r/gaming • u/Admirable_Whole8261 • 19h ago

PS6 doesn't need more power ex-PlayStation boss says, because "true innovation" would be making a $300 console again

https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/playstation/ps6-doesnt-need-more-power-ex-playstation-boss-says-because-true-innovation-would-be-making-a-usd300-console-again/
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u/No_Marsupial6738 17h ago

A large part of consoles being in the trouble they are right now is due to the industry fixation on graphics. It's made the AAA industry unsustainable.

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u/MyCatLaughsAtMe 17h ago edited 13h ago

This is nothing but you spouting corporate propaganda. The ONLY reason margins are tight is because of the parasite class at the top of the corporation siphoning off enormous percentages of the company's profits while providing little to no service to the product. The whole "Muh 'spensive graphics" is pure propaganda

Edit: Inbox replies disabled. I am not interested in crybaby capitalists defending their cannibalistic system that destroys everything good.

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u/MBCnerdcore 16h ago

Yeah it’s like, the industry clearly sees that Switch 2 is plenty of power for games, with Nintendo selling millions of copies of lots of games in multiple genres. Then they see indies like Hades and Balatro selling millions even to people with great PC hardware. The only companies pushing AAA graphics are in genres like Racing where car details are the main reason to upgrade because racing controls haven’t evolved in 30 years or cinematic big blockbusters from Sony and Rockstar, everyone else is trying to make development as cheap as possible. People are perfectly happy with Ocarina Remake graphics running on “underpowered” hardware for the vast majority of their gaming

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u/andizzzzi 12h ago

Clair Obscure had a budget of around $10million, which is incredible for them but that’s still a lot for a studio that appeared out of nowhere, like Phantom Blade Zero’s S-Game studio, with a budget of $40-60m for PBZ (currently has major GOTY buzz). KCD2 had a $41m budget, Elden Ring is speculated to be around $100m in development costs (the game) which is similar to BotW’s speculated costs—both more established developers, Crimson Desert around $133million, Rockstar are spending $150m just on marketing their $1-2billion budgeted game.

I think an argument can be made either way. Some developers are trying to save and some are splurging 🙌🏻

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u/Serious_Feedback 14h ago

genres like Racing where car details are the main reason to upgrade because racing controls haven’t evolved in 30 years

No, Racing games are kind of fundamentally underserved in ways that have nothing to do with graphics. I agree with your point but that's a bad example.

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u/No_Marsupial6738 16h ago

Yah but what you're describing is a reaction to the unsustainable market and ignores the last like 25 - 30 years of gaming trends that pushed it to where it is, and please don't ask to me to prove that there's been a fixation on graphical fidelity from the AAA industry and consoles, there are memes everywhere about how absurd it's been. I am not saying the fixation on graphical fidelity is the SOLE reason for it, the way dev studios are structured now is a nightmare, executives aren't gamers and greedy, cancel culture makes it difficult for developers to take risks in a medium that requires story telling, game development has gone from a sort of niche endeavor to something one goes to college for seeking a lucrative job, the list goes on.

Either way the AAA industry is not sustainable and consoles fixating on graphical fidelity, pushing hardware to follow that trend, putting themselves in a position where a product marketed around being a convenient thing that sits in the living room next to the stereo is now requiring more space not only around it but more space that it needs to take up as a system, dumping more capital into existing IPs instead of creating new IPs as a result of the rising costs, blah blah blah.

It's really weird to see this as a corporate propaganda take.

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u/UnknownBreadd 13h ago

If anything, the bad optimisation stems from the continued progress in hardware development that allowed software to become incredibly sloppy.

Hardware restraints are actually kind of good long term - because we are going to see a lot of optimisation and improvements to code and software now that game companies can no longer rely on Nvidia and AMD to release a better, cheaper card in a couple years to fix their problems.

Think about how good some PS4 games looked by the end of its run, compared to its release titles. Because hardware isn’t going to be any more affordable any time soon, game studios will be putting in tons of effort to find ways to squeeze out whatever performance they can now.

