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[nkarafo]

Is the fact that many next gen games were impossible to be ported in last gen machimes, at least in any acceptable manner.

The Atari 2600 gen was single screen games with limited gameplay that focused on scores. The NES gen allowed for games like we know them today (lots of levels, narrative, ending, etc) and the graphics had scrolling and didn't require the imagination of the players to make sense.

This jump was huge, it was impossible to have an experience similar to the average NES game on the Atari 2600. It wasnt just a resolution jump or extra details.

Similar things happened with the 16bit generation. Though the jump wasn't as big, you still had games that were impossible on the 8bits. Vs fighting games for instance required more detailed pixel art and many more animation frames to be functional. There were ports on 8 bit machines of such games but we can all agree these were unplayable. Not to mention the lack of buttons on 8bit consoles that made these games even worse.

PS1/Sat/N64 was another big one. I mean you see something like Wipeout or Mario 64 and then you go home to play on your Snes or Mega Drive... Would you even wish for a port of such games on your machine? In what state? This was a completey different technology and game design philosophy. Might as well be the biggest jump yet.

PS2/GC/XBOX brought the proper 3D graphics that allowed for so much more that whatever the previous gen was struggling with. You had enough horse power to make an open world game as lively and detailed as GTA 3. Ports of such game on the older machines would pretty much mean a completely different game.

After that, diminishing returns start to kick in. You still had better graphics and detail but the games were the same. This new generarion might be the worse yet. I can't even see the difference anymore unless i notice the higher resolutions and better frame rates, if there are any.

Do you think we will ever see new experiences not possible on previous gens? Maybe VR should be considered the true next gen?

 

[Herr Edgy]

Imo VR and what it entails in the future is what the abstract 'next gen' is all about, yes.
I'm a regular on my Valve Index and while there is a lot of room for improvement overall, simple games can become a completely new experience in VR. If next gen is about an evolution of gaming to not-seen before experiences, VR is exactly that, while also offering a lot more room for future evolutions.

When it comes to the new current gen consoles, I'm most excited about gaming minimum specs advancing and realtime raytracing becoming more of an industry standard, but that's about it.

 

[Rudius]

Ratchet would be impossible on the slow PS4, as all the next gen games that explore the SSD will. Also, CPU heavy games, with advanced physics and destruction will be impossible as well.

 

[michaelius]

You don't see it because GPU increased only 2-2,5 times compared to mid-gen refreshes . But you will feel it because SSD and CPUs are huge diffrence.

 

[Kdad]

Part of it is age (if you lived through all those stages as I have).
Part of it is media exposure...we know what is coming, in detail, way before it happens now...back in the day when a new console launched you didn't have media coverage of it 24/7 for a year before and all day everday...it desensitizes you to the 'wonder' of discovery...i remember going to the local dept store on console launches to play with the machines for 5 minutes at a time ... now we fire up some lame ass Youtuber
Part of it is certainly diminishing returns...the push for higher this and higher that when the most popular games out there can run on a potato makes no sense to me...its about gameplay not graphical porn imo.
You ignored the jumps happening in VR and in Streaming....those are the new gaming frontiers

What saddens me about the generations is they spend all this time on graphics and fps and not on making the worlds alive with intelligent avatars and filled with destructibility, explorability ...filled with life. Like...the next GTA for instance...don't make it graphically better...spend all the horsepower and backend online streaming tech to bring me a fully interactive, fully explorable city. I want to enter every building, i want it to be real at 1080p instead of an empty shell at 4k 120fps.

 

[regawdless]

Adaptive triggers though.

 

[KillaJamm]

I mean i'm 26 so the earliest jump from gens I can remember was from the PS1 to PS2, but if I'm being honest the most amazing to me was going to HD from my PS2 to an Xbox 360. Always remember playing Rockstar Table Tennis and Saints Row on my first HD TV and literally having my mind blown. Got mine around late 2006 I believe but games like Oblivion were on another level to me.

 

[AJUMP23]

I miss the leap in graphical fidelity. We have gotten to saying Load times are the reson to upgrade, but graphical fidelity is never really showcased any more In a way that shows how much more powerful new HW is.

