|
Post by Ex on Mar 26, 2024 22:28:57 GMT -5
metro.co.uk/2024/03/26/ps5-pro-developer-verdict-i-didnt-meet-a-single-person-understood-point-it-20529089/"According to reports from GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco last week, there were two main topics of conversation: rapidly decreasing hardware sales for the Xbox and bewilderment as to why Sony is pushing ahead with plans for the PS5 Pro. GamesIndustry.biz editor Christopher Dring appeared in a podcast, in which he claimed that when speaking to developers, ‘I’ll be honest, I didn’t meet a single person that understood the point of it.’ ‘Developers didn’t seem to feel they needed it’, he said. ‘They weren’t really making the most of the PS5 in the first place,’ he added. ‘A couple of companies said: ‘This isn’t going to grow the market. This isn’t going to move the needle.’ ‘This generation doesn’t even seem to have got started, let alone needs a mid-generation upgrade,’ he concluded."
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Mar 26, 2024 23:08:24 GMT -5
Microsoft cut their own legs out from under themselves by not making it clear what the strategy was, and now folks are waiting for this promised generational leap in their next hardware. Which, of course, might actually happen and would likely leave Sony and the PS5 Pro in the lurch to some degree.
It's good for people like me, but yeah, I don't see it moving the needle, and it especially won't move it if it's priced too much more than the PS5. I feel like $600 is about as much as they should try to sneak out of it.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 27, 2024 9:02:05 GMT -5
Let's say Microsoft does release an "XSX Pro" or whatever name they'd give it. Where does that leave their developers? Saddled with hardware disparity across three different tiers of technological disparity within the same platform. How does that impact developers' ability to create games for that platform? It means their XSX/S/Pro games will always be hobbled by needing to run on Xbox Series S, despite how much more powerful the XSX Pro may be. So what advantage could the Pro offer then? Higher resolution, faster framerate, quicker loading... maybe? But it's still just an Xbox Series S game underneath that gloss. Unless developers start making XSX Pro games that fully utilize the system's capability that aren't able to run on Xbox Series S... but that means a large swath of their potential buying demographic is cut out. I think Microsoft has really made a mess of their current Xbox platform.
I'll also add, I've hardly seen any 9th gen games yet that fully push a base PS5 or XSX's hardware capabilities. Why do we need "Pro" versions of these consoles, when the base hardware has hardly been fully exploited yet?
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 27, 2024 10:18:35 GMT -5
Think it's safe to say Don Mattrick (CEO prior to Phil Spencer taking over in 2014), destroyed Xbox forever.
Now, it's 2024 and I'm done defending Phil Spencer too. Look, the guy seems very "chill" and I do get the vibe he maybe entertains actually playing some videogames, maybe with his kids, etc, we've seen other hardware like Nintendo in the background of his streams. As a person, I don't really get any sleezeball vibes from this dude, but who knows. That said? Phil seems horrible at business/PR and it's been 10, TEN years and Xbox hasn't really "recovered" from the disastrous downfall post 360 generation.
My point is, Phil has been on an "apology" tour for like his entire tenure at this point and it's just freaking awful business tactics. I'm no pro, but when you go around apologizing for years, making broken promises, always agreeing with the mob "Xbox could be better", it just makes them look weak and isn't helping the whole situation. Phil's messaging is a complete mess and I see even diehard Xbox fans out there on podcasts and stuff agree. Though unintentionally, this weak apologetic leadership hasn't done them any favors in the console wars when competition is always a good, healthy thing.
And then Sony, sigh who knows. Abandoning Japan is already coming to bite them in the ass and chasing free to play, live service games, etc, probably isn't going to help them in the long run. You know what's funny, how we praise Nintendo in one obvious key aspect, they are loaded up with big 1st party franchises and unique IP's. Well so is Sony! But instead of managing that well, they've fallen into the bloated Western design trap of these overblown Hollywood budgets and have forced studios like Naughty Dog to work on what, 2 IP's in nearly 20 freaking years? I'm not even exaggerating. Uncharted and Last of Us... what else? So Sony has sacrificed dozens of IP's, sequels, and other projects they could have probably been doing by now like Nintendo does, but instead because of these insane AAA production requirements their output is so minimal and looks really thin in the long run here. If you don't like Sony's AAA titles, the few of them, well tough luck, they aren't brimming with variety thesedays like the 5th-7th generations.
