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[Thaedolus]

VR would be dope as hell if more companies were putting out stuff like Alyx. But holy shit it’s been almost 4 years since that released. I guess Quest is still getting big name titles but openVR would be much better for everyone.

I don’t think it’s all that surprising that consoles have mostly stagnated though. Motion controls can be fun (especially now that tracking is so good and room scale VR is a thing), but if you’re talking sit down and play a game…you can’t really innovate controllers beyond what they already are when they can do motion, dual sticks, back paddles, etc. and graphics are already so goddamn amazing, it’s just diminishing returns. TLOU2 Remastered at 90hz looks incredible, do I really need a PS5 pro where it’ll be moderately sharper and I’ll need to squint to even see why I upgraded?

 

[Ozriel]

You could argue it was just bad innovation. I would agree. But innovation is risky and can determine whether a system succeeds with flying colours or whether it flops. And companies just aren't willing to take that risk nowadays.

>Console to an ARM device that combines both handheld and stationary use wasn’t ‘safe’ at all.

Compared to the previous few Nintendo systems, it was pretty safe. The gimmick didn't alter the way a game is played like the Wii with it's motion control remote or the Wii Us tablet controller. It just meant you can choose whether to play a game in portable mode or play it on the TV. Nintendo knows their portables are what prints money so they made a console which can be played as a portable. I wouldn't say it was all that risky tbh.

>The PS5 and Series took risks with making expensive, subsidized hardware with fast SSDs as default, all for a $499 price.

The pricing was risky but not so much as the PS3s $599 price tag and the other choices Sony made like using a cell processor and the boomerang controller. Or the choices MS made with the Xbox One pre-launch, like making it an online-only system. Marketing the power of the SSD would have been very unlikely to be met with criticism. At most, indifference.

The Wii U’s secondary display didn’t really alter the way most games are played. It was pretty much used as a mirrored display, 99% of the time.

The choices made at the xbox one launch were considered relatively safe in planning. Significant miscalculation from a poor understanding of the market, but a choice that was driven by analytics on internet penetration and a desire to please publishers that at the time were paranoid about the used games market. You’ll recall it was at a time when publishers were putting single use codes in physical disc packaging to try to disincentivize the second hand market.

The general narrative after the Wii U flopped was that Nintendo should go back to competing on power and court 3rd party devs for the likes of COD, FIFA etc. going with a lower power ARM device was a risk, with the key element being collapsing their separate handheld and console development teams into one target. It ran a risk of being a ‘jack of all trades’ device that would displease handheld folks and console folks equally.

 

[Fredrik]

also, the switch being the safest nintendo console?an hybrid home/portable was never attempted before not has been done since, compare it to the wii u that was just a normal console with a tablet as a pad, something that at the time we saw so much that people mistook the wii u as an add on for the wii.

You’re throwing the WiiU under the bus for no reason here. The dual screen tech with different image shown on the tablet than the TV made it unique, map and inventory on the tablet and the rest on the TV etc. Didn’t result in many cool new gameplay mechanics and Nintendo failed the marketing, either way it definitely wasn’t a normal console.

 

[NightmareFarm]

Why do some (you) seem to expect that the wheel needs to be reinvented every gen? The consumers have made it clear what they want as a console, and its up to the OEMs to make the best consoles they can within the confines of those needs.

This gen we have the adaptive triggers (and VR again) and SSD. Then all the usual stuff that comes from just having more capable hardware. What more do you need? MNre buttons on controllers? Completely radical (and ultimately limited) new control interface? Like... what?

If anything, I can't wait for us to reach a point where the hardware is as good as it can ever be, so devs can focus on making the best games possible as opposed to spending a lot of their time just getting their game to work.

When did I say it needs to be reinvented?

 

[PropellerEar]

The ‘elevator’ talk was with regards to the SSD

Starfield is elevator experience even with SSD.

 

[Hudo]

This isn't a console war thread, I am being completely neutral here and expect everyone else to be.

That's not how GAF works, son.

 

[tommolb]

The whole industry has become stagnant cos of the expense of creating gaming experiences. When your game costs tens/hundreds of millions to make over 5 years, you cannot afford to take risks. One wrong move and your company is bust.

This drove games developers to push/demand standardised hardware platforms to maximise unit sales with minimal need to tailor/rewrite game between platforms. They needed this to make game development economic. This is why consoles have the x64 AMD chips and AMD graphics cards. Consoles are now just PC's in smaller boxes, with walled garden OS's to keep consumers trapped in Sony/Microsoft ecosystems.

Software developers now just develop one game and amend a few config scripts to get it working to the right performance on the (minimal) differences between PC and console.

I realised the Switch might be the exception to this in most ways, but I think the general point still stands.

 

[NightmareFarm]

That's not how GAF works, son.

