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The official Crossgen Rant thread

I don't have a Switch so i don't care. And i haven't bought an Xbox since 2008 and don't plan to buy one anytime soon considering what MS are doing.

Why is it always this excuse of "the other also do nothing" stuff. This doesn't justify the BS of infinite crossgen by Sony.

Some indés devs already making full next gen games, but Sony still blocked to PS4 gen and can't move on.

Because sony is the only platform that has put out any ‘next gen’ games so far.
 
We saw its influence a bit already, just nothing transformative yet. Like in Spider-Man they no longer needed little buffer areas between interiors and the exterior open world (the pointless hallway or elevator that gives the app time to dump memory and load what's coming, etc). Ratchet and Clank showed how entire levels are just seconds away now, if not instant.

I just wish Sony would commit more of their studios to designing games only for the PSr5 moving forward. Too many games are cross gen, so all we get for the PS5 version is the same PS4 Pro game with slightly better graphics, possibly RT, and typically 60 fps. It's getting old.

Edit: oh yea, and haptics and no load times. All nice, but we need a new gen already
I think it may have influenced the upcoming game Forspoken's design. There are certain things in that game which I do not see being possible on 8th gen consoles.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Because sony is the only platform that has put out any ‘next gen’ games so far.
they aren't, as little as MS has Flight Simulator is still a Series X/S exclusive title, you can't play it on an Xbox One.

this is proving my point though, out of all the PS5 launch library a significant portion of them can be played on PS4. Ratchet, Returnal, Flight Sim, Astro boy, and Demons souls are the only few truly next gen games.
 

SSfox

Member
Because sony is the only platform that has put out any ‘next gen’ games so far.
Yeah they put some great exclusive like DmS and Returnal
PrdyUnT.jpg


But yet there are still some crossgen title, and Hermen didn't even confirme that GOWR is the last Crossgen title
Yvei3H5.jpg
 
It can.
Traveling to multiple worlds, adding more complex cities and maps(dungeons), more crowded npc. The ideas are limiteless. Its up to devs, on what they can achieve.

The hard drive has limits, but the SD doesnt as of now.

I just wish we get to the point, where you travel between cities without any loading, and get in to the game instant.
I wish in Rift Apart it showed off the SSD capabilites more clearly by letting the player manually create portals between planets rather than using the ship.

But, there is definitely potential.
 

sachos

Member
Why is it always this excuse of "the other also do nothing" stuff. This doesn't justify the BS of infinite crossgen by Sony.
Oh, now i get why people deny the obvious effect cross-gen support has on next gen game design. People, stop weaponizing something like cross-gen for your petty console wars, it leads you to deny reality if it does not support your platform of choice. The reality is that cross-gen shackles are platform agnostic.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Why is it always this excuse of "the other also do nothing" stuff. This doesn't justify the BS of infinite crossgen by Sony.
Yeah, if anything this should be calling to attention the general lack of next gen the industry has. When even Sony has very little intention of making PS5 exclusives, and the other hasn't even put out more than 1 game, its a clear light shone on how absolutely fucking starved we are on next gen content

It's all just a bunch of greed. Developers would benefit from not being held back by the PS4 and Xbone, but they don't want to abandon the 150+ million userbase these past gen consoles have fostered, even though they were fine doing that years ago. And the whole "no one can buy a PS5/Xbox Series" excuse falls flat on its face when you consider that the PS5 and series S are selling like hot cakes and have been each company's most successful endeavors, the PS5 has broken 20 million already in under 2 years. The only excuse we have is the pandemic and that's been sorted out now.
 
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sachos

Member
I wish in Rift Apart it showed off the SSD capabilites more clearly by letting the player manually create portals between planets rather than using the ship.
I've thought about this, it looks to be a prime candidate for an updated feature in a possible sequel no? Hope they can achieve something like that by the end of the generation.
 
I've thought about this, it looks to be a prime candidate for an updated feature in a possible sequel no? Hope they can achieve something like that by the end of the generation.
Yeah, it's a shame tbh. RA felt like it could almost be done on 8th gen. Almost. We'll just have to wait for more next gen games to come out to see the full capabilites of the next gen consoles.
 