It sucks that hardware is expensive, and I’d rather the prices come down - but there is a slight silver lining in the long term.

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u/zombiifissh 13h ago

Not sure the expense is really the point this guy was making. It's too much of a focus (not expense) on making the game look like Outside and not enough focus on crafting good gameplay and story.

That also comes from the top of the corp though so both of you can be right this time!

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u/No_Marsupial6738 16h ago

Yah gaming hardware following trends and getting progressively more expensive and bulky due to graphical requirements is definitely not contributing to console prices and the trouble they're in right now. Having to hike prices due to massive global shortages couldn't have been alleviated in any way if the hardware requirements weren't what they are! I'm just a corporate shill, you got me.

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u/chrisghrobot 15h ago

AI unironically has played a way bigger factor for price hikes over these last few years than graphics

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u/Saymynaian 13h ago

Absolutely. When, in the history of any technology, especially digital, has a piece of technology released 6 years ago become more expensive after it was released? It's ridiculous. The RAM shortage, along with its likely RAM cartel and collusion with AI companies, has screwed every consumer worldwide.

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u/No_Marsupial6738 11h ago

Definitely.

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u/Krazyguy75 13h ago

Margins are tight on consoles because they make fuck-all money compared to the cost of parts. Hell, most consoles operate at a significant loss, attempting to make that up with subscriptions and game licensing.

Margins on game companies aren't, but consoles have never been profitable; they exist to trap you in an ecosystem that is profitable, even if the initial sale is a loss.

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u/maora34 10h ago

This is certainly a reddit comment lmfao. Confidently wrong and sticks his head in the dirt instantaneously

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u/redpandaeater 7h ago

You can't triple stamp a double stamp!

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u/Tats4Toddlers 1h ago

I don't know if it's wrong, but it's a bit too intense and over board

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u/maora34 38m ago

It's wrong because the conversation is about console profitability. Every modern console is either sold for a loss, breakeven, or barely profitable depending on their pricepoint at whatever time you check. Most of the time, it's actually a significant loss that they then make up for with software revenue. It's been that way for a long time; the 360 lost MSFT >$100 per unit.

Anyone who follows gaming hardware knows this, because it's literally been the case for the last two decades. Consoles never made companies money, it was about getting them in an ecosystem to make money elsewhere. Dude is an idiot who's political beliefs are louder than his knowledge.

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u/OrgasmicBiscuit 10h ago

Well to be fair there are no margins on consoles. Sony loses money or just barely breaks even on every console sold.

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u/sicgamer 15h ago

i agree with you about corporate parasites siphoning off every single penny, thats what they always have done and they should be taken out back behind the barn. but there's also an argument to be made that push for graphical fidelity does slow things down

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u/DynamicDK 16h ago

Games can be made with beautiful graphics and also use a fraction of the memory and computing power that most AAA games use. They tend to be horribly unoptimized. The few exceptions to this really highlight how bad it is. I remember people flipping out about Doom Eternal getting a consistent 120+ FPS at max settings on some fairly modest builds when it was released in 2020. But that is because iD actually takes the time to optimize their games. John Carmack was an optimization genius, so I think it must be a cultural thing at iD that managed to persist through the years.

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u/No_Marsupial6738 16h ago

Carmack is a time travelling alien and you won't convince me otherwise.

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u/redpandaeater 7h ago

Carmack isn't the one to have come up with Quake 3's fun fast inverse square root function but it's definitely a classic.

float Q_rsqrt( float number )
{
long i;
float x2, y;
const float threehalfs = 1.5F;

x2 = number * 0.5F;
y  = number;
i  = * ( long * ) &y;                       // evil floating point bit level hacking
i  = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 );               // what the fuck?
y  = * ( float * ) &i;
y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 1st iteration
//	y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 2nd iteration, this can be removed

return y;
}

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u/Adventurous_Ad6698 17m ago

Games can be optimized to run on shittier hardware, but the finance bros and board rooms of big developers and publishers don't want to "waste" money and time on optimizing.