 

[Sakura]

I don't think we will get much going forward from the visuals. As you say, it is diminishing returns. In terms of gameplay itself, it will be largely unchanged from past generations I think.
The biggest mind-blowing leaps I could see in the future, is in the department of AI and VR. Imagine a huge openworld RPG where there is no written dialogue. You literally talk to characters, and the AI generates a real response in real time. That would be 2D to 3D levels of amazement to me.
VR as well, right now it is just clumsily strapping two screens onto your face in an overly cumbersome device. But in the future with much iteration and many improvements, I could see it being something really huge.
But none of this is stuff you're going to see this gen or next.

 

[Andodalf]

Adaptive triggers though.

They're neat, and a lot of fun, but not game changing.

 

[regawdless]

They're neat, and a lot of fun, but not game changing.

It was irony. Of course they are not the reason for a generational leap. Hard to make out irony on the internet though.

 

[Zog]

Ratchet would be impossible on the slow PS4, as all the next gen games that explore the SSD will. Also, CPU heavy games, with advanced physics and destruction will be impossible as well.

I can't believe this gen is being defined by what kind of hard drive the consoles have. It's like saying 'this PS3 game can't work on a PS2 ONLY because it takes up more space than a single DVD'.

 

[Lethal01]

You don't see it because GPU increased only 2-2,5 times compared to mid-gen refreshes . But you will feel it because SSD and CPUs are huge diffrence.

More like 4 to 5 times. There is more to GPU than just teraflops and amount of vram

 

[Lethal01]

I can't believe this gen is being defined by what kind of hard drive the consoles have. It's like saying 'this PS3 game can't work on a PS2 ONLY because it takes up more space than a single DVD'.

Storage is a big part of the equation even if people are used to just focusing on GPU and CPU
Having storage get 1000x bigger or 100x fast is an absolutely massive step into the next gen

 

[wolywood]

I know what you mean. Demon's Souls PS5, while undeniably beautiful still looks to me like a PS4 game with an extra coat of shininess. I'm sure it doesn't help that I recently played through Fallen Order on my PS4 Pro, which still looks fucking incredible.

As others have said, going forward the big gaming advances will be on the AI and VR sides. Though ray tracing when properly implemented still has the potential to be mind blowing.

 

[Zog]

Storage is a big part of the equation even if people are used to just focusing on GPU and CPU
Having storage get 1000x bigger or 100x fast is an absolutely massive step into the next gen

Yeah whatever, they just needed some way to sell you these consoles and this is how they did it. All of a sudden you care more about loading times that you ever did before because they wanted you to. Also, since last gen (when even physical games had to be installed and patches became ridiculous in size) you are now responsible for the cost of storage and the cost of the game did not decrease to compensate.

 

[Danjin44]

As I said this before, with each generation the "jump" is going to be less impactful, so in my opinion the way I want to get impress by visuals is from art direction rather from the tech.

 

[Lethal01]

Yeah whatever, they just needed some way to sell you these consoles and this is how they did it. All of a sudden you care more about loading times that you ever did before because they wanted you to.

Please don't assume you know what I'm thinking, I know that storage is extremely important due to having to write code fairly often or atleast understand the code well enough to do my job. A 100x increase to storage speed opens up huge possibilities and to just write it off as "faster loading screens" is idiotic. I have been talking about this for over a decade.

That said I have also been saying for decades that playing extremely challenging games where you die a lot is 10x more fun when you don't have to wait 15seconds between deaths.

 

[Lethal01]

As I said this before, with each generation the "jump" is going to be less impactful, so in my opinion the way I want to get impress by visuals is from art direction rather from the tech.

The next next gen will be insane in terms a graphical impact. Real time ray tracing is a huge gamechanger that cannot be understated despite games not seeing the big deal in being able to properly simulate light. I'd say it's probably the biggest jump since the move to 3d.

Although personally I do think just having a city filled with actual reflections is a huge step up from hideously fake cubemaps. but still, that's only the begining.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Do you think we will ever see new experiences not possible on previous gens? Maybe VR should be considered the true next gen?