It's just there so the mods dont nuke my thread tbh.

 

[ReBurn]

The last innovation in console gaming was analog sticks to navigate a 3 dimensional space. Everything that followed was borrowed from PC tech. Evolution in gaming won't be on boxes you plug into your TV.

 

[radewagon]

Sorry OP, but hard disagree. Today's landscape is weird. If two or more companies are neck and neck and trying to appeal to the same market, you'll see lots of innovation as they try to one-up each other. That's not what we have right now. We're seeing Nintendo do whatever it wants because it can and at the start of this gen we saw Sony and MS mostly just innovate in small ways so as to not be left behind. Where we can really start to see innovation is when one company is far behind and really needs to close the gap. That's kind of the situation that brought us the final years of the PS3's first-party domination, the Nintendo Wii, and the consolidation of Nintendo's handheld and console markets to bring us the Switch (which was a pretty deal). Based on how competition drives innovation, what we should be seeing right now is MS stepping up their game in order close the gap and remain competitive. That's how we got the One X, which is an amazing console that can even rival the Series S in certain situations.

Speaking of Microsoft.... We aren't seeing much "ambition" from Sony or Nintendo these days because they don't need to do much. They're the market leaders and need to keep doing what they're doing. The problem isn't that ambition is dead. The problem is that the company most needing to innovate is dropping the ball harder than anyone has ever dropped the ball (even worse than Sega IMO). We are seeing a dual pronged approach of buying up expensive IP and chasing the streaming market business model. These are the most boring dumb lazy ways to try and stay relevant and so it looks like there's no ambition in the modern setting.

So, competition didn't kill ambition. Competition SHOULD be driving MS to become more innovative and ambitious. Which, in a way, it has. They've just chosen a stupid way to be ambitious.

 

[nial]

also, the switch being the safest nintendo console?an hybrid home/portable was never attempted before not has been done since

And the SEGA Nomad even before that.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Console=Stagnant

That barrel of rainwater has become Console full of mosquitoes.

 

[Ozriel]

Starfield is elevator experience even with SSD.

Glad you were able to get that off your chest

 

[yurinka]

This isn't a console war thread, I am being completely neutral here and expect everyone else to be.

This is why the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles were such a small leap compared to it's predecessors, and are selling very well. And is also why the Switch, which is the least gimmicky nintendo console since the GCN is selling like hotcakes.

xDDD

Now seriously, Switch sold more because for the first time Nintendo had the whole portable market for them with no competition until the early handheld PCs (I wouldn't count them as competition due to pricing) started to appear, and because they merged their console and portable dev teams, catalog and userbase because with Wii as exception, each new Nintendo home console sold less than the previous gen one since the NES. Plus in the 3DS+Vita gen saw that portables were declining due to the rise of mobile gaming but at least they were market leaders there.

I'd say the previous home consoles generation (PS4/XBO/WiiU one) was defined by the introduction of console VR, all-you-can-eat game subs (even if started in PS3), cloud gaming (even if started in PS3), GaaS and F2P starting to be huge in consoles and crossplay starting to be a broad thing for most MP games. Some genres/game types -even if introduced mostly in the previous gen- started to be big like battle royale, soulslike and roguelike.

I think it's too ealy for the current generation, but I'd say that other than Nintendo focusing on their portable side and handheld PCs starting to appear, I'd say the current gen of home consoles is defined by RT, RTGI, SSD (we still haven't seen the full potential of these 3 things, but it's changing gamedev workflow and game engines, plus will enable the game design changes mentioned by Cerny when announced the PS5 tech), the consolidation with a lot of meaningful acquisitions (some already done and more to come) and -even if we still haven't seen the results- AI helpding devs to develop some tasks faster. And was introduced in the previous gen, but we'll start to see more console MP games that will also be released in mobile and even will feature console+PC+mobile crossplay (like Genshin Impact, Fortnite or PUBG).

I also think that even if we saw adaptions since Street Fighter II and Super Mario Bros, this generation will be the one were tons of movie and tv show adaptations of game IP will be released, many of them with big success, replacing the superheroes as the main cinema & tv show trend. I also think that things that will define this generation will be that it's going to be the the last one with physical home console games.

 

[Rentahamster]

What you call innovation I call dumbass gimmicks that suck. The modern consoles have plenty of innovation. In the tech. That's what matters.

 

[Crayon]

Maybe I'm wrong, but based on Road to PS5, Cerny said they took a completely different approach to PS5 hardware architecture by ensuring maximum power-consumption at all times and the architecture would cause a paradigm shift in game-design, something that would affect game-development more than the experience for end-users.

That alone sounds like quite the ambition (and it's why PS5-performance is equal to Series X).

