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[Shmunter]

Ryan McCaffrey (IGN): I was wrong to drink the "current-gen won't hold next-gen back" Kool-Aid




Myself as someone that was facepalming at PC users and Phill Spencer misrepresenting scalability as a solution to not holding back game design across hardware specifications, I’m glad to see higher profile voices waking up and calling out the misinformation campaign. Phil Spencer - “Generational exclusives is terrible for gaming. Older hardware holding back games is a meme and not true at all”


Don’t hold back our hobby, demand inter generational leaps of advancement for the betterment of games! The opportunities don’t come around all that often.

 

[Warnen]

Good for you, sincerely. But I fail to see how that has any bearing on the point that I have made?

I agree, I fail to see the point in your remarks.

 

[Shmunter]

Edit: n/a

 

[SF Kosmo]

I think the One X and PS4 Pro could probably handle a lot of next gen games at 1080p, but I don't think Sony or MS are willing to use these systems this way.

 

[trikster40]

Tomorrow at IGN: Maybe Sony has it right by only allowing the DualSense to play PS5 games.

 

[Shmunter]

Tomorrow at IGN: Maybe Sony has it right by only allowing the DualSense to play PS5 games.

However the DualSense adoption turns out. Making it a baseline is the only chance for giving it a proper thrust forward.

If it were optional, it’s dead out the door. There is no question forcing technical standards is the right decision.

 

[KURDISTAN YPG]

this is why i dont give flying fucks what this simple ass people say, fucking basic bitch, even a none technical guy couldv told you this, system from 2013 fuck ign

 

[MrS]

People are really giving him shit for this? Admitting you're wrong is something we should all be brave enough to do when warranted.

Most of us aren't so gullible that we believe every Phil Spencer utterance in the first place. Ryan simply didn't do his homework. The layman understands that current gen will hold back new gen because it's old ass tech and way more complex than "muh sliders". Surely even the most smooth-brained IGN editor should be able to work that out before disseminating Xbox PR lines.

 

[Warnen]

It’s almost like the majority of game journalists are really just advertising products... Who would have thought.

 

[MrS]

Post deleted as it was merged from the other thread.

 

[MarkMe2525]

nevermind.. good day

 

[MHubert]

I don't know that Shadow of Mordor is a "clear cut" example, as I'm not sure what had to be sacrificed in order to get it on last-gen hardware?

The Nemesis System is cool and complex as an amazing spreadsheet tapestry of possibilities and interactions, but I feel much of it could have been done (or certainly done better) on last-gen hardware (though Monolith says otherwise,..) they just didn't budget and scope it out for that. They farmed past-gen out to an external developer (a developer that regularly churned out remake-ports instead of carefully converted port-downs, including Mercenaries 2 PS2 and Dante's Inferno PSP,) they had a game built on an in-house engine (Monolith has licensed out its LithTech engine, and of course LithTech does run on the last-gen hardware of the time, but I believe SoM was ported using Behaviour's own engine at the time?), and they just didn't prioritize the past-gen versions as important SKUs compared to the one Monolith worked on itself.

Things are a little different now. A game being made in Unreal Engine 4 or current Unity can be used to build multiple versions of the same product, and even tested to see how a build and test scenarios would generate on different hardware. (I would assume Slipspace Engine had both Xbox One and Xbox Series X testing systems.) And if you have one of the popular development suites, you can work with people across the globe and share assets and code without forking the project to death every time somebody in a different timezone makes a change. A developer couldn't faithfully port Shadow of Mordor if it truly was impossible, but you wouldn't just be handing off your assets and design docs to a studio off in another country and saying, "Good luck!"

You are right, at some point you scale beyond the range of the console gap, and then not everything is 'scalable'. But most PC gamers (I'm a console guy, so I'm just going by min/max specs) would say there's surprisingly a lot that can be done within that range before the gap is impossible to jump. And that's just for pure runable code on flexible machines; get an expert porting studio to carefully target a set console spec and it's possible to work wonders... just not miracles.
[/QUOTE/]

You do know, since the nemesis system was THE sacrifice. Evolution in current game design requires an elevation in hardware at SOME POINT.

Your logic basically argues that any current gen game doesn't run on every conceivable hardware because of unoptimization.

