Board 8 > Is this the most disappointing start to a console gen that you can remember?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The pandemic really did a number on this generation. Games got delayed, console stock got reduced. But also, there just isn't that big of a gap between generations anymore, to the point where it doesn't really matter what generation you're on. I haven't upgraded past PS4 and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

foolmo already pointed it out but the ever growing PC market has a lot to do with this now.

I have no reason to ever get a PlayStation or Xbox when I can get all of those titles on my PC now.

Yeah, the lack of exclusive titles has made owning a PS5/XBX less enticing. Throw in the fact you don't need a high end PC to play most games nowadays and it isn't hard to see why some consumers think owning a PS5/XBX is a waste of money.

Nintendo has succeeded by keeping a lot of exclusives and by pivoting towards the handheld market. Though with the release of the Steam Deck, the latter niche may not last for long.

It was the Xbox One/PS4 Gen for me. Only
time since I was a kid I didnt get either console day 1.

foolm0r0n posted...

PS5 with the fast SSD, raytracing, haptics, and 3D sound. If games actually existed to use those, they would feel like a new generation, and distinct from PC.

But there's a huge disincentive to use those features, since they cut you out of the rest of the industry, who are happy with just being compatible with PC gaming.

I'm a little confused as to what you mean here since all of those features except haptics are available on PC, and were there even before the PS5 was announced! You can actually get haptics online too but the methodology is pretty jank and not officially supported, though adaptive triggers do have full official support in multiple games already.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

I'm a little confused as to what you mean here since all of those features except haptics are available on PC, and were there even before the PS5 was announced! You can actually get haptics online too but the methodology is pretty jank and not officially supported, though adaptive triggers do have full official support in multiple games already.

Like he said, there's a huge disincentive to use those features. How many PC games require an SSD?

I'm not sure what "requiring" an SSD would really look like, since the only time anyone's actually tried to hype that up as a thing (Ratchet and Clank) almost certainly would be possible on an HDD, just with worse performance - and we see that kind of afterthoughty "good enough but not really" level of performance all the time with cross-gen games as it is.

It would look like a version of FF7 Remake that cuts out the parts where you squeeze through corridors to mask load times.

That's a fair point, but I feel like we're going to start seeing that general design approach come naturally once games finally start rolling out exclusively on modern hardware. PCs that don't have SSDs will have to deal with some hitching but seeing performance loss when you fall behind the times is nothing new to this crowd.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

I'm a little confused as to what you mean here since all of those features except haptics are available on PC, and were there even before the PS5 was announced! You can actually get haptics online too but the methodology is pretty jank and not officially supported, though adaptive triggers do have full official support in multiple games already.

Technically everything is available on PC since you can plug whatever you want into it. You can even have wiimote controls on a PC if you want. But to actually make a game relying on some hardware, you need a big enough userbase that actually has that hardware. That's impossible to guarantee on PC, so those things are left to the realm of mods and niche games.

Traditionally, releasing a console was the way to guarantee a wide audience with a specific set of hardware requirements. But now it seems that's not enough, since the upside of making a game that works across PS4, 5, Xbone, Xbox S, Switch, PC is just so much compared to making an exclusive. So you end up with no games that rely on PS5's fast SSD, or Switch's IR sensor, etc.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

I'm not sure what "requiring" an SSD would really look like

R&C is literally the only game that attempted it, and of course it was mediocre since it was a launch title. I never played it but it seemed like a typical hidden loading screen? Usually it takes a few years of dev before the hardware can be really utilized. Is that going to happen with PS5 without exclusives that can make riskier designs using the hardware? Probably not.

The PS5's memory speed is like top 1% of PCs though. It's not just an SDD. It can load a ton of data within a frame with no CPU cost. Imagine if you could guarantee every user had that speed. Lots of design potential. But the instant you need to fallback to slower devices, then the best you can do is "same thing as usual but faster"

I can definitely understand your points, I'm just not sure I buy into the lowest common denominator thinking there when we do in fact have cross-gen games that run like hot steaming garbage without any kind of uproar. Raytracing is already widespread in PC games despite the vast majority of user's cards not being able to even turn it on. With the the SSD speed issue I legitimately do think they'll just start designing for those speeds at a certain point and accept that not everyone is going to have a smooth experience.