Nah, we will never have a jump to 3D, or add more colors (HDR kind of did that, but not really)... RT is really neat, but it will never be like going from a couple of flatshaded polygons to hundreds of thousands of texture mapped, lit and relatively smooth 3d in almost no time.

Also, there were a couple of transition consoles between each "generation", the 2600 was followed by the colecovisiom and intellivision, the NES was followed by the SMS, the main 16bit machines had CD drives, add-on chips in the SNES, the 32x, Atari Jaguar, 3d0... The Saturn/PSX/N64 were followed by the Sega Dreamcast... you could argue that the of Xbox was a half gen from the PS2 (especially if You start this gen with the Dreamcast).

Really, console generations are way grayer than it seems at first.

 

[LectureMaster]

Not a big deal for me especially when many people have no choice but stick with their old machine, having some first party cross gen games is fine.

 

[Airola]

I can't believe this gen is being defined by what kind of hard drive the consoles have. It's like saying 'this PS3 game can't work on a PS2 ONLY because it takes up more space than a single DVD'.

Yeah, previously it was about counting pixel lines and small frame rate differences, which was already stupid. But now it's not really even that anymore but some hard drive bullshit. Counting how many seconds it now takes to load things. I'm obviously making a sort of a hyperbole here, but still, this certainly is the least interesting and exciting console generation change ever.

 

[nkarafo]

Counting how many seconds it now takes to load things.

I mean, if that's a metric for generation jumps then the CD consoles were a step back. And the N64 was a whole generation ahead the others

 

[Lethal01]

Nah, we will never have a jump to 3D, or add more colors (HDR kind of did that, but not really)... RT is really neat, but it will never be like going from a couple of flatshaded polygons to hundreds of thousands of texture mapped, lit and relatively smooth 3d in almost no time.

Also, there were a couple of transition consoles between each "generation", the 2600 was followed by the colecovisiom and intellivision, the NES was followed by the SMS, the main 16bit machines had CD drives, add-on chips in the SNES, the 32x, Atari Jaguar, 3d0... The Saturn/PSX/N64 were followed by the Sega Dreamcast... you could argue that the of Xbox was a half gen from the PS2 (especially if You start this gen with the Dreamcast).

Really, console generations are way grayer than it seems at first.

In terms of graphics to imagine how big a jump we have left you can just look at a Pixar movie. I suppose I can agree going from nothing to something will always be more impressive but going from rasterized to pathtracing will definitely be the second biggest jump we get.

 

[OrtizTwelve]

I think Phil Spencer from Xbox said it best that basically games this generation won’t be so much about how they look but how they “feel”.

What he meant is that they will look good but more importantly will run faster at higher frames and load quicker, and performance will be greatly improved overall.

This is why visually what we’re seeing is a slight improvement, but overall performance gap is much larger.

 

[nkarafo]

Nah, we will never have a jump to 3D, or add more colors (HDR kind of did that, but not really)... RT is really neat, but it will never be like going from a couple of flatshaded polygons to hundreds of thousands of texture mapped, lit and relatively smooth 3d in almost no time.

Also, there were a couple of transition consoles between each "generation", the 2600 was followed by the colecovisiom and intellivision, the NES was followed by the SMS, the main 16bit machines had CD drives, add-on chips in the SNES, the 32x, Atari Jaguar, 3d0... The Saturn/PSX/N64 were followed by the Sega Dreamcast... you could argue that the of Xbox was a half gen from the PS2 (especially if You start this gen with the Dreamcast).

Really, console generations are way grayer than it seems at first.

The Dreamcast was so close to the PS2 that i personally don't consider it a transitional console but a true next gen one. There are even some ports that are better on the Dreamcast compared to the PS2.

The Intellivision and colecovision (and the Atari 5200) were very close to the Atari 2600 in terms of software. Games were very similar, again you only had single screen games with no scrolling and most of the times score based, limited gameplay. The only difference was the slightly better defined graphics. Software like Super Mario Bros and the original Castlevania was a huge leap even from these consoles.