CamHostage

Member
It's not about the graphics, graphics are often one of the most scalable aspects of games. It's mostly stuff like that GOW thing, needing those constant annoying hidden loading screens because the game needs to be designed for the slow HDD on the Ps4.

You still have to design new engines for an expanded sense of scale though. We're still working on first-gen PS5/XB Series engines. (Partly due to setbacks because of COVID, and GoW:R was supposedly targeting last year; also new engines are taking longer and longer to develop, you can see from how long it has taken for UE5 games to come out despite Epic hitting most of its milestones, in the gen before it mainstream UE4 games took over 2 years to come out; UE3 started after 1 year.)

...And then, you need to devise and experiment with new level design techniques which will work without the tried-and-true techniques.

Level gates like squeeze-through caverns or elevators aren't just there to hide the data loading. Yes, they can and usually are loading the next level in off the hard drive, and so that's one thing that forces this delay (especially on a HDD,) but lots of things happen to the game during these sequences that aren't data steaming. The lighting tends to get reset for the new scene, changing the color response and sometimes skymap for the look of the next scene. (People talk about "lighting" as just one thing, where you place your sun-source and turn on some lamps and everything is lit pretty if you do it well, but cinematic games have drastically different lighting set-ups for each scene, and even open-world games customize their lighting per zone. Fly across Horizon FW and you'll see lighting and other effects like fog fade to change drastically as you cross biome lines even though the TOD remains the same.) Enemies or NPC get reset and locked out while parameters can be dropped and changed, making a clear and easy delineation in the game's level design for what happens on each side of the gate. (I would imagine it also helps save crashes if certain active elements can be cycled out when not needed, though I don't know if that juggling is really so challenging in a modern game structure?) Sound is reconfigured often in these gates, with tracks blending and new sound beds replacing the previous area's sonic signature. Sometimes the two pieces of level aren't even "lined up" as you would assume areas of a map would be connected, and instead your character is bamphed away during that load from one stage block to another. Lots of technical bits can be quickly cycled while your character is staring at a wall, even if it's just for a second.

You can see some of these aspects of what gets loaded and reset if you watch some of the Boundary Break videos out there.


And then, there's just visual impact. These cinematic linear action games want to wow you when you enter a new area, and so they use different sleight-of-hand tricks to distract you from what they're about to show you until it's ready to be revealed. Put a big mountain between a dark forest killing ground and a majestic bustling city filled with villagers and you have something exciting to see when you emerge from the cavern or cut through the ravine; if you can see the city off in the distance while you're fighting monsters, the effect is lessened (and it makes it weird that you're busting your ass smashing monsters while they're carrying water pots around town.) Put a dialog sequence where the camera is out of the player's hands with cropped closeups of faces, and the game can do some of this same loading/resetting while you're having that chat. Etc.

Even in a game where the loading is "instantaneous" like Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, it still takes advantage of that transition zone when falling through rifts so that everything between the two levels works properly and looks visually appropriate. And in the Pocket Dimensions, it's possible to glitch the spaces so that your character travels from zone to zone and see the tricks they use to make these two realms seem seamlessly stitched together.



These stretches of playable game space that players think of as a "world" tend to actually be much more limited and unbuilt than you would think they'd be. Partly, that's a savings on resources, but mostly it's just how games are made and how it makes sense to build playable spaces to direct players for what they should be playing versus what they think is out there in this "world". It's Hollywood in digital form.

And to change that, it's not just a technical fix.

SSDs make the data quicker, but they don't make the design easier, or the new ideas on how to do brand-new sleight-of-hand tricks any simpler to come up with. If a game has a ladder which leads down into a dark dungeon, you the player know what will be down there and so does the level designer; make that dungeon entrance a big cave mouth and it's less clear what will follow you in or out and when you are in or not in the dungeon. There's the theatrical experience where the audience and designers are using the same understood concepts to understand the play space, and then there's the technical aspect where control needs to be applied to ensure a smooth experience. Of course, games have evolved past being that simple (caves for instance tend to just reset everything based on a threshold, and players understand that they've crossed a threshold based on the lighting,) but in some ways, they haven't, because what works works. New game design approaches and mechanics had to be devised as games went open-world, and similarly new designs will have to be explored as linear games pull out their stitches.
 