 

[RoboFu]

But that’s not last gen Holden next gen back. It’s a developmental choice to find a middle ground that works best for both. Think of it as a slider ... the more you target the high end hardware the worse low end will look in comparison.

 

[Njocky]

Being held back does not seem to keep Cyberpunk and Valhalla to be some of the most anticipated games of the end of the year ON NEXT GEN CONSOLES.
Ryan doesn't know what he's talking about here and it's obvious. His statement is not the result of any technical enlightenment or newly discovered expert knowledge.

 

[Hendrick's]

He's also the same Doncabesa who is a member of a certain Discord FUD group, this guys are clowns

Are you actually expecting games in 2021 to actually be taking any significant advantage of the hardware? You must have been born this gen to believe that.

 

[Shmunter]

Are you actually expecting games in 2021 to actually be taking any significant advantage of the hardware? You must have been born this gen to believe that.

Happened with PS4, e.g. Killzone Shadowfall. Why expect something different this time? Especially if SSD is supposed to decrease dev complexity.

 

[Vroadstar]

Are you actually expecting games in 2021 to actually be taking any significant advantage of the hardware? You must have been born this gen to believe that.

PS5 games will take advantage of the hardware unless you are still one of those people who during PS event when they showed games for PS5 "that will work with PS4" crowd, which is not surprising coming from you.

 

[jigglet]

Most of us aren't so gullible that we believe every Phil Spencer utterance in the first place. Ryan simply didn't do his homework. The layman understands that current gen will hold back new gen because it's old ass tech and way more complex than "muh sliders". Surely even the most smooth-brained IGN editor should be able to work that out before disseminating Xbox PR lines.

I would still rather live in a world where people are ok with admitting they were wrong, rather than doubling down on stupid shit.

 

[Astral Dog]

I'm shocked that anyone who has been around for a while couldn't see this on day 1 of the PR spin. You don't even really need to be some expert in software engineering or anything. It's common sense.

Watching so many people drink the Kool-Aid was such a bizarre phase, but I'm glad we're already past it. Next up, we need people to start admitting that a 4TF baseline console that all 3rd parties have to set as their target will hold things back, too.

That won't happen before its too late Microsoft might the XBO version of HALO Infinite but they won't hold back on Lockhart.

We will get games designed to run at 1080p on 4TF and 7.5 GBRAM, though this isn't so bad some developers will think twice if they, for example want to release a 1080p 30fps game that pushes the XSX/PS5 to its knees in effects, geometry, lightning, etc

 

[Investor9872]

Lets see if phil also admits if he was wrong or not

Regardless of what Phil Spencer is willing to admit, all of these missteps leading up to and after the Halo Infinite debacle is enough for people to say that Phil Spencer has to go, and rightly so.

After seeing the Sony's PS5 exclusive game event, Phil stated that was very happy and confident about the XB Series X after that Sony event. And then Phil and his team hyped up the XB Indie event only for it to fall flat, followed by their own 1st-party event with Halo Infinite that overall was a massive letdown, with little to nothing that convinced people to pickup the next XB at launch.

 

[Jerm411]

 

[NullZ3r0]

I'm sorry, but it's patently clear that MS is not a gaming company. They sell hardware and games, but they're not a gaming company. All of this so they can bulk up gamepass across all their platforms.

They've sacrificed their greatest IP at this gamepass alter and let a studio slit its own throat to try and make this work.

MS does not have gaming in its DNA.

MS was in gaming long before Sony. You're ignorant.

 

[MrFunSocks]

Wait people want phil spencer to resign because of Halo? seriously? lol You know there are a whole bunch of other people in between Phil Spencer and 343 that are to blame for anything going on there, right?

Shit maybe we should be calling for Satya's head too?

 

[JonnyMP3]

Looks like a weird old ass Drake from Drake and Josh...

 

[farmerboy]

MS was in gaming long before Sony. You're ignorant.

Nah mate, but that's only my opinion.

They had some really good people who started XBOX and that division. People with passion. But they've made increasingly stupid decisions since then and it truly beggars belief.

 

[Entroyp]

Did his application to MS get declined?

Check bounced

 

[Kumomeme]

 

[CamHostage]

You do know, since the nemesis system was THE sacrifice. Evolution in current game design requires an elevation in hardware at SOME POINT.