The SMS was also very close to what the NES could do, i don't consider it a transitional console either, just a refined 8bit machine with more colors on screen that was released too late. The PC Engine is also very close to what the "pure" 16bit systems can do despite having a 8bit CPU and released so early. So i consider that a true 4th gen machine. The one console i would consider as transitional during that period would be the Atari Lynx. But being a handheld makes it a separate thing. Don't handhelds have their own generational timeline or something?

The Sega CD was just a Mega Drive with CD storage access. There was very little extra hardware and even that was rarely used. It's definitely not a transitional gen hardware, heck, i consider SNES games with the FX2 chip more "next gen" than that.

I agree about the 32X and the Jaguar though. These two fit right in the middle between 4th and 5th generations. However, they were both completely failed consoles that added nothing to the table other than they were the first consoles that had a smooth enough version of DOOM (that game was a huge deal then).

I'm not sure about the 3DO. Seems very close to what the Saturn/PS1 can do so a true 5th gen console perhaps.

 

[01011001]

true, from now on all we will see is more detail and less artifacs... that's basically it

 

[namekuseijin]

in the mid 90s we jumped from 2D to 3D

in the mid 2010s we jumped from 2D images on a screen to being inside the game world in full 3D in VR

you likely won't see another jump like these 2 in your lifetime

 

[FunkMiller]

Maybe VR should be considered the true next gen?

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

Quest 2 is a game changer. Quest 3 will be an industry changer. VR is going to fly once enough people get to see and experience wireless VR.

If PSVR2 is wireless, then Sony will be quids in. VR done right is absolutely the future, and the next big leap.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Nah, we will never have a jump to 3D, or add more colors (HDR kind of did that, but not really)... RT is really neat, but it will never be like going from a couple of flatshaded polygons to hundreds of thousands of texture mapped, lit and relatively smooth 3d in almost no time.

Also, there were a couple of transition consoles between each "generation", the 2600 was followed by the colecovisiom and intellivision, the NES was followed by the SMS, the main 16bit machines had CD drives, add-on chips in the SNES, the 32x, Atari Jaguar, 3d0... The Saturn/PSX/N64 were followed by the Sega Dreamcast... you could argue that the of Xbox was a half gen from the PS2 (especially if You start this gen with the Dreamcast).

Really, console generations are way grayer than it seems at first.

VR is a bigger jump than 2D->3D graphics already, and that's without all it's generational leaps in the future.

In 5 years, VR will be very different to what it's like today. In 10 years, practically unrecognizable.

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

I agree with you OP. I think that VR is the only thing in the future that will truly have that kind of impact.

 

[Krappadizzle]

VR is def. the future. Once it's small enough and an acceptable mode of locomotion can be figured out, it's gonna be hard to go back. Seriously, just sitting in a cockpit of a space ship is crazy fun in VR. Hell, even watching Sports of any kind is better in VR. It feels really cool to be watching a basketball game like you are sitting on top of the hoop, or right on the goal behind a goalie. VR has crazy potential to change all aspects of entertainment.

That said. Believe it or not, there is still a lot of room for improvement in traditional rasterized graphics along with RT on top. We just won't see those bumps as the cost of development kind of forces publishers/devs to be on as many platforms as possible to maximize profit. Once more people have there hands on XsX and PS5, we'll see BIG jumps in graphics tech. It's just less economically viable now as there is such a huge differential in install base and it makes more sense from a profit perspective to have as many hands on product as possible.

 

[Jeeves]

Yeah, the changing of generations used to be fueled by entirely new gameplay possibilities. Now it's just...better textures, lighting, resolution, load times...sure, on paper it's an objective upgrade, but it's a far cry from the paradigm shifts like we grew up with.

Kind of feel like the gaming landscape would have been better served by Sony and Microsoft putting the time and money towards making more games and giving it another 5-10 years before upgrading hardware. PS4 and Xbone games still look great, I don't think anyone reasonable was complaining about those consoles getting long in the tooth.

 

[lock2k]

While I want a next gen console when I'm able to, I can't help but feel the general philosophy now is "polish the turd" and not reinvent the wheel.