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Lokaum D+

Member
Neogaf:
"Crossgen titles are the worst, crossgen games are ugly and looks like ps3"

Also Neogaf:
"Look at the new Zelda such fantastic graphics, its amazing".
 
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SSfox

Member
Yeah, if anything this should be calling to attention the general lack of next gen the industry has. When even Sony has very little intention of making PS5 exclusives, and the other hasn't even put out more than 1 game, its a clear light shone on how absolutely fucking starved we are on next gen content

It's all just a bunch of greed. Developers would benefit from not being held back by the PS4 and Xbone, but they don't want to abandon the 150+ million userbase these past gen consoles have fostered, even though they were fine doing that years ago. And the whole "no one can buy a PS5/Xbox Series" excuse falls flat on its face when you consider that the PS5 and series S are selling like hot cakes and have been each company's most successful endeavors, the PS5 has broken 20 million already in under 2 years. The only excuse we have is the pandemic and that's been sorted out now.
Indeed the same excuse, i know many that are still on PS4 but don't want to jump to PS5 they see no need to as everything comes to PS4

Yeah that's the thing, we need somebody to make the first step to show the others how it's done, but i guess at this point the 3rd party devs are the ones that will show to others devs how it's done. When you see a full nextgen game it's truly obvious it can't run on PS4/Xbox One.








 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
I'm pointing out to you how your attitude towards ps5 and cross gen makes no sense. You bought a ps5 because you wanted more out of gaming than what the ps4 pro could provide. Here we are two years later and instead of being rightfully mad that Sony isn't taking advantage of the hardware, you're more concerned with ps4 owners getting left out. That attitude is only enabling Sony to completely fail on their own promises back in 2020 when the ps5 was first being marketed and hyped. The people who can't afford or can't find a ps5 now will eventually be able to. It just makes no sense to identify more with them when you spent all that money on a ps5.

You didn't buy a ps5 "just because you could". That's meaningless. You bought it because you wanted more advanced graphics, performance, and games. Sonys now got your money. You've fulfilled your end of the bargain buy they're not fulfilling theirs. They're not making these games cross gen out of the kindness of their hearts they're doing it for profit while shafting ps5 adopters.
It seems like you have a hard time grasping what is going on in the world - or you simply don't know and all you can focus on are promises made in a different period of time.

I get it. So much has happened in 2 years it's quite mindblowing when thinking about it. Extremely unfortunate coincidences and events piling up - rapidly in just 2 years..

Right now I'm just happy to be safe. I can play games in 120fps and put food on the table for my kid.

It's sad evolution took a hit, but it's not Sonys, Microsofts or Nintendos fault - and it's certainly not "those poor PS4 players" fault.

See if you can be more happy about the small things in life - cause we're just one more unfortunate event from total chaos.
 

SSfox

Member
Actually glad Tekken 8 is next gen only (my favorite franchise). Even tho tbh the opposite would have surprise me a lot as T7 already quite struggle to run properly on PS4.
 

Rykan

Member
As long as current gen consoles remains incredibly difficult to find and purchase, the investment into cross gen games is completely justified and understandable, as far as I'm concerned.
 
Even without the hidden load screens many of the third person cinematic games will still feel very last gen due to the design convention. Even as superb as TLOU2 was outside of graphics from a design stand point it wasn't anything that couldn't be done on next gen from the ps3. Waiting for Starfield, GTA 6 and CDs next game because their games tend to be about scope. The witcher, FO4 and red dead two all felt like something that literally couldnt be achived on previous generations.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
As long as current gen consoles remains incredibly difficult to find and purchase, the investment into cross gen games is completely justified and understandable, as far as I'm concerned.
Are you Jim Ryan? Why is it your concern? Shouldnt your concern as a consumer be to get next gen games for your next gen console??

By your logic, a console at launch should release with ZERO next gen games because well, they are starting out with a zero userbase. Hell, why stop at launch? Lets not release any games for the entire first year. 10 million userbase is nothing. Right now, the userbase is around 40 million across both platforms. Nothing compared to the 160 million userbase of last gen. So lets wait another few years until we get to 160 million in 2027.

