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[IbizaPocholo]

Platinum boss says next-gen consoles ‘more of the same’ | VGC

Inaba finding it “hard to get excited” for next Xbox and PlayStation…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Speaking to VGC at E3, Platinum’s Inaba said it’s this move towards ‘off-the-shelf’ architecture that has dampened his enthusiasm for new consoles.

Without the custom chips of previous hardware generations, new consoles are made up of “stuff that… already exists”, he said.

Asked for his reaction to the platform holders’ plans, Inaba said: “It’s OK. And by that I mean, I’m sure that things will move faster, graphics will be better and maybe it will be easier with less wait times… that’s good for the consumer.

“But it’s more of the same, quite frankly, compared to previous generations. It’s nothing that’s disruptive or super innovative, if you ask me.”

He added: “Game hardware used to be about custom chips that you couldn’t do on PCs. Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists.

“The Switch, for example, is a Tegra which already existed and the other consoles are using very similar chips and graphics cards to what you see on PCs, but maybe slightly updated. None of it seems unique to that hardware anymore.”

The Platinum boss said he’s more excited about the “innovation” presented by cloud platforms such as Google’s Stadia.

“It’s hard to get excited about stuff that kind of already exists, but has been repurposed to a certain degree,” he said.

“That’s why for me, things like cloud platforms represent innovation and something very, very different – they’re platforms that excite me and where I feel there is a lot more innovation happening.”

Not unexpectedly, Microsoft is bullish about the potential of new consoles, with Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty claiming their arrival could be “as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D”.

Booty said: “We’re probably sitting on a pivot point in game design, when you add up the new console’s speed and performance, what cloud streaming will offer up… all that in combination with some of the hardware stuff could be as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D”.

 

[wvnative]

i see this as a positive, by not reinventing the wheel too much, it allows devs to focus more on actual creativity, then fooling with new tech.

 

[Dynasty8]

Next PS and Xbox consoles will just be stronger versions of the current consoles. I'm totally fine with that though. I want to see developers, especially first party studios, create their visions with less restrictions.

 

[pr0cs]

Not sure why anyone would want to go back to the days of custom architecture where all your purchases were obsoleted and it took years for developers to make use of the exotic architecture.
I'd rather Devs be productive building compelling software and start actually leveraging it faster and earlier.
We need games to start using compelling AI, days of retard spec game ai should be long gone yet here we are nearing the turn of the decade and most games still have terribad ai

 

[DynamiteCop!]

I love the double think from these people.

"We want more complicated systems that are interesting and unique, not more of the same"

Then they complain when something like the PlayStation 3 or Xbox One hit the market.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Devs get exotic hardware, they complain.

Devs get easy to program for, they complain.

Devs wanting exotic hardware again...



My advice to these mental gymnastics by developers. Step up to the plate and innovate more with the powerful hardware and tools you are handed. The onus is on you at the end of the day.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

I don't get it. The ultimate goal regardless of the system is to display polygons on a screen, why does it matter if the hardware is custom made or bought off the shelf at Microcenter?

 

[Verdanth]

Not only consoles, but also games.

 

[Pejo]

Lol because everyone loved developing on the Cell, right?

 

[makaveli60]

Really? So what is that he cannot do with these machines and could only do with so called exotic ones? And then he finds the streaming bullshit interesting... yeah it's so innovative, it does nothing more than existing platforms, except adding lag, down times when you can't play and all the other Orwellian shit. Funny.

 

[Hendrick's]

He's right, we need Cell 2.0

 

[llien]

Who has EVER asked for a quirky hardware,show me that person.

This rant beats even the "oh. So consoles will have GPU that is slower than the one that costs $1300"

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Hardware innovation isn't always what pushes the industry forward. NES was made from off-the-shelf, cheap parts. Wii was made from two Gamecubes duct-taped together.

 

[Breakage]

Platinum Games has never made a game that has pushed console hardware to the limits, so it's not surprising that they are unenthusiastic about next gen.

 

[Chozofication_]

Back in the day consoles needed exotic designs to maximize gaming capability. In 2006 PC hardware became so power consumptive and capable that even if you made an exotic console, it still couldn't match or beat PC given thermal limits.

There's no point in exotic designs anymore besides to waste money on r&d and possibly make software development take longer, and/or suffer in quality.

 

[NickFire]

I honestly see this as a good thing.

