

It's common sense. You can't fundamentally design a game for a new console and then simply expect it to run on much weaker hardware by turning down some graphical settings. There is more to game design than simply graphics.

 

It is consumer friendly depending on who you ask. If you ask me, someone who plans on buying a new console day one, then I would say no, it is not consumer friendly. But it would be for someone who wants to wait with buying a new console. 

 

42 minutes ago, Mister Pink said:

 

The new Halo, is going to be much better on Series X than on an Xbox One. You seem to be willfully ignoring SSD/load times, the fact it's going to be 60fps and 4K native. And you don't think it's nex-gen because what? There'll be some version of it on an Xbox One? But I thought you didn't care for having the best hardware. My bet is that you would prefer to play GTA V on a PS4 than on a PS3. 

I didn't say I don't care for the best hardware. I said I care more about games than hardware. 

 

42 minutes ago, Mister Pink said:

 

And I didn't say I only care for the best hardware.   But if 95% of all games aren't exclusive, then why make  hardware choices on based on 5%? By services, I meant Game Pass, which provides with with a library of over 150+ games, and exclusives arrive there day one.  Project X Cloud, is going to be a part of that service too. So if I'm interested in access to games, Game Pass is probably the most inexpensive way to get access to more games than I could afford if I was to pay for them per unit. That coupled with the vast majority of my gaming will be done on multiplatform games, this low number of exclusives I might miss out of is a drop in the ocean of videogames. This is why I put less value on exclusives. However, there will be huge exclusives this gen at Xbox; Halo, Hellblade 2, Forza, MS Flight Simulator, Scorn, Project: Mara, Fable 4 and whatever gets announced next month.  

 

To each their own though. PS4 exclusives look quality and they rate high. I'm still hoping to get a PS4 or maybe a PS5 as I haven't had a Playstation since the PS2.  For some people they don't need many games. Quality over quantity as they say. And if you want play mostly exclusive games (exclusive not an indication of quality just an indication that they aren't on another platform at least for a set time), than PS seems like a great platform. 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

For those that keep raising the "Xbox One will hold back games" argument, I invite you to watch this video. 

 

Some points made: 

• The Witcher was ported over to Nintendo Switch
• Consoles always have a cross-over period: games like FIFA will release for 2 different generations
• It takes developers a long time to fully get to grips with new generations of hardware. Xbox is only supporting Xbox One for 1-2 years. By the time developers are utlizing the full potential of the hardware, they will not be supporting old gen. But they can still scale down, anyway. 
• When devs develop for PC it's in their interest to allow ability to toggle off certain things: lighting, textures, frame rates etc etc to cater for mid and low-end PC's. It wont be any different for consoles. We wont have the option of what we toggle on/off on consoles that is a choice that will be made by the devs. 

 

15:37: speaks about Halo: Infinite specifically. 

 

The Witcher was also designed with the Xbox One in mind. So it is not surprising it runs on Switch, which is only marginally weaker than the Xbox One. 

 

Again, I'm not talking about graphics. I'm talking about fundamental game design. 

 

 

[DEALUX]

On 5/9/2020 at 11:56 PM, Turan said:

I prefer Sony's approach where they make next-gen games right from the start exclusively for their new console.

 

The sooner the studios can take advantage of the new system the better imo. 

Making the PS4 obsolete like that is not a good strategy though. Sony is making a lot of money from game sales. If you think about it, they make more money from games than consoles sold (because most people buy a single console but many games). So they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot with this one. I'm guessing it's more of a timed exclusive thing as opposed to abandoning the PS4 altogether.

 

That's not how it works though. It is the equivalent of saying that modern games should not support low end GPUs on PC. Well, they do, and they still look better on PC than on consoles. Always have. With lower powered consoles they just need to scale down the details and resolution. It is wrong to think about it in terms of old console generations where a new console would mean completely different hardware. Modern consoles are PCs and there's no reason to pretend it isn't so. Xbox certainly isn't pretending and I think they have the winning strategy here but they will eventually phase out the Xbox One if they're releasing a cheaper Series X at some point.

 

I mean if PlayStation is killing the PS4 out of the gate then why on earth would they release the Last of Us II now? That's a major exclusive that would have definitely boosted PS5 sales.

  

6 hours ago, Turan said:

It's common sense. You can't fundamentally design a game for a new console and then simply expect it to run on much weaker hardware by turning down some graphical settings. There is more to game design than simply graphics.

Except that's literally how it works on PC. Consoles use PC hardware. "Next-gen" is just a hardware upgrade.

Edited May 10, 2020 by DEALUX

[Jason]

No one is designing a game around the new hardware either. It'll be a few years before we start seeing games developed around the hardware - in particular the supposed biggest game changer, the SSD.

