Common sense. You really think most devs would bother patching their 2-3 year-old games to look/run better?
I think they would though, I can see shadowfall getting a 1080p 60fps patch on NEO where they cut out that reprojection BS they did for launch, whilst also boosting textures, AF and effects. I can also see Sucker Punch making ISS and FL 1080p 60fps. I can see a patch for the order 1886 and Driveclub to make them 1080 60fps, GTA5 with the new DLC can get a boost to 1080p 60fps as well.
Third party games like BF4 and Hardline can now get a locked 1080p 60fps with max assets, they might opt for a higher resolution like 3260x2160 for Unity and Syndicate improve the AF and asset quality and lock it at 30fps with good AA or go for 1080p 60fps with med-high assets. Games that had very bad PS4 versions and got flack, I think developers from said games would definitely see the need to upgrade their products, especially if they have further DLC to come or GOTY editions planned. I can see a proper console release of Witcher 3 being a thing. I'm also willing to take a bet that Rocksteady will enhance AK for NEO. I think you will be surprised at how many devs/publishers have reason or see it fit to enhance their older games for the NEO.
By this sentiment, why even have new generations? Why haven't console manufacturers just made every new console backwards compatible? The reason for new generations un-anchored by older ones, is because consumers like progress and want to see comprehensive jumps in technology, fidelity and design, not just meagre ones, especially for hundreds of dollars of their hard earned money. You take that away, and you make improvements more incremental or less substantial, and you run the risk of limiting value proposition perception, and garnering less interest from potential consumers.
Comprehensive jumps in technology was mostly achieved through exotic and custom hardware by the manufacturers. We're talking a huge investment in R&D, that didn't or don't always pay up in the end. Then we would have customers expecting a console of upwards of $1000 in BOM for great hardware and manufacture to be sold at $300-400 or else they won't buy. They'd say such a console sold for $500, $600-$700 or even $800 is too much and won't support. So in the grand scheme of things, such business models don't make sense anymore, we all know what happened when a manufacturer tried a $600 console, some adjustments had to be made to get a more comfortable price point for greater market adoption.
The thing is, the people who are most vocal or adamant of how the market must be are not always right. Most times they speak only for themselves or a niche group. I still remember how many people made noise about BC, but yet there was a $600 console with full BC and now it was too expensive. People want great things, but fail to realize it comes at a cost, just like a having a NEO like console in 2013 would cost much more than $400.00, so you can't ask for that and expect the manufacturer to the burn all the time by subsidizing hardware.
It's also just much harder now to survive in the marketplace, things are complex, some business ventures dont' pan out, so you don't keep the status QUO going, you adapt or it's bye bye business. Imagine you as a manufacturer invested a 1 billion in R&D of a console that launches in 2013, lets say you fitted a custom 980+i5 combo and sold it at $500.00, you know you already losing a tonne on hardware alone. Then you've got to make investments in software to bolster adoption of your new found console behemoth, because I'll tell you this, persons would still come out and say "they aren't buying a console for $500.00, cause' that's way too much".
So you have to secure some exclusives to sweeten the deal. If these exclusives bomb and don't sell, that's a bigger money pit, that would probably be unrecoverable for the whole generation or ever. The risk and chance of bankruptcy or abject failure for such a venture is much too great in this present climate. Console manufacturers are cutting their losses all the time, even this gen with lower R&D, many dev shops have been cut or have closed down in the last few years, it's not the best climate to be making such huge investments with such massive probabilities for failure. That time is over.
I think x86 and AMD with their APU's have been this generation's savior, so it was a good pickup by Sony. The technology is moving hard and fast and more GPU and CPU power is going to come through quick, with less power draw and reduced silicon whilst also sporting higher efficiencies. The roadmap is there, it's perfect for consoles, Sony can iterate even faster and offer a much more powerful unit for the same price just 3 years later is a good thing, hell, the PS3 is still $300.00 for a 500GB unit in 2016 (the slim one at that, with the smaller MB, shrinked dies and less power draw).
I never expected about 390x performance on a console GPU in 2016, but there we have it, and we all know what first parties are able to do with much less in a closed box, but the biggest takeway is this; it's only at a bitepoint of $400 for the consumer.....so all I'm seeing is greater power at a great price, a very marketable one, even for current PS4 owners.
As for PS5, I think you may think this limits PS5 to be powerful, but just take a look at the AMD roadmap, I think the specs for PS5 will be much greater than Navi and much greater than Zen and Vega which is before Navi is a beast as it is. In 2020, I can see the PS5 harbouring whatever GPU comes after Navi Coupled with Zen 2.0. So you can bet the PS5 will be a beast. All of that without Sony spending a fortune in R&D and losing a fortune at launch.
Sounds like you just don't understand Colin or his humor. To say he doesn't seem to like games means you haven't listened to them much or at all.