I saw this became a back and forth.and idk how far it got, but the thing about the variable clocks and power management was more to reduce the margin of cooling and power supply needed. It indirectly increased performance, more like saving money it would have otherwise costed to support the clock speeds they wanted.

So typically you would lick the clock speed for consistency and they make sure you had the cooling and PSU overhead for spikes in load/heat. But what they did was make it so that those spikes were trimmed off by controlled throttling (variable clocks). The consistency is brought back by having those clock drops be predetermined based on a map of the worst case scenario.

So if you look at how big the PS5 was thanks to cooling needs, it would have either had.to be even bigger or had a more expensive cooler. Plus the psu and power consumption would be more just to make headroom for those spikes. What made this smart is that those spikes don't necessarily correspond to getting the best results out of the system. Hence the example of horizon's map screen making the PS4 fans go nuts.

 

[MikeM]

Plenty of innovation in consoles.

Dualsense. Wild SSD speeds. PSVR2. AutoHDR. Back compat with FPS boost. First consoles with RT.

What more do you want?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If you want the most games available big and small go PC.

Aside from console exclusives that may or may not not pop up PC, practically all console games are on PC. But same cant be said the other way around. Just skim Steam (lets say do a search for RPGs). You'll get endless more content to buy. Of course a lot of it might be crap so you got to sift through it all and try to pick good ones, but I got my share of Steam and GOG games (I probably got around 30 or so games excluding all the free GOG games. Maybe 2 of them are on consoles.

In terms of hardware, same thing. PC is where you get the most peripherals to buy. Consoles have one VR (PS). PC has had various versions of VR goggles for probably 10 years.

 

[Boss Mog]

The moral of the story is don't try to implement shit players don't want and focus on stuff they do want, which is mostly just quality games.

The majority of gamers don't want a "Netflix for games" service which is why the XBOX brand is going down the drain by trying to turn the Series X into a gamepass machine.

 

[SmokedMeat]

This isn't a console war thread, I am being completely neutral here and expect everyone else to be.

The PS3 had some weird and bold ideas(cough cough boomerang controller...) but those ideas were given a lot of flack from fans and they ended up dragging down it's sales during the first half of the 7th generation, even after Sony backtracked on some of them. The implementation of said ideas also drove the price of the PS3 up a lot, which is one of the biggest reasons why it struggled to take off the ground. This led to the Xbox 360 dominating the PS3 in sales for most of the gen.

None of this makes any sense to me. The boomerang controller, offered nothing of worth except for a poor design of form over function. It wasn’t some bold idea that Sony was going to run with. It was a placeholder that didn’t receive positive feedback.

Sony had to backtrack on the practice of sticking PS2 chips in the PS3, because it was too costly. But that’s not why the system didn’t perform well out of the gate.

- $599 for a console that was receiving worse ports than the $399 competition.
- Losing exclusivity to a shit ton of third party franchises
- Microsoft smartly snagging up timed exclusivity of the big third party releases
- A weak ass launch lineup
- PS3 Motion control sucked

There was no compelling reason to drop $599 on it. Has nothing to do with ideas. The Wii literally crushed it with fresh ideas at a great price point.

 

[Del_X]

PC gaming grew, especially in Europe. The types of gamers who would be interested in the games MSFT studios offers are largely grown men with income to buy/build a PC. There’s just no interest in “basically the same as a PS5 but with spotty first party support” when you can just have a PC and a wider variety of games. If you need a console to play SP games you get a PS5.

GAF still wildly underestimates the popularity of PC gaming. Consoles should be feature driven all-in-ones that justify their existence with sufficiently interesting gimmicks (Nintendo), otherwise they’re just uninteresting.

 

[Deputy Moonman]

What has killed the "ambition" on consoles is the development costs of a AAA, nothing more.

This and only this. Game development is an extremely expensive and risky venture these days. In the past devs could pump out many games and have a good shot of at least one being a hit. Now you make one game and if it flops the developer is at risk of going under.

 

[Crayon]

If you mix it up too much in anything gaming these days you incite rage. If a shooter comes out with jump on the square button on reload on x, it's bedlam.

The steam controller is a good example. That was met with unbridled rage before anyone got a chance to try one.

 

[LakeOf9]

Switch is not gimmicky? in what world? The entire fucking console is a gimmick

It doesn't stop being a gimmick just because you sue the gimmick lol

 

[FunkMiller]

Sony temporarily stopped wiping the floor with Xbox the one time in the recent past they tried to be overly ambitious and started wiping the floor with them again when they started playing it safe and when Xbox tried being overly ambitious.

When exactly have Microsoft tried to be overly ambitious?

 

[Clear]

Games are too complex, time-consuming and costly to make already. Requiring bespoke architecture and toolchains would magnify that severely.

Sticking with modified PC-style architectures makes the most sense, but of course with the escalating cost of that technology what can be squeezed into the manufacturing budget is somewhat limited.