 

[Bryank75]

Talks about innovation and has sections of gameplay where you're just kicking a wall for 5 minutes to make it all light up...
Innovation must be on the game side, look at what they can get out of a base PS4. Then there is VR... Astrobot, Moss, Beat saber, Tetris effect etc plenty for him to work with.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

Booty said: “We’re probably sitting on a pivot point in game design, when you add up the new console’s speed and performance, what cloud streaming will offer up… all that in combination with some of the hardware stuff could be as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D”.

so games are going to suddenly look like ass and play like shit and it will be 10+ years before they don't look entirely embarrassing?

 

[vkbest]

This guy didn’t complain with cell?

 

[thelastword]

Devs get exotic hardware, they complain.

Devs get easy to program for, they complain.

Devs wanting exotic hardware again...



My advice to these mental gymnastics by developers. Step up to the plate and innovate more with the powerful hardware and tools you are handed. The onus is on you at the end of the day.

We should give him a 32 core Cell CPU with a 16 core Cell GPU........+ a 4 core Cell chip for A.I and a 4 core Cell Chip for physics.........That would not be more of the same....Would love his thoughts then....

 

[Rodolink]

It just shows more about how a medium evolves through history. Look at cinema (i know is the first thing to compare in media classes at university) but passed through almost the same cycles.
Disruptive innovations like the Wii for example would be harder to adopt.

 

[DeepEnigma]

We should give him a 32 core Cell CPU with a 16 core Cell GPU........+ a 4 core Cell chip for A.I and a 4 core Cell Chip for physics.........That would not be more of the same....Would love his thoughts then....

Don't forget new exotic ram pathways to make their heads spin, etc..

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Oh I want to throw something else out there, this is coming from the developer that couldn't even get Nier Automata to run at 1080p 60 FPS on the PS4 Pro and their performance target for development was 60 FPS, not some later added conceptual framerate target...

I've said it about a hundred times by now, the Japanese development community are a poor community for anything relating to hardware engineering or developing games around it. They've been getting dumped on by the west for well over a decade.

• Switch: Conceptually spawned from the west
• PlayStation 4: Designed in the west and built in the west
• Xbox One: Designed in the west and built in the west

The Japanese come up with dumb shit like the PlayStation 3, they convolute their hardware engineering, they convolute their software engineering and seem completely foreign to the concept of optimization.

 

[StormCell]

He's simply pining over nostalgia for a past when limitations guided innovation. If you were handed 3 colors to paint with, you would find workarounds and do things in a way that would make no sense with a full color palette, but because of limitations you would be praised rather than panned for doing things in a sub-optimal manner.

Frankly, the ease of the modern platforms has given way to a lot of templated design. I also liked it better when they made games because it was rather cool that they could make such a game as opposed to the market we have today where almost anything is possible but only a small subset of those possibilities is really profitable... I mean, F this homogeneous market. I've got a few really, really very good games a lot of same-ish stuff I continue to ignore.

 

[Ryllix_]

The non-excitement of the next gen is exciting in itself. It is simply more powerful versions of what we have. Good, now we can have full backwards compatibility and easier development times for devs who don't need to figure out unnecessary nonsense like the cell processor.

 

[Wimbledon]

Is Google Stadia that impressive?

 

[Väinömäinen]

Mmmm! Platinum game with an extra 130ms input lag!

 

[ROMhack]

Not only consoles, but also games.

Especially Platinum's.

Amirightfellas.jpeg

 

[Airbus Jr]

Oh I want to throw something else out there, this is coming from the developer that couldn't even get Nier Automata to run at 1080p 60 FPS on the PS4 Pro and their performance target for development was 60 FPS, not some later added conceptual framerate target...

I've said it about a hundred times by now, the Japanese development community are a poor community for anything relating to hardware engineering or developing games around it. They've been getting dumped on by the west for well over a decade.

• Switch: Conceptually spawned from the west
• PlayStation 4: Designed in the west and built in the west
• Xbox One: Designed in the west and built in the west

The Japanese come up with dumb shit like the PlayStation 3, they convolute their hardware engineering, they convolute their software engineering and seem completely foreign to the concept of optimization.

Dude youre talking so much crap

Just let it go man

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Dude youre talking so much crap

Just let it go man

Please highlight inaccuracies.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Please highlight inaccuracies.

Uh that Xbox is the greatest?

Isnt that what exatly you want to hear from us?( im basing this from you history post)

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Uh that Xbox is the greatest?

Is that what exatly you want to hear from us?

What about that post lends any credence to that kind of inference from me?

 

[angelic]

Please highlight inaccurrcies.