And on the podcast he specifically said one developer.
WOW, one developer out of one, translates to the majority of developers in the industry, and yet people want to take a vague tweet as gospel and break matchsticks in their ears when other developer
s say differently.....Hmmmm.
Wait, what? So "most developers" from his tweet is actually one developer. So the tweet is basically a lie?
Only in this industry do journalists say anything and they don't have to prove it, is it because they know certain people will just lap it up and use unsubstantiated tweets as facts?
I thought choosing AMD and x86 are more about save R&D and production cost, not necessary about BC.
Cell can have BC if they make stronger chip base on same architecture, just like Nintendo system always have BC even they are not using x86.
x86 makes BC much easier without costing the manufacturer an arm and a leg and gimping current hardware. PS2 chipsets in the PS3 meant that the extra money used for the GS+EE could have been used to making the PS3 more powerful, perhaps a much better RSX/GPU.
"most people don't like videogames"
well, i mean i only asked one person and she said she didn't...
come on
Perhaps that one developer is his cousin from high school who is just getting into games production. You never know, when you leave things as vague as this, it lends to lots of speculation. Also, if you don't come out and give more tidbits when the whole internet is talking about your tweet, then you basically had no ground to stand on in the first place. Even now that we know it's one dev and it was a lie, I would still like to know if this is an A, AA or AAA dev, what type of work he has done, the quality of his titles etc..
This is pretty nitpicky, but Colin's tweet still just irks me from a journalistic point of view. Like, I understand the limitations of twitter and that he can't go into exact specifics to protect his source, but he knew exactly what he was doing by sending such an extremely vague tweet at that time when people were starving for any news on this topic. Using language like "most" and "extra nonsense" without really breaking down exactly what he means either in subsequent tweets or even better, a video, would add some much needed meat to this.
Whatever. This just seems gossipy rather than reporting when you put something so juicy out there that draws the response that it did and not expound on it or clarify it really at all.
Yeah, pretty much my point.
I'd say that the news factor is a tiny reason for the outrage.
I think it's mostly about that many of us has bought consoles early on, to get an early taste for a new gen while drooling at some previews of future releases and waiting for the awesome games to arrive, and now there is talk about new hardware coming out before we even got to play the games that got us to buy the PS4 in the first place.
If you go back to launch threads about PS4 or even just last years E3 threads I bet you can find a few posts about Gran Turismo 7, Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XV, FF7 Remake, Shenmue 3, The Last of Us 2, God of War 4, etc being valid reasons why you should buy a PS4.
And now we're supposed to get hyped about how much better those games will run and look on another box.
Generally speaking about upgrades becoming the norm on both PS and XB. I think the whole idea that a console purchase is a long time investment and future games to help justify the purchase is crushed at it's core. From now on it'll only be about what's actually out at this very moment and how great those games runs and looks right now. Future releases might have a higher spec box as the target.
Ubisoft, EA, Activision etc, even Turn 10 and Sucker Punch are in here, they're are all doing great, ironically so in some cases where there has been backlashes, but they're already developing their third wave titles or something like that.
But Look at Polyphony Digital, Rare, Sony Santa Monica, 343, Guerilla Games, Naughty Dog, etc where 2, 3 or 4 years dev cycles seems to be the norm. In these cases we'll be looking at 1 game per hardware iteration, tops. :/
The up-side to all this is that the devs can't throw out badly optimized rushed titles that barely push the hardware at the hardware launches anymore, and then wait 3 years to show their real skills, because now those launch titles might be the only games they'll get remembered by with anyone buying hardware day 1, they need to do their very best every time now.
You've made some pretty solid points for the flip and perhaps the best ones I've seen, but look at a dev like Poliphony, they barely gave us two GT's last gen and GT6 was sent out to die at the end of a very long generation. The same can be said about GOW-ascension. TLG is still not out yet and Santa Monica hasn't given us anything yet. We have yet to see a new DMC or NG game. FF, seems to be taking forever and where is Deep Down?....
Let's be honest, many devs are taking their sweet time, by the time they release their wares PC GPU's would be exceedingly better. Maybe it is that they are struggling with current hardware where they can't even produce the great graphical trailers they wowed us with. All I'm seeing are gameplay vids with lots of shimmering, subhd and toxic framerates. If we're only going to get one FF this gen, it might as well look the best it can be. We're clearly not seeing trilogies in franchises this generation, even if it was only the PS4 and no Neo. x86 arch and a smoother dev environment also ensures that dedicated devs can pull most out of the hardware on first try, well, much more as opposed to exotic hardware.
Honestly, if your game is really great, ignore that Neo even exists. It shouldn't matter, because content is king and not numbers like resolution. It's about the experience, right?
Content is king...yes, but great content at high resolutions, better framerates and higher quality assets is even better.