It all comes back to what we were saying about focusing too much on higher end tech when the costs/production schedules and all that can't keep up. AAA gaming as a whole is in big trouble right now. And somehow Nintendo pulled it off after all this time, they'll be sitting there laughing eating cake getting closer to being able to buy Japan itself (maybe already hit that number?) and won't have any of these severe growing pains the rest of the industry is going through.
Indie is catching up. We're seeing some experienced veterans making smaller studios that can manage talent and expectations better. While these projects seem to take a lot longer (Ken Levine's Judas comes to mind), it's probably the most realistic balance going forward. A lot of publishers/devs realize this sooner, the better and if we get back to having a lot more smaller teams than utterly bloated massive ones like Activision having 9,000 staff for Call of Duty and nothing else, gaming might be more interesting again.
Thanks for listening to Xeo's TED Talk!
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Mar 27, 2024 16:33:01 GMT -5
What you have to understand about Microsoft is that everything they've done is in service to getting us to all-digital. It's why they did the Xbox One the way they did, and that hit them hard, and they've been recovering from that ever since. But that overwhelming desire is still there, and Microsoft is so large that they can still push for that future while taking a bath financially just because of their other dominant areas. And who knows, maybe they'll short-circuit the generations here in a couple of years with their new system.
Also rumored? A Steam Deck-like handheld, just in the Xbox ecosystem. There's probably a market for that, especially with the proliferation of Game Pass.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 27, 2024 17:14:07 GMT -5
Yeah I won't deny that. The Xbox One was too abrasive and early for all of its ideas, that a lot of gamers and Gen-Z nowadays aren't as strongly against anymore. It all still leads to a very dark future for gaming, all of us here can agree. You'll own nothing and be happy!
Handheld Xbox might be cool... but I'd see no point with it when the Steamdeck exists now. Do you want access to 100 games, or 10,000?
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 27, 2024 18:41:53 GMT -5
"You'll own nothing and be miserable, but we'll pathologize the misery that results from your basic human needs not being met and pretend that being in therapy until you die to "heal" from childhood "trauma" and medication for depression, anxiety and ADHD are just normal things everyone needs as you eat your bug paste and fake-date five other ugly, barely-functional genderless people who may or may not think they're really cats and dogs deep inside".
Microsoft owns Minecraft, which I'm pretty sure is somehow still the most relevant video game property they're associated with. They have no real identity otherwise games-wise, they're the anti-Nintendo, and with Sony already covering the AAA platform market, they're entirely redundant, at least until the world is shitty enough that their desired model becomes the norm.
What Sony should probably do is create some department dedicated to making interesting, mid-budget games exclusive to their platforms, so they can boost their numbers of exclusives. They might just luck up and have a big hit that way.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 27, 2024 20:40:23 GMT -5
Easy to own nothing and be happy... if you're dead.
I think the original Xbox was great (despite what it did to the PC gaming scene), and the Xbox 360 was phenomenal. But Xbox One was a trash pile and XSX/S is a shit show. Microsoft's gaming division needs new management from top to bottom. A complete flush and fill.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 31, 2024 9:27:27 GMT -5
Didn't want to hijack Ex's thread about his 360 woes right now, but I just so happened to notice the other day my PS4 Pro gets SUPER hot. It's the upper left side (looking at it from the front) and I think that's where the fan is. Even felt the heat hitting the wall pretty good, which is maybe about 3-4 inches away from the shelf. Looking this up, it seems like a pretty common thing with the Pro I guess. It'll apparently shutdown if it truly overheats, but yeah... weird. And this has been from playing Yakuza 5, which doesn't look graphically taxing at all.
|
|
|
Post by bonesnapdeez on Apr 4, 2024 12:30:12 GMT -5
Interesting to see the Nintendo website has this "leading ladies" feature placing Ashley Robbins from Another Code next to Samus and Peach. (And some lil girl from Bayonetta? I'm not super into those games.)
|
|