Not a problem.

 

[Airbus Jr]

What about that post lends any credence to that kind of inference from me?

And what precisely you want to achieve here?

Trying to make a statement that Japanese arent capable of making videogame hardware?

 

[DynamiteCop!]

And what precisely you want to achieve here?

Trying to make a statement that Japanese arent capable of making videogame hardware?

They haven't been able to develop any competent console since the early 2000's, they've had to go to the west for engineering and incite. As far as software is concerned they equally have issues with knowing where to tow the line and how to optimize their products. They commonly set framerate targets they can't even remotely achieve even though they're the basis of development, they can't seem to work out frame pacing, they can't seem to work out framerate caps, they can't seem to work out competent reconstruction methods or checkerboard rendering, most of the work they do ends up looking quite inferior to western rendering techniques.

It's been a problem for quite some time.

 

[Airbus Jr]

They haven't been able to develop any competent console since the early 2000's, they've had to go to the west for engineering and incite. As far as software is concerned they equally have issues with knowing where to tow the line and how to optimize their products. They commonly set framerate targets they can't even remotely achieve even though they're the basis of development, they can't seem to work out frame pacing, they can't seem to work out framerate caps, they can't seem to work out competent reconstruction methods or checkerboard rendering, most of the work they do ends up looking quite inferior to western rendering techniques.

It's been a problem for quite some time.

Im curious to hear whats your opinion on the Xbox 360 who have incredible RRod failure rate?

 

[DynamiteCop!]

As oposed to the Xbox 360 who have incredible failure rate?

That wasn't a competency problem, it was a phenomenal piece of engineering the issue for that system resided in the manufacturing to get them out as quickly as possible to beat Sony to the market.

Notice the subsequent models didn't have those issues?

 

[Airbus Jr]

That wasn't a competency problem, it was a phenomenal piece of engineering the issue for that system resided in the manufacturing to get them out as quickly as possible to beat Sony to the market.

Notice the subsequent models didn't have those issues?

Sorry but i began to noticed your incredible biass toward xbox and anything not xbox

Hard to take your words seriously with that attitude bro

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Sorry but i began to noticed your incredible biass toward xbox and anything not xbox

Hard to take your words seriously with that attitude bro

No you just don't like facts that combat your perceived reality and you're looking for an easy out.

 

[Airbus Jr]

No you just don't like facts that combat your perceived reality and you're looking for an easy out.

Jesus why most xbox people on Neogaf always behave like this?

Insecure much?

Xbox isa best baby..my favourite box..

There...feel better now?

 

[joe_zazen]

His point is:
“Game hardware used to be about custom chips that you couldn’t do on PCs. Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists....It’s hard to get excited about stuff that kind of already exists,”

And, well, isnt it? Like the only thing tech wise that is exciting and interesting about next consoles is the memory set up because of nvme ssds and the rest is, well, pretty dull. It isn't bad, just boring.

 

[sublimit]

“That’s why for me, things like cloud platforms represent innovation and something very, very different – they’re platforms that excite me and where I feel there is a lot more innovation happening.”

I expected better from Inaba-san.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

 

[Fbh]

Ah, yes. The good old times when consoles like the Ps3 used weird custom hardware:

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Jesus why most xbox people on Neogaf always behave like this?

Insecure much?

Xbox isa best baby..my favourite box..

There...feel better now?

It's clear you have nothing to say so why not stop talking.

 

[Airbus Jr]

It's clear you have nothing to say so why not stop talking.

At this point we really dont understand what your talking about or what makes you so upset

Just take a deep breath and relax buddy

King Xbox has been dominating everything so no need for you to worry

 

[Pagusas]

Hes an engineer at heart. Engineers like challenges and new things to tinker with. I can’t blame him for being a little less passionate about things he’a already use to.

 

[Airbus Jr]

It's clear you have nothing to say so why not stop talking.

Here let me show you my love for Xbox

Ima keep pressing the X button

 

[Deleted member 752119]

i see this as a positive, by not reinventing the wheel too much, it allows devs to focus more on actual creativity, then fooling with new tech.

Same. And makes BC easy which is something consoles always lacked compared to PCs, and makes it easier to upgrade sooner as you can sell of current consoles and finish up current gen games on the shiny next gen boxes.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Ah, yes. The good old times when consoles like the Ps3 used weird custom hardware:

Platinum didn't even want to develop PS3 Bayoneta so Sega had to do the quick port job themselves and that was the result.