 

[Lethal01]

VR is def. the future. Once it's small enough and an acceptable mode of locomotion can be figured out, it's gonna be hard to go back. Seriously, just sitting in a cockpit of a space ship is crazy fun in VR. Hell, even watching Sports of any kind is better in VR. It feels really cool to be watching a basketball game like you are sitting on top of the hoop, or right on the goal behind a goalie. VR has crazy potential to change all aspects of entertainment.

That said. Believe it or not, there is still a lot of room for improvement in traditional rasterized graphics along with RT on top. We just won't see those bumps as the cost of development kind of forces publishers/devs to be on as many platforms as possible to maximize profit. Once more people have there hands on XsX and PS5, we'll see BIG jumps in graphics tech. It's just less economically viable now as there is such a huge differential in install base and it makes more sense from a profit perspective to have as many hands on product as possible.

VR will be the future when it stops being all about first person "YOU ARE THE CHARACTER" games.

I just want VR that can emulate watch an LG CX TV with the added bonus of 3d. A 3d window into the game.

 

[Fbh]

That's just the way tech goes as it matures.
It's the same a say, phones, we went from steps like "holy shit I can fit it in my pocket now", "holy shit I can take decent pictures with my phone now" and "holy shit there's an internet browser and it's almost like a small computer now" to..... "It's pretty much the same thing as last year but like 20% better".

I wouldn't necessarily blame the hardware though. On paper I think these consoles having an SSD and competent CPU's as a baseline definitely opens the door to new experiences which weren't doable on Ps4 and Xb1. It's just that development costs keep raising and there's 100+ million Ps4 and Xb1's out there. As development costs and times keep rising, I think with each new gen it's going to take longer until devs and publishers are ready to drop the previous gen and exclusively embrace the new one

 

[DarthBuzzer]

VR will be the future when it stops being all about first person "YOU ARE THE CHARACTER" games.

I just want VR that can emulate watch an LG CX TV with the added bonus of 3d. A 3d window into the game.

That's already a thing with software like HelixVision and VorpX supporting a range of games, but the resolution is still a far cry from where it needs to be of course.

However you actually miss an important part of VR: 3rd person games. They still provide true 3D (unlike your example) but are usually played more traditionally.

 

[Lethal01]

That's already a thing with software like HelixVision and VorpX supporting a range of games, but the resolution is still a far cry from where it needs to be of course.

However you actually miss an important part of VR: 3rd person games. They still provide true 3D (unlike your example) but are usually played more traditionally.

Obviously it supports the general Idea, however it just doesn't look as good as using a TV and no my example would absolutely support true 3d. You probably just misunderstood.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Obviously it supports the general Idea, however it just doesn't look as good as using a TV and no my example would absolutely support true 3d. You probably just misunderstood.

So instead of a virtual 3D TV, you're talking about a light-field TV, a true 3D window. That would definitely be cool for 1st person games, but I would much prefer true VR for 3rd person games like how Hellblade VR works, where I can look around in full 360 and move around in the world still using a gamepad. (while seated)

 

[Bonfires Down]

Great, developers now have the ability to create anything they can imagine. I have no interest in buying new boxes just for the sake of it.

 

[Calverz]

I hear ya OP. Nintendo said after the gamecube that graphical leaps had plateaued and this is why they looked at different input devices and experiences. Which is why we got the wii.

 

[ColonialRaptor]

I personally feel like all those generations were gaming infancy. I honestly feel like this is the first generation where games are actually going to be built without limiting the developers vision with technology. At least until we get ridiculous realism power I honestly believe this is the biggest generation jump we’ve had so far it’s just not as clear because the tech is getting so advanced.

 

[Rudius]

Yeah, previously it was about counting pixel lines and small frame rate differences, which was already stupid. But now it's not really even that anymore but some hard drive bullshit. Counting how many seconds it now takes to load things. I'm obviously making a sort of a hyperbole here, but still, this certainly is the least interesting and exciting console generation change ever.