Raytracing right now is kinda used like SSDs - a bonus upgrade if you have it, but nothing critical. Like using RT reflections instead of traditional. Definitely not a selling point and not something devs seem to care about. It can be used for WAY more stuff, totally new effects that are impossible with raster rendering. But you can't do that if only 1% have it. Nvidia is even trying to remake old games to use RT since the devs won't do it (and they look like crap).

I do think those speeds will become the default, but I dunno what timeline I would bet on it. Hardware adoption has been frozen for like 3 years now due to the economy. Everyone I know is still rocking their old GPUs because it's insane to pay $800+ for a new one. Almost no one I know has M2 SSDs (which is the only way you can get close to PS5 speeds). And we're the gamer/tech crowd.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Raytracing is already widespread in PC games despite the vast majority of user's cards not being able to even turn it on.

With raytracing in PC games, the devs have to both make normal reflections for people who can't use RT and an RT version of those reflections. RT's supposed to save work for developers, but for now it's only making more work. I dunno how far we are from games where having RT turned on is a requirement.

Yeah, RT on by default/exclusively is not gonna happen within the next five years. You can't even get stable framerates in games that feature ray-tracing with current high-end hardware. And if a game wants to support raytracing only, they'd need a bigger audience than just people with 3090s and above.

Yeah, I suppose I can largely agree with what you guys are saying - we're definitely not quite there yet, but I just wanted to argue that the idea of new standards being drawn needn't vanish along with the idea of clear cut generations.

On the point about raytracing not being able to run at decent framerates, DLSS and related technologies have really emerged as the massive technological leap in terms of performance to the point of enabling raytracing with no performance loss, but all the current consoles barely missed the boat on implementing it. That means, hilariously, the console best poised to utilize one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of the last decade is actually a hypothetical Switch Pro.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'm not a fan of DLSS from what I've seen. It turns the visuals into a blurry mess if you want to get more than the tiniest performance increase. I'd rather downscale to 1080p.

Maybe there's improvement to be made there, but it hasn't seemed like the gamechanger people seem to describe it as.

I feel like I've gotten to the point where I'm just not discerning enough to really notice any sort of increased visual fidelity, games look about as good as I am ever going to be able to appreciate and there's diminishing returns for me beyond this point

VintageGin posted...

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'm not a fan of DLSS from what I've seen. It turns the visuals into a blurry mess if you want to get more than the tiniest performance increase. I'd rather downscale to 1080p.

Maybe there's improvement to be made there, but it hasn't seemed like the gamechanger people seem to describe it as.

It's probably system dependent because it is vastly preferable to downscaling on games where it's good like Control (basically a "current gen" game that came out early).

I do think the performance is a very sizable QOL improvement that is going to convert people as they get used to it (especially because 3rd parties on Switch have been ass), but all the game design trends are not really using it. Breath of the Wild and games-as-a-service have been the huge bombs and the AAA response so far has been (checks notes) Genshin Impact and Elden Ring. The cinematic narrative games aren't the zeitgeist anymore and at the same time you have indies like Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper running circles around whatever AAA game writing is doing anyways. Which is not to say that gaming is bad at all right now, it's just that the industry is slow to adapt so it doesn't feel like we have big next gen must-haves atm.

Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart does slap though idc

Development improvements like Unreal 5 are gonna influence the next generations much more than visual stuff imo. It's not like the games will look better than TLOU or RDR2, but they will be 100x cheaper to make.

Yeah, I expect that on the developer side of things there's still a lot of changes happening behind the scenes that will influence the end products. But just from the side of taking stock of gaming history, as a consumer, console generations feel like a murky thing.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Yeah, I expect that on the developer side of things there's still a lot of changes happening behind the scenes that will influence the end products. But just from the side of taking stock of gaming history, as a consumer, console generations feel like a murky thing.