Your logic basically argues that any current gen game doesn't run on every conceivable hardware because of unoptimization.

No, not at all. A smart developer can do some very impressive things with scaling (or in the case of Xbox, separate execuiteables) and porting consideration, but if a game exceeds the capabilities of the hardware, it is what it is.

...All I'm saying is, I hear Shadow of Mordor talked about all the time as proof of some example of porting challenges, but if I were asked whether it was the hardware's fault or the developer of Naughty Bear and Wet that this port was busted, I'd feel 99% safe pointing at the developer.



Shadow of Mordor 360/PS3 had all kinds of problems besides just a crippled Nemesis system. Nemesis system was the intentional compromise, but stuff is just missing or broken or built wrong. (And I'm not saying that Behaviour/A2M was a terrible developer back then, as there's stuff of theirs that I liked, but having played their PSP Dante's Inferno which looks nice but has fundamentally unplaytested glitches like no play effect of the "punish or absolve" system. And the less said about their PS2 version of Mercenaries 2, the better. They weren't the studio you'd go to for polished, technically capable ports.)

When I think of the Nemesis system, I think of its complexity and its richness of production elements, but I don't know that I think "next-gen power", or that it's such a rich and present database that it couldn't be replicated on console hardware that could track character choices/interactions across three complete Mass Effect games. I'm not seeing too many reviews from that period which say the cutbacks in PS3/360 felt reasonable to them, or that the product has any reason to exist if such compromises were required to make it play on past-gen.

Last-gen revisited: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

We did it because no one else would. Paying a total of £80 from our own pockets for Shadow of Mordor on PS3 and Xbox 36…

www.eurogamer.net

Ports down from Xbox One to Xbox 360 were quite rangey. Performance was of course often the biggest differentiator in the short time that publishers supported both platforms (in the time before developers pushed the boundaries beyond the outdated hardware's capabilities, or else the financial incentive to bother to try had dried up,) but there were also cutbacks and other sacrifices. Instead of always mentioning the pathetic Shadow of Mordor port, I'd rather we looked at more indicative and accomplished ports like...

Forza Horizon 2 (by Sumo Digital.) It ran fine and mostly looked nice, but the world could sometimes be a little empty. Sumo quietly changed a lot about the car handling and the festival circuit campaign in their version (it's more arcadey, and it avoids open offroad racing events where it can even though the offroad stretches are there on the map,) presumably to get the most out of 360 instead of attempting an unflattering 1:1 port from Xbox One. You could say it was the best that could be done with old hardware, except that FH1 on 360 arguably looked better.

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And Titanfall (by Bluepoint.) The Xbox One game that pretty much sold us on next-gen being here and amazing ended up porting down real well in the hands of good talent. It may not be 100% perfect, but it's nearly impossible to complain about.

Tech Interview: Titanfall on Xbox 360

The inside story of how Bluepoint Games managed to squeeze Titanfall onto Xbox 360 without compromising the heart of the game.

www.eurogamer.net

 

[quest]

Nah mate, but that's only my opinion.

They had some really good people who started XBOX and that division. People with passion. But they've made increasingly stupid decisions since then and it truly beggars belief.

And those people had the financial backing of the company. I don't care how passionate you are if you have no budget to go against Sony it's over. As great as peter Moore and Andrew house were they would met the same fate with zero budget and 4 studios left after Don's failure and budget purge by the CEO while he was considering what to do with the division. Not everyone gets to step into what jim "money hat" Ryan did a dream job taking over the 1920s Yankees murderers row. Now take over a 1 win team with no draft picks or cap space that is a true challenge.

 

[Entroyp]

Do IGN editors go against the status quo of their respective sponsors? (MS, Sony, or Nintendo)?

Could this mean we can expect a Statement from MS in the lines of “We listened to our fans and first party devs have the option to skip the Xone”

 

[itsjustJEFF]

I just wonder who these "people" are Good on him for saying something like that about the platform he clearly loves. He acknowledges his platforms flaw(s) and wants the best for it. I think people can start just blatantly call him a straight up fanboy.

 

[aries_71]

Wtf do you mean, are you telling me a ferrari engine from 10 years ago is holding back the newer model, fuck out of here what are you thinking....