Cant wait to play the first PS5 next exclusives on my PS6.
 

Rykan

Member
Are you Jim Ryan? Why is it your concern? Shouldnt your concern as a consumer be to get next gen games for your next gen console??
What next gen console? Every single next gen system, except for the Series S, is sold out.
 
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SSfox

Member
As much as RE4 looks incredible in many ways, but the AI looks a little EHHH... i mean look at that guy standing right there doing nothing... (Of course gotta design that AI to run on a old CPU jaguar as well)

 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
What next gen console? Every single current gen system, except for the Series S, is sold out.
Forgive me. Due to a lack of current gen games, I completely forget that these next gen consoles actually arrived two years ago.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
As much as RE4 looks incredible in many ways, but the AI looks a little EHHH... i mean look at that guy standing right there doing nothing... (Of course gotta design that AI to run on a old CPU jaguar as well)


RE4 looked dated to me. Everyone was nutting all over the footage and im like the AI isnt even as good as TLOU2. They literally just stand there.
 

Rykan

Member
Forgive me. Due to a lack of current gen games, I completely forget that these next gen consoles actually arrived two years ago.
Yeah they did, and they remain sold out for the most part. I would completely agree with your assessment if everyone who wanted one can walk into a store and buy one, but that isn't the case.
 

SSfox

Member
RE4 looked dated to me. Everyone was nutting all over the footage and im like the AI isnt even as good as TLOU2. They literally just stand there.
The game looks great, but AI looks like EH... I almost feel RE4 GC had a better AI, gotta check to make sure
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
As much as RE4 looks incredible in many ways, but the AI looks a little EHHH... i mean look at that guy standing right there doing nothing... (Of course gotta design that AI to run on a old CPU jaguar as well)


Yep. And people gave me shit when I said it will probably feel stiff in comparison to TLOU Part I / II. The bar has been raised. Cant have no stupid ass AI anymore.

Also dont like the fact that when you stab someone, blood pours out, but theres no visible damage to the guys neck/face... @4:32
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Yep. And people gave me shit when I said it will probably feel stiff in comparison to TLOU Part I / II. The bar has been raised. Cant have no stupid ass AI anymore.

Also dont like the fact that when you stab someone, blood pours out, but theres no visible damage to the guys neck/face... @4:32
the game is still in development, it'll be coming out 6 months from now, that's plenty of time to get the AI o not be so awkward. i hope so, at least
 

Roxkis_ii

Member
Expectations are the thief of joy. I enjoy what's released regardless if it's cross play or not. Thinking about how the game could be so much better because of this, or that just distracts from what's in front of you. Everything will come in due time.
 
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CamHostage

Member
Actually glad Tekken 8 is next gen only (my favorite franchise). Even tho tbh the opposite would have surprise me a lot as T7 already quite struggle to run properly on PS4.

Heh, maybe you'll want to play it first before celebrating its technical superiority... Tekken 8, a first-cycle game on the new Unreal Engine 5, kind of following the path of Tekken 7 being one of the first major titles on UE4, and you didn't like how that one worked out. Hopefully their experience in UE the second time will not have as many pain points since the transition isn't as drastic.




(Also, if Tekken 6 could be ported to PSP, T8 could come down to PS4. I wouldn't want it to be cross-play online, but it's a fighting game in UE, there are fallback methods for porting a game even if this new Tekken ends up using advanced techniques like ML in animation or asset construction.)

Yeah that's the thing, we need somebody to make the first step to show the others how it's done, but i guess at this point the 3rd party devs are the ones that will show to others devs how it's done. When you see a full nextgen game it's truly obvious it can't run on PS4/Xbox One.

Naw. Developers know how it's done. None of what these games are doing (except for maybe Tekken, depending on how its doing its animation) is powered by special sauce. It's sharp design, high-end rendering, and a lot of work on the fine details and effects choices, using the most recent game engine and rendering techniques available.

Showing a bunch of 2023/2024/202X games and using them to shame developers with games out or releasing in the next few months doesn't really contribute to the argument. These developers aren't the leaders of what's to come, they're just the first wave of what everybody else is working on for the next cycle of game technology.