It wouldnt surprise me if the next big gen up is going to be something else entirely. VR isnt quite there yet but I think it has promise. If you could get a consistent VR experience that didnt require 100 square feet of open space I think it could blow things up. Half life Alyx was ridiculously good, but it was brought down by the fact that I didnt have a room big enough in my house to really immerse myself in the running and ducking behind corners.

There's too many obstacles to VR from both a technical and physical standpoint. It's a promising sidegrade but it literally can't become the next "big thing" until it becomes accessible and cheap enough.

This is why for instance you see all this Metaverse stuff that is not strictly VR, it has to be "cross compatible" first. Stuff like VRChat for example which you don't actually need VR to play make the most convincing and wide-ranging argument for VR as a technology.

I imagine AR would need to develop a lot more (as in the game actually interacting with the room) before VR can take off.

AR, VR, and 2D screens are separate segments that will always have a place. You could see a future where AR dominates all digital UX, but imo 2D is gonna stick around for a very long time. VR will always be niche though.

I'm not arguing that 2D will disappear, just that we are a long way from VR being anything remotely useable in a consumer's home at a relatively affordable price.

We're way beyond that already. Quest 2 is $400 and works great practically anywhere. PSVR2 will presumably be $400 also and it's got all the cutting edge stuff. You also don't need 100sqft. Standard is 2x2 meters, but you can go way under that for standing-room-only, which is plenty good even for stuff like Alyx.

The fact is, people just don't want to strap on an all-encompassing headset and do a bunch of squats to get their entertainment.

For as much as the expectation is that VR will put you right into the game, the reality is that having to put on a headset and move around adds another barrier to getting into the game. I have no doubt that VR tech will continue to get better and provide some really interesting gaming experiences but I'm sort of skeptical that we're on the verge of a huge revolution where VR takes over gaming.

foolm0r0n posted...

We're way beyond that already. Quest 2 is $400 and works great practically anywhere. PSVR2 will presumably be $400 also and it's got all the cutting edge stuff. You also don't need 100sqft. Standard is 2x2 meters, but you can go way under that for standing-room-only, which is plenty good even for stuff like Alyx.

The fact is, people just don't want to strap on an all-encompassing headset and do a bunch of squats to get their entertainment.

2X2 really wasn't enough for me for Alyx, at least not enough to make it significantly immersive. Moving with the control stick really killed immersion. The best part of that game by far was physically walking over and looking in barrels for ammo or running away from enemies.

You need more room for that

Do you people not get nauseous with VR?

I tried a Quest and was okay when my character wasn't moving. As soon as I was trying to move with a thumb stick or in something like a roller coaster, my brain and stomach gave me a huge NOPE.

I do not

Seanchan posted...

Do you people not get nauseous with VR?

I tried a Quest and was okay when my character wasn't moving. As soon as I was trying to move with a thumb stick or in something like a roller coaster, my brain and stomach gave me a huge NOPE.

That's a known issue. While it works great for many people, some people can't handle it at all.

That's another reason why VR won't completely revolutionize gaming, it's simply inaccessible to many people who can't use it effectively

masterplum posted...

The best part of that game by far was physically walking over and looking in barrels for ammo or running away from enemies.

I mean that's obv better, but you're always gonna need to teleport since the game is miles big. It's just not designed for walking around. It's designed for 1.5x1.5m like every other VR game.

Seanchan posted...

As soon as I was trying to move with a thumb stick or in something like a roller coaster, my brain and stomach gave me a huge NOPE.

Who put you in VR and told you to move with an analog stick? That's a mean prank

foolm0r0n posted...

Who put you in VR and told you to move with an analog stick? That's a mean prank

It was some military shooting game thing.

Stuff like shooting galleries, Superhot, and Beat Saber all worked really well and are a lot of fun.

As soon as there was movement involved, even just riding a rollercoaster, I immediately felt disconcerted.

I only used it a few times though, so I know that you in theory find your VR legs. But it makes something like PSVR2 a dicey proposition if I feel terrible when playing more advanced games.

I'm only disappointed because I can't seem to find a console without being forced into some bundle (with games I don't care about). I would gladly play Elden Ring or, as someone who doesn't own a physical or digital copy of the original game myself, TLoU remaster if only I had the fucking system to play them on. I hate scalpers with a passion.