:/
:S

Well, it’s not like the Xbox One was much of a Ferrari to begin with...

 

[Team Andromeda]

Well, it’s not like the Xbox One was much of a Ferrari to begin with...

Even it limited GPU was still a big jump as the was the amount of memory.

 

[lock2k]

Halo is dead anyway.

 

[Team Andromeda]

It's wrong to think that AAA next-gen system seller gaming ship on the day a console is 1st released to the world.
Not like the PS4, 360, PS2, PS, Mega Drive had AAA games on day one. All SONY and MS need to do, is to have at least one game that shows off some flash graphics not possible on the last-gen.

 

[DarkMage619]

Do IGN editors go against the status quo of their respective sponsors? (MS, Sony, or Nintendo)?

Could this mean we can expect a Statement from MS in the lines of “We listened to our fans and first party devs have the option to skip the Xone”

Care to list those X1 games being forced to be developed?

 

[supernova8]

I am stilling thinking this is a false narrative. Can anyone show me a game that is currently being held back by previous generation hardware? GTA V came out on 360, PS3, X1 and PS4. It was an open world cross generational title and I don't remember anyone talking about it being held back. With the XSX MS has given 3rd parties the choice on where they want to do their software. Unless someone can show where a developer was forced to make a game on old hardware this 'held back' thing IS a meme.

Before anyone talks about Halo Infinite remember that game has been in development for FIVE years. Was the XSX a complete hardware platform with mature tools that could have been developed on five years ago?

Come on just look at RDR2 vs GTAV they are worlds apart. GTAV was a good looking last-gen game but it only looks nice on PC where you can install all kinds of mods that would never run on current gen systems.

 

[Thicc Enigma]

SHOCKED

 

[supernova8]

Care to list those X1 games being forced to be developed?

By virtue of being on the Xbox payroll they are not really free to develop whatever they want. Probably the same for Playstation studios but for Spencer to keep saying the studios are free to target what they want is clearly horseshit because otherwise none of them would make an Xbox One version. Why would they want to?

 

[longdi]

We should not be confused by this IGN guy latest rant. Lets look with clearer thoughts

Cross gen games at the start of a gen, are always present, and it gets tougher as tech gets more complicated, engines become more scalable, but costs still goes up, volume is needed.
Last gen, the limitation was the jagcores, which are now woefully weaker than your phone.
Previous gen, was the memory and gpu holding back.

Phil end game about 'not leaving players behind' is the xcloud backend, once the system goes online and field tested and toughend, by the time of Series X2, thats when you will see his visions clearly right in front of you.

 

[DarkMage619]

By virtue of being on the Xbox payroll they are not really free to develop whatever they want. Probably the same for Playstation studios but for Spencer to keep saying the studios are free to target what they want is clearly horseshit because otherwise none of them would make an Xbox One version. Why would they want to?

I gotcha now let me see that list of X1 forced games please. Remember Halo Infinite started development five years ago when XSX did not exist.

Come on just look at RDR2 vs GTAV they are worlds apart. GTAV was a good looking last-gen game but it only looks nice on PC where you can install all kinds of mods that would never run on current gen systems.

I disagree. I am still waiting to see this list of X1 games holding back next gen. People keep saying it and I still don't see the evidence.

MS is not forcing any 3rd parties to make cross gen games and MS themselves has really 1 cross gen game in Halo which is really an X1 game that is getting a XSX patch. It's much ado about nothing. But so many are 'concerned'. I can't wait for these consoles to come out.

What?

People are saying X1 games are holding next gen back. I'd like to see this list of games.

 

[Entroyp]

Care to list those X1 games being forced to be developed?

What?

 

[supernova8]

It's not really him drinking the Kool-Aid that annoys me. It's that big outlets like Gamespot and IGN really do nothing these days except essentially act as a PR forwarding service for publishers and platform holders. There's practically no investigative journalism whatsoever. There's no genuine difficult questions asked to developers about stuff.

The last time I remember anything like that was back when Geoff Keighley absolutely killed Don Mattrick in that Xbox One interview. I've seen no mainstream gaming news folks actually confronting Xbox on their extended (forced) cross-gen nonsense.