(BTW, you should swap out of that disingenuous post of a Black Myth video with a PS5 banner on it, this developer wants to be on consoles but not announced platforms and probably hasn't touched a PS5 development kit yet. If you want to show an actual Unreal Engine 5 game which will for sure be on PS5, maybe swap it for the trailer of The First Descendent...)
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yep. And people gave me shit when I said it will probably feel stiff in comparison to TLOU Part I / II. The bar has been raised. Cant have no stupid ass AI anymore.

Also dont like the fact that when you stab someone, blood pours out, but theres no visible damage to the guys neck/face... @4:32
It's the lack of ambition im always going on about. The devs are no longer the ambitious artists who wanted to reinvent genres like they did with RE4 in 2005. They just want to play it safe and hide behind the 'we wanted to stay true to the original' excuse. Well, it's a fucking remake. The entire point of it is to reinvent it you dumb cunts. Otherwise, make a remaster and release it for $20.

10 years ago, devs wouldve seen a game like TLOU2 and said to themselves, we need to go back to the drawing board and make sure our game looks and plays that good if not better. In fact, RE devs did exactly that when they saw P.T. They threw away what they were working on and made RE7 completely reinventing the genre just like they did back in 2005 with RE4. Now, 5 years later, they have access to next gen hardware, and chose to make a direct sequel to RE2. Same mechanics. Same AI. Same level design. No motion matching tech borrowed from TLOU2. No A.I enhancements. No Dodge or melee moves that made TLOU2 feel so fucking amazing despite having access to new hardware as early as when they shipped RE3 in March 2020. A few weeks before Epic revealed the first UE5 demo on PS5.

This game must have started dev after they shipped RE3. They CHOSE to limit themselves to last gen hardware the year next gen launched. Why? Where is the ambition? the need to be the best? The desire to push boundaries? How many RE2 like games do we need to play since 2019 before they move on from the formula?
 

EDMIX

Member
I don't have a Switch so i don't care. And i haven't bought an Xbox since 2008 and don't plan to buy one anytime soon considering what MS are doing.

Why is it always this excuse of "the other also do nothing" stuff. This doesn't justify the BS of infinite crossgen by Sony.

Some indés devs already making full next gen games, but Sony still blocked to PS4 gen and can't move on.

Well..thats not really the point, it simply supports that what Sony is doing isn't as "BS" as you might think considering they literally are the only ones that have several next gen only titles even out.

So I don't think Sony saw the pandemic lasting this long and I don't think they saw that whole chip shortage happening either. So Sony is a business, I'd argue that very much justifies them doing whats in the best interest as a business and doing some cross gen titles during this time frame.

The "indies devz" making full next gen titles also don't have the same type of budget and are not selling hardware....

Consider RE4 literally has a PS4 version, after its reveal. As in, it was planned for next gen only, shit happens its now cross gen. Might simply be that the game is very expensive to make, not as many next gen systems out as Capcom thought, they need to go to plan B.

This shows its not some exclusive Sony ideology or something, its merely business.

The fact that some are next gen only and some are not show clearly those that can be cross gen with little compromise are able to actually do that while others have to be next gen only likely based on features or even timing of release or something. So their goal is still to make money and I can't fault them for that as they know how to run their business better then any of us off Gaf or something lol This is a odd time for all of us and many businesses have been disrupted, I doubt you would have seen them launch PS5 this way if they didn't have the pandemic or chip shortage. The fact that Demon Souls and other titles launched with zero PS4 version likely proves that they had no intention of doing all games cross gen or something as those earliest games would be the best fit for it technically.
 

SSfox

Member
Heh, maybe you'll want to play it first before celebrating its technical superiority... Tekken 8, a first-cycle game on the new Unreal Engine 5, kind of following the path of Tekken 7 being one of the first major titles on UE4, and you didn't like how that one worked out. Hopefully their experience in UE the second time will not have as many pain points since the transition isn't as drastic.




(Also, if Tekken 6 could be ported to PSP, T8 could come down to PS4. I wouldn't want it to be cross-play online, but it's a fighting game in UE, there are fallback methods for porting a game even if this new Tekken ends up using advanced techniques like ML in animation or asset construction.)