That being said, PS5 particularly is very well engineered. The enhanced I/O system allowing for data to be streamed/depacked/swizzled transparently from main memory to the GPU being a particularly elegant solution allowing the relatively small (by PC standards) APU to punch well above its weight.

I find it pretty comical that people expect a $500 console to trade blows with a PC costing double or more the cost on the same workloads, and yet...

 

[rofif]

It’s a fail that consoles are used devs like budget spec pc. They set the ue editor preset to medium and that’s the console game.
360 and ps3 required clever solutions. Not just lazy devs

 

[NightmareFarm]

When exactly have Microsoft tried to be overly ambitious?

Xbox One launch

 

[hybrid_birth]

The Series consoles are selling well? Now that is news, I'd like to see your source for that claim.

 

[Raonak]

Price is the thing that drives how powerful/innovative a console will be.

A good consumer friendly price is decided then a consoles specs are built around that price point to find the best value for money.

 

[tr1p1ex]

a high price is what hurt PS3, Xbox One and Wii U.

Moral of the story is you can't include new hardware functionality that raises the price beyond what it otherwise would be... or at least you better be prepared to bet the generation on it sort to speak. The market is price sensitive. Not sure anyone has come out with a more expensive console because of a new hardware feature and won a generation.

PS3 was $200 more than the 360 and was harder to develop for. That hurt it as games looked roughly as good on the cheaper 360.
XBox One included Kinect which raised the price $100 above the PS4. That hurt it as Kinect wasn't deemed a must have.
Wii U. The gamepad controller inflated the price $100-$150 higher than it would have otherwise been and meanwhile the verdict was the Gamepad wasn't needed and that useful in most games. That hurt it. (Now ok a more tradiotional Nintendo console (like a Gamecube 2) probably would struggled anyway (but not to the degree it did.)


BTW, another thing those 3 consoles have in common is that each one followed the console's best selling generation. coincidence?

 

[FunkMiller]

Xbox One launch

A weak console that was in every way inferior to the Ps4, and used always online DRM? You call that ambitious?

 

[RoadHazard]

Actually PS3 outsold the 360 for most of its gen (except in the US and UK). It's just that the 360 had a big headstart. By the end the PS3 had caught up and passed it.

 

[RoboFu]

Nah it's just standardization and budget.

Consoles use to all have custom graphics processors up until the ps3 gen.

Now, they are not only all using standardized hardware and the two big consoles use pretty much the exact same gpus.

But also there is really no new graphical trick that would stand out if they didn't.

 

[FunkMiller]

Tell you what would have been ambitious...

...making exclusive, expertly crafted, brilliantly devised games for your powerful fucking console, that would have been superior to what the Ps5 can offer.

That's ambitious.

Making a shitbox retarded little cousin console, and thus dumbing down your entire games development is not ambitious.

Neither is setting up a bloody subscription service.

Ambition in the video games industry is making fresh and innovative games that people want to play. Microsoft have spend years and billions trying to avoid doing that at all cost because it's hard work.

They're a force of anti-ambition. They're all about the lowest common denominator. They're tasteless and corporate, and the sooner they fuck off now, the better. Let somebody else with some actual ambition bring the fight to Sony.

 

[FStubbs]

The whole industry has become stagnant cos of the expense of creating gaming experiences. When your game costs tens/hundreds of millions to make over 5 years, you cannot afford to take risks. One wrong move and your company is bust.

This drove games developers to push/demand standardised hardware platforms to maximise unit sales with minimal need to tailor/rewrite game between platforms. They needed this to make game development economic. This is why consoles have the x64 AMD chips and AMD graphics cards. Consoles are now just PC's in smaller boxes, with walled garden OS's to keep consumers trapped in Sony/Microsoft ecosystems.

Software developers now just develop one game and amend a few config scripts to get it working to the right performance on the (minimal) differences between PC and console.

I realised the Switch might be the exception to this in most ways, but I think the general point still stands.

It's not an exception. Just replace PC with mobile.

 

[Lupin3]

The PS3 had some weird and bold ideas(cough cough boomerang controller

I'm not so sure I'd qualify that weird ass looking Hulk Hogan moustache of a controller as bold. But yeah, weird, sure! 100%.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Not buying the sentiment of the title at all. Lack of competition leads to stagnation, not the other way around. The fear of potentially getting out designed by a competitor fuels the R&D push to get the best performance at the price point as possible. Lack of this pressure results in higher prices and smaller gains (see the desktop GPU space or Intel before AMD released Ryzen).

 

[fart town usa]

I dunno. Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS5 are all amazing consoles that tried some interesting things.

I can't speak for Xbox because I don't own their modern devices but I have no doubt that they are baller pieces of hardware.

Games are the things that aren't ambitious these days. I have no issues with consoles.