 

[genesisblock]

It is very interesting to hear the argument that "cross-gen" games do not hold back next-gen development when the very nature of it's state was meant to work across both consoles. Placing TLOU/GTAV as examples fall short when Uncharted 4, RDR2, The Witcher 3 and the TLOU2 would've made the argument redundant.

And yet it appears, they are giving too much credit on current gen hardware. Even looking at current-gen games at the highest level settings fall short of that Unreal Engine 5 demo as well as Horizon: Forbidden Wilds.

The question is right now, "what" exactly is scalable down to hardware and what isn't. Mark Cerny's last PS5 spec reveal shows the SSD would dramatically give freedom to developers to make levels with minimum constraint. Does this mean that with some "optimizations" and some magic sprinkle dust the PS4 would be able to run that level without compromise???

 

[MrFunSocks]

By virtue of being on the Xbox payroll they are not really free to develop whatever they want. Probably the same for Playstation studios but for Spencer to keep saying the studios are free to target what they want is clearly horseshit because otherwise none of them would make an Xbox One version. Why would they want to?

I think you misread the question.

Which first party games that are in development at MS are coming to the Xbox One and Series X?

The answer to that will show you that no one at MS is being forced to make current gen versions of their games.

The answer is Halo Infinite, btw. That's it. The rest are next gen only.

 

[Entroyp]

I gotcha now let me see that list of X1 forced games please. Remember Halo Infinite started development five years ago when XSX did not exist.


I disagree. I am still waiting to see this list of X1 games holding back next gen. People keep saying it and I still don't see the evidence.

MS is not forcing any 3rd parties to make cross gen games and MS themselves has really 1 cross gen game in Halo which is really an X1 game that is getting a XSX patch. It's much ado about nothing. But so many are 'concerned'. I can't wait for these consoles to come out.


People are saying X1 games are holding next gen back. I'd like to see this list of games.

Oh, you think it’s a meme then

 

[supernova8]

I disagree. I am still waiting to see this list of X1 games holding back next gen. People keep saying it and I still don't see the evidence.

Well you can disagree but you'd be in the tiny minority. Besides, Halo is the flagship Xbox game. Also it's not really clear (because of Microsoft's terrible communications) which games are definitely Series X console exclusive. Avowed was shown as coming to Xbox One as was Everwild I believe. Psychonauts 2 is also coming to current gen.

I suppose part of the annoyance is a mix of Xbox saying their games would be cross-gen but also them not really showing any gameplay that looks next-gen at all. The stuff that looks next-gen looked more like CGI than in-engine or in-game. So you can maybe understand why people are wondering what Xbox is hiding. If they're behind schedule then why? Since Sony managed to put out either gameplay or in-engine stuff (running on PS5).

 

[DarkMage619]

Well you can disagree but you'd be in the tiny minority. Besides, Halo is the flagship Xbox game. Also it's not really clear (because of Microsoft's terrible communications) which games are definitely Series X console exclusive. Avowed was shown as coming to Xbox One as was Everwild I believe. Psychonauts 2 is also coming to current gen.

I suppose part of the annoyance is a mix of Xbox saying their games would be cross-gen but also them not really showing any gameplay that looks next-gen at all. The stuff that looks next-gen looked more like CGI than in-engine or in-game. So you can maybe understand why people are wondering what Xbox is hiding. If they're behind schedule then why? Since Sony managed to put out either gameplay or in-engine stuff (running on PS5).

So like MrFunSocks said it's ONE X1 game and that single title is holding back next gen? How can this not be a meme. One game is holding back next gen development? I can't believe you guys are serious.

 

[supernova8]

Which first party games that are in development at MS are coming to the Xbox One and Series X?

Actually they just changed their messaging in the last month or so. As late as mid June/July they were claiming that first party titles would be cross-gen. Then they said it's up to developers then they Aaron Greenscreen said all first party games would be 'designed with Series X' in mind (just like Halo was, eh?). So honestly I don't believe a word they say at this moment in time. You can hardly blame me.

 

[supernova8]

So like MrFunSocks said it's ONE X1 game and that single title is holding back next gen? How can this not be a meme. One game is holding back next gen development? I can't believe you guys are serious.

I mentioned two additional and you completely ignored them.