Yeah i know about the cycle of Tekken 7, my youtube chanel started almost with Tekken 7 arcade announcement and have a bunch of first and super early Arcade T7 footages (as i said above, i have many beloved franchise, but Tekken is my favorite Top 1 franchise), game only looked better with time but it took a while, it took a long time to go from Arcade to consoles. Tekken 8 is design straigh to console and already looks promising.


Tekken 6 on PSP was literraly not the same game as the one on PS360. Similar cases with games like TR Underworld PS2 VS PS360. You can also port GOW 2018 on PS3 if Santa monica want, but it won't be the same game for sure.
 
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CamHostage

Member
As much as RE4 looks incredible in many ways, but the AI looks a little EHHH... i mean look at that guy standing right there doing nothing... (Of course gotta design that AI to run on a old CPU jaguar as well)

Come on, you know better than this, right?

It's not old Jaguar Cores that's stopping two characters from attacking your player at the same time. It's early gameplay and it's general character pathing, tuned for a certain level of difficulty. How they're accomplishing the enemy queuing is unfortunately rather old-school, but if they wanted all of the character to all attack you at the same time, there's plenty of hardware bandwidth to pull that off on even a cross-gen game.

10 years ago, devs wouldve seen a game like TLOU2 and said to themselves, we need to go back to the drawing board and make sure our game looks and plays that good if not better. In fact, RE devs did exactly that when they saw P.T. They threw away what they were working on and made RE7 completely reinventing the genre just like they did back in 2005 with RE4. Now, 5 years later, they have access to next gen hardware, and chose to make a direct sequel to RE2. Same mechanics. Same AI. Same level design. No motion matching tech borrowed from TLOU2. No A.I enhancements. No Dodge or melee moves that made TLOU2 feel so fucking amazing despite having access to new hardware as early as when they shipped RE3 in March 2020...

This game must have started dev after they shipped RE3. They CHOSE to limit themselves to last gen hardware the year next gen launched. Why? Where is the ambition? the need to be the best? The desire to push boundaries? How many RE2 like games do we need to play since 2019 before they move on from the formula?

I'm not really understanding your example of how a past-gen game should have been the example of how to make a true next-gen game instead of the cross-gen game they made... They made RE4 again. Maybe too faithfully, but this faithful design was their choice, and there's not really any reason why technically it couldn't have been done differently with more hardware utilization other than time and money and insight, be it cross-gen or next-gen-exclusive.

Also... are we talking about the same Capcom here?

51FYetKvsYL._SL1000_.jpg
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81oPgLmPyDL._SL1500_.jpg
91y4iAaF0YL._SL1500_.jpg


Capcom makes its money, the easy way or the hard way. Typically, both ways. RE4make is supposedly not the only RE being made, and it might not even be the only REmake in the works. If you think this one isn't going where you want it to, wait for the next bus.
 
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SSfox

Member
we've only had 2, and one of them sucked complete ass. i dont think they should move on from the formula after only trying and getting it right 1 time
Haven't played RE2 since a while, replayed it recenlty after many runs of RE3R... Man Capcom really did dirty to RE3, they'll need to rere make this game, give it a director cut or something.
 

jigglet

Banned
This really isn’t a problem. Last gen, black ops 3 was one of the last major cross gen games and that was what, 18 months after launch? 18 months isn’t that long.

You can’t exactly use the current gen as an example since it was disrupted by a once in a century pandemic.
 
I also believed those shitty sequences masking loading screens would disappear with PS5 and, as Cerny said, will allow gameplay designs impossible in past generations. But no, games are exactly the same but prettier. And sadly not enough prettier to forget the lie Sony told about "we believe in generations" only to mock Microsoft.
Exactly; Sony clearly lied about this.
 

skit_data

Member
It’s annoying but seeing how lots of development andconsole production was put on hold during COVID it seems only logical a lot of this crossgen stuff has been stretched out over a longer period than usual.
 

Roufianos

Member
They'll be lucky if the PS4 version account for even 5 to 10% of sales long-term. I bet at launch it won't even be 20%.

Was it really worth compromising the game for a million or so sales?
 
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