Video Game Console Makers Confront Performance Ceiling (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0175545429
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/24/11/26/135259/video-game-console-makers-confront-performance-ceiling
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-26/video-game-console-makers-confront-performance-ceiling
> The human eye can't really tell the difference between 4K and 8K resolution. Video game console manufacturers, who have built their businesses selling increasingly powerful machines every few years, are grappling with a future [1]where performance improvements are becoming less dramatic .
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> Sony Group launched its PlayStation 5 Pro console in mid-November. The $700 upgraded version of Sony's 2020 gaming machine uses AI to improve games' frame rate while maintaining exceptional image quality -- at least for 82 games that have been enhanced to take advantage of the new specs. That means gamers can see the realistic glint of their metal sword and experience smooth, sword-swinging battle action.
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> But despite all the fancy tech and a $200 price increase over the previous version, reviews so far haven't suggested it's a must-have machine. "It's an improvement, but there's nothing that makes it a complete generation above what the Series X offered," Daniel Ahmad, director of research and insights at Niko Partners, said. "It's a lot more difficult to distinguish the jump between each generation." The number of households with a gaming console hasn't really budged in more than a decade. Many gamers are replacing older machines more slowly, finding the one they already have is good enough.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-26/video-game-console-makers-confront-performance-ceiling
Once the price hit 200+$ per console... (Score:1)
I stepped out. PC Gaming is equal if not superior to consoles. I control the horsepower of the CPU and Graphics, amount of available memory, amount of storage, and the OS to the very last drop of code. My last console, was a Mod-Chipped OG xbox, and my last handheld, was a PSP soft-modded to run homebrew / hacks / emulators. Mini PCs, SoCs, SBCs, and a 3d printer, allow me to fabricate any level of handheld/bartop/retro console, I would ever want to play. Zurkeyon on Thingiverse... See for yourself ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
The price hit $200 in the 80s
Great (Score:4, Insightful)
Now stop making them so fucking expensive, idiots. $700 for a console with negligible benefit over the prior version, if not regression in graphics performance due to AI remastering being shit, is no fucking good.
Excellent news (Score:2)
Now they can focus on game play and bug fixing.
Not just resolution (Score:3)
There's been a pointless performance war in frames per second when the vast majority of people can't tell the difference past about 60-80 fps anyway.
What would make a big difference IMO is proper full realtime ray tracing rather than the not very impressive 1st gen stuff in the current gen of consoles. Even on PCs the realtime side isn't that impressive yet. And yeah ,I know some people think that texture mapping + shading + lighting algos can look the same , yeah, no , it really doesn't. When you've seen some high end ray tracing images absolutely nothing compares.
Duh (Score:2)
No version of any PlayStation has ever been a must-have machine. You can get more fun and value out of a defunct Dreamcast.
Graphic performance is not... (Score:2)
...the only important thing.
Gamers want good games. Performance is cool, photorealism is cool, but the games need to be good and fun.
Based on sales reports and reviews, the current generation of high end games are being rejected, not because their graphic performance is subpar, but because gamers don't enjoy playing them
It's not the vessel but the software (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a gamer and a coder all the way from the 80s. Still I guess I call myself a "gamer".
The thing is, it's no longer about the vessel, call it console, call it a PC - call it a vessel for your entertainment.
If you have a 1000+ team making an AAA+ game, you are in for a visual treat, sometimes the fun of the game can get lost in all the detail, but oh boy is the details good.
The resolution don't matter so much if you make realistic game graphics with good anti-aliasing and all that DOF goodness with proper lights, the more realistic the lighting environment is, the more real the game will look. The more natural the motion is the more real the game will look.
Walt Disney said it best when he said a good story won't be destroyed by bad animation but all the best animation in the world is not going to save a bad story, and that still holds true today.
So - game devs and even hardware devs, focus on story and content, there's where the future truly is.
But is it more fun? (Score:2)
While there is a certain contingent (especially in the PC space) that demands higher resolution and frame rates to justify the expensive GPU they just bought, they are a minority. But does it even matter anymore now that game companies are obsessed with putting ugly character designs into games? I don't need 4K or 8K graphics to watch a third-person view of the back side of an obese, ambiguously-gendered person, with a skin tone chosen to be neither too light nor too dark for opinionated people who wouldn't
Wrong thought process! (Score:2)
Rather than saying "we don't need more pixels", they should be saying "we need bigger screens".
Start selling home versions of "The Volume". Put them in a hemisphere of pixels to immerse them in an environment.
A game console? (Score:2, Offtopic)
I don't see a need for a game console, personally, since I always had a powerful PC which was able to play most current games at good resolutions and framerates.
Exclusive games didn't help, quite the contrary: I saw them as me being denied from playing them, rather than something that prompted me to buy a console.
It was never about money or performance, but rather a genuine "why should I even bother"?
As long as consoles remain something more limited and less versatile than a PC, I am not going to buy one.
Re:A game console? (Score:4, Insightful)
A game console is still for the most part cheaper than a like capabilities "gaming rig" at least for some period near the start of the generational introduction.
For many many years I was with you than something else hapend, the need for PC power to do anything but game was kinda of eclipsed as well. For certain things sure you can't have enough compute or memory or GPU bandwidth, etc. If you have one of those use cases super, but for most people at home doing their taxes, browsing the web, watching streaming video, writing letters, doing research, even "learning to code" you can do all that with a five year old box now and want for nothing. However unless you spent $$$$$ on that PC five years ago you most likely can't have as good a gaming experience with the latest titles as you could with a launch PS5.
For the person who wants to come home for work or school and just play a game for an hour or two without any 'fuss' it is darn hard to beat the console experience or the price point in the PC world. As for us nerds, well if you are going to do the PC gaming thing you probably still have to run Windows for the cutting edge and well eww...
Re: (Score:2)
> For the person who wants to come home for work or school and just play a game for an hour or two without any 'fuss' it is darn hard to beat the console experience or the price point in the PC world.
There is certainly convenience with a dedicated game console. However, in comparing price, since almost all gamers will also need a computer, shouldn't the price comparison be between a console plus low-end laptop/PC compared to a high-end laptop/PC? In that type of comparison, the console is more expensive. The big consideration is whether a high-end laptop/PC provides a good enough game experience and whether the weight of that laptop impacts portability.
Maybe you just don't enjoy new experiences? (Score:3, Informative)
> I don't see a need for a game console, personally, since I always had a powerful PC which was able to play most current games at good resolutions and framerates.
You're making the mistake of comparing resolution and framerate vs experience. First of all, visual fidelity ain't great now. It looks good if you have a tiny monitor, but on a TV..there's a lot of room for improvement in the complexity of the models...Even in UE5, most games look like PS4 models with REALLY GOOD lighting. It's a jump up, but the character details are very meh. Agreed, 8k or 120Hz won't help there.
What I am more excited about is complex play. Imagine a shooter where you can actually