PS5 and Series X do have more pixels and frames, basically everything can be played at 60fps, on top of faster loading, better CPU (Jaguar was barely an improvement), ray-tracing, 3D audio and a better controller on the PS5. This is a much more complete generation shift than that from PS3 to PS4.

 

[PooBone]

VR was the last next gen jump feeling that you’re talking about. I miss it too.

 

[Rudius]

I hear ya OP. Nintendo said after the gamecube that graphical leaps had plateaued and this is why they looked at different input devices and experiences. Which is why we got the wii.

They lied. Compare something like Ratchet and Clank or Spiderman 2 from the PS2/GC generation to those games on PS5. It's like comparing a cartoon to a movie.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

Why are you concerned? Honest question, we know you can only improve graphics so much before it becomes redundant, but the true leap and hope is that the jump in CPU may result in better performance and better AI where developers could truly make a challenging fun game where difficulty isn't just about making you do less damage while making enemies bullet/hit sponges etc.

 

[Dampf]

Once games fully utilize the SSD for asset streaming, are built completely with Raytracing in mind, use the Ryzen CPUs for much better physics, AI and interactivity, and fully use DX12 Ultimate features such as Mesh shader and Sampler Feedback, this will be a much bigger jump than from last gen to current gen.

We just have to wait for the old consoles to die, they hold everything back right now.

 

[Zog]

PS5 and Series X do have more pixels and frames, basically everything can be played at 60fps

..or not, depends on the developers and that has ALWYAS been the case. The NES could run games at 60 FPS.

 

[intbal]

It's still the first week.
Give it time.

 

[nkarafo]

PS5 and Series X do have more pixels and frames, basically everything can be played at 60fps, on top of faster loading, better CPU (Jaguar was barely an improvement), ray-tracing, 3D audio and a better controller on the PS5. This is a much more complete generation shift than that from PS3 to PS4.

Games run at 60fps ever since the Atari 2600. The Atari also has zero input lag on top of that. The majority of games on the NES, MS, Genesis, SNES, PC Engine run at 60fps. They also all had zero loading because they were using solid state ROMs for instant access. That leap of higher frame rates and fast loading was the exact same in Europe, during the transition from old home computers (C64, Spectrum, Amstrad) to consoles. So no, it's not new to these current consoles, unless you were born 10 years ago.

Even if we take later 3D capable consoles in mind, there were a lot more 60fps games on the PS2 compared to the PS3. Just compare all racing games in both consoles and see how many run at a smooth frame rate. You will be surprised. 60fps isn't a hardware feature, it's a developer's choice 100%. Otherwise, the puny PS2 CPU would have to be declared faster than PS3's Cell, which doesn't make sense.

Why are you concerned? Honest question, we know you can only improve graphics so much before it becomes redundant, but the true leap and hope is that the jump in CPU may result in better performance and better AI where developers could truly make a challenging fun game where difficulty isn't just about making you do less damage while making enemies bullet/hit sponges etc.

The better CPU argument and how it's going to improve AI is something i'm hearing since the jump from the PS2 to PS3. Remember how The Cell was the 9th wonder or something, a CPU to end all CPUs. Technically it kinda was but the true obstacle for better AI isn't the hardware, it's the code. It's hard to code good AI no matter the hardware. I mean, the hardware was good enough in 2005, i player F.E.A.R just fine on my old Pentium 4 and that game is still one of the most advanced in terms of AI so far. Today, even a Raspberry has better CPU than a Pentium 4 but all these years we haven't seen any major strides in AI. So again, like the frame rate argument, it's not about the hardware, it's about the developers.

They lied. Compare something like Ratchet and Clank or Spiderman 2 from the PS2/GC generation to those games on PS5. It's like comparing a cartoon to a movie.

Yeah but you jumped like 3 generations ahead. Obviously 3 generations can add up and look like a huge leap.

It's still the first week.
Give it time.

Launch titles on the older generations would show a clear, massive leap. Rogue Leader 2 on the Gamecube (for instance) was a launch title. Would you ever hear anyone thinking "there isn't a big difference" compared to anything on the N64 or the argument "give it time" then?