 

Games aren't whipped up in a year and the new consoles final specs weren't decided two or three years ago.

 

We will likely see some very pretty games launching on the new consoles, on both consoles, but games designed around the hardware and SSD, nah. We'll be waiting years for that, multi platform games will be dealing with PC's with HDD's for years, it's not like SATA SSD's have the speeds of a M2 drive either. Even Sony first party will take a good while to figure out ways to go crazy with the SSD and even then I would temper expectations tbh. It opens new doors but it won't transform how an RPG, shooter or open world game plays on it's lonesome.

[GTA3Rockstar]

On 5/10/2020 at 6:00 PM, Jason said:

No one is designing a game around the new hardware either. It'll be a few years before we start seeing games developed around the hardware - in particular the supposed biggest game changer, the SSD.

 

Games aren't whipped up in a year and the new consoles final specs weren't decided two or three years ago.

 

We will likely see some very pretty games launching on the new consoles, on both consoles, but games designed around the hardware and SSD, nah. We'll be waiting years for that, multi platform games will be dealing with PC's with HDD's for years, it's not like SATA SSD's have the speeds of a M2 drive either. Even Sony first party will take a good while to figure out ways to go crazy with the SSD and even then I would temper expectations tbh. It opens new doors but it won't transform how an RPG, shooter or open world game plays on it's lonesome.

 

The Bloober Team, makers of The Medium already confirmed it's a Series X only game because of the hardware.

 

 

[Turan]

On 5/11/2020 at 1:29 AM, DEALUX said:

Making the PS4 obsolete like that is not a good strategy though. Sony is making a lot of money from game sales. If you think about it, they make more money from games than consoles sold (because most people buy a single console but many games). So they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot with this one. I'm guessing it's more of a timed exclusive thing as opposed to abandoning the PS4 altogether.

There will be plenty of multiplatform games that will be crossgen for the first year or two. So the people who prefer to wait before buying a PS5 don't have to fear not getting new games on their PS4. 

 

By the way, do you remember Gran Turismo 6 releasing exclusively on PS3 after the release of PS4? Guess how that game did: it had the worst sales in the franchise. Also, a lot of other crossgen games have sold better on the PS4 and Xbox One than on the last-gen systems. You know why? Because the enthusiasts, so the people that spend the most money on gaming, actually move on as quickly as possible to next-gen. So please stop peddling this argument that leaving people behind is going to be bad for the industry. It really won't be. And we've seen that already. 

 

On 5/11/2020 at 1:29 AM, DEALUX said:

 

That's not how it works though. It is the equivalent of saying that modern games should not support low end GPUs on PC. Well, they do, and they still look better on PC than on consoles. Always have. With lower powered consoles they just need to scale down the details and resolution. It is wrong to think about it in terms of old console generations where a new console would mean completely different hardware. Modern consoles are PCs and there's no reason to pretend it isn't so. Xbox certainly isn't pretending and I think they have the winning strategy here but they will eventually phase out the Xbox One if they're releasing a cheaper Series X at some point.

 

I mean if PlayStation is killing the PS4 out of the gate then why on earth would they release the Last of Us II now? That's a major exclusive that would have definitely boosted PS5 sales.

  

Except that's literally how it works on PC. Consoles use PC hardware. "Next-gen" is just a hardware upgrade.

 

There is this thing called "minimum requirements" on PC. So even on PC there are games that simply don't support low end GPU's. And the comparison of PC to consoles is kinda moot anyway. Keep in mind that most games are primarily designed for consoles, not PC's. 

 

On 5/11/2020 at 3:00 AM, Jason said:

No one is designing a game around the new hardware either. It'll be a few years before we start seeing games developed around the hardware - in particular the supposed biggest game changer, the SSD.

 

Games aren't whipped up in a year and the new consoles final specs weren't decided two or three years ago.

 

We will likely see some very pretty games launching on the new consoles, on both consoles, but games designed around the hardware and SSD, nah. We'll be waiting years for that, multi platform games will be dealing with PC's with HDD's for years, it's not like SATA SSD's have the speeds of a M2 drive either. Even Sony first party will take a good while to figure out ways to go crazy with the SSD and even then I would temper expectations tbh. It opens new doors but it won't transform how an RPG, shooter or open world game plays on it's lonesome.

 

Yes, they do design games around new hardware. Quite early on into the generation in fact. The PS4 and XB1 exclusives at launch for example. And even certain multiplatform games like AC: Unity that was released within one year after the release of PS4 and XB1.  

 

So clearly it is possible to make use of the hardware early on.

 

[Jason]

Visually for sure, but the big thing being touted this upcoming gen is the SSD and what that will do for level design and things like that. Look at AC Valhalla, a cross-gen game, it's obviously going to have a visual bump on the new consoles but the only benefit other than that is the increased load speeds due to the SSD - something they went on record touting as the big thing for the game for next-gen.

 

Games releasing a year or two in exclusively on those consoles will start to take advantage of the hardware better but it will be years before devs really figure out all the tricks of the hardware and in particular how to really take advantage of the SSD practically. It's not like they've had the final specs or devkits for years or anything. It'll happen, just not overnight.

[DEALUX]

25 minutes ago, Turan said:

 

There is this thing called "minimum requirements" on PC. So even on PC there are games that simply don't support low end GPU's. And the comparison of PC to consoles is kinda moot anyway. Keep in mind that most games are primarily designed for consoles, not PC's. 

 

 

Yes, they do design games around new hardware. Quite early on into the generation in fact. The PS4 and XB1 exclusives at launch for example. And even certain multiplatform games like AC: Unity that was released within one year after the release of PS4 and XB1. 

They all literally support hardware that's more than 5 years old lol. Consoles run on the same hardware as PCs, just adapted to the smaller for factor and cost requirements.

 

That's the thing I was talking about. The 360 and PS3 were vastly different compared to the x86 based consoles that followed, hence why making two versions of the same game would have meant some serious investment. That excuse does not exist anymore though. With the game engines that we have now you can absolutely scale down the details on a game in order for it to run on a lower powered console. That's why Microsoft decided to keep supporting the original consoles for a while.

Edited May 13, 2020 by DEALUX

[Turan]

35 minutes ago, Jason said:

Visually for sure, but the big thing being touted this upcoming gen is the SSD and what that will do for level design and things like that. Look at AC Valhalla, a cross-gen game, it's obviously going to have a visual bump on the new consoles but the only benefit other than that is the increased load speeds due to the SSD - something they went on record touting as the big thing for the game for next-gen.

 

Games releasing a year or two in exclusively on those consoles will start to take advantage of the hardware better but it will be years before devs really figure out all the tricks of the hardware and in particular how to really take advantage of the SSD practically. It's not like they've had the final specs or devkits for years or anything. It'll happen, just not overnight.

 

Nope, not just visually. There is a reason why I specifically named AC: Unity. That game does far more things than simply improving the graphics. The scale, the amount of NPC's and the amount of detail on screen. These are all factors that make the game impossible on last-gen hardware. 

 

I'm glad you named AC: Valhalla, because the release of that game is extremely similar to the release of AC: Black Flag. A game designed for last-gen that got ported to next-gen. It is the opposite of AC: Unity.

 

20 minutes ago, DEALUX said:

They all literally support hardware that's more than 5 years old lol. Consoles run on the same hardware as PCs, just adapted to the smaller for factor and cost requirements.

 

That's the thing I was talking about. The 360 and PS3 were vastly different compared to the x86 based consoles that followed, hence why making two versions of the same game would have meant some serious investment. That excuse does not exist anymore though. With the game engines that we have now you can absolutely scale down the details on a game in order for it to run on a lower powered console. That's why Microsoft decided to keep supporting the original consoles for a while.

 

See my comment above. It is possible to design games specifically for new hardware early on in the gen. And that is a good thing. 

[Jason]

AC Unity is also an example of how it takes time to figure out the hardware, it was a public embarrassment for Ubisoft.

 

Again, though, the SSD is uncharted territory. It is being touted as the biggest game changer in consoles in a long, long time - a technological leap that we've not seen in generations. The doors it opens regarding level design are incredibly exciting but right now they are just ideas, it will take time for developers to figure out how to use the full potential of that. Like I said, it opens doors but it doesn't provide any answers, cause no one has yet to make a game around m2 SSD speeds - and no one will outside of Sony devs for a long time cause PC lol but that's another conversation entirely. Sh*t takes time to figure out yo.

 

It's a similar concept to VR development, the hardware is pretty much there (cost issues aside) but there's still design issues that need to be solved to be able to take full advantage of the hardware. Half Life Alyx is one of the first to really take a stab at it and going by what I've heard, will be an example many other VR games use as a reference for years/decades to come.

[GTA3Rockstar]

 

[Jason]

Looks crazy impressive, tho the main thing I got from it is lighting. I feel like with raytracing and whatnot on consoles the big visual boost next gen is going to be lighting for sure. The scene around 5 and a half mins in where the ceiling collapses in the temple and the light breaks through, oof.

[GTA3Rockstar]

RDR2 already had pretty damn good lighting. I think the biggest thing is all of the "triangles" and how more realistic it looks

 

Plus the minimal/no loading.