Are gaming consoles reaching final form? Former PlayStation boss says no more major hardware leaps

They’re just undercooked PCs with artificial software restrictions now. Except for the Switch, which is an undercooked TV streamer chip from 2015, also with artificial software limitations.

Hasn’t been anything exciting about consoles in over a decade.

Steam Deck is very exciting and my favourite (and only) console
- I absolutely dig the Steam Deck, but it's not a console in that regard, it's not software restricted in any way, it's just a portable computer with a convenient frontend. But... man, I'm more likely to pick it up than to play on my gaming rig these days, even though both can hook up on the TV. Handhelds are just great.
Eh, the Switch form factor is pretty cool. But PC handhelds have surpassed it, so I just want the exclusives to work on hardware I can buy off the shelf.
- I will say, going back to it I appreciate how light it is in comparison. It's a shame the games feel overpriced compared to PC and rarely get discounted
Consoles are just a consistent standard. Developers know what they're developing for, they know their constraints, customers know all the games will play on it, it will look good on a standard TV, they know the games will play well with their controller, they know the digital store, etc, etc, etc.

Everything is standardized, everything works.

That's ignoring the console support for exclusives, which Xbox has severely fallen behind on compared to the others.
- Consoles are just a consistent standard... Everything is standardized, everything works.
  
  Well, with Steam Deck and supposedly upcoming new Steam Machine, that's a perfectly decent target without restrictive software limitations and closed ecosystems. Plus, PCs are pretty standardized these days in general. Nobody needs to target the high end, and Valve does a hardware survey that's publicly available to know exactly what hardware range is in use (and it's generally the lower end, despite enthusiasts).
  
  That’s ignoring the console support for exclusives
  
  And I'll keep ignoring them because there's no reason for them to exist now, there aren't architectural differences and unique capabilities that make sense for games to be exclusive anymore. That's more of the artificial software restrictions I mentioned. Console exclusives can die in a fire. Even Sony has realized they're leaving money on the table with that crap and releasing to PC.

We're certainly at a point where chasing higher and higher fidelity is adding development cost which doesn't often pay off in terms of sales.

The future hardware still can push more pixels than what we're experiencing with these consoles and high end PC hardware, but is the game more fun or enticing because of that?

He mentioned that game design and genre development is where innovation is going to lie in the future and I hope that's the future we see

I think AI will help reduce the dev costs over time. I mean that it can assist with uprezing things and generative placement of objects and textures is only going to get better.

I do not mean that ai should ever be used to creat me games or assets whole cloth.
- Yeah for sure that could increase productivity. Tbh I'm not sure how much the process can benefit from AI, for sure there are applications but I wasn't under the impression developers would be multiple times more productive. Maybe I'm wrong there.

It'd be pretty great if consoles finally acknowledged that they're just a PC with a moustache and glasses nowadays; and transitioned into a digital space to effectively become officially supported emulators. Especially if launcher isn't restricted.

Clearly he never watched the PS9 commercials.

Xbox 720 is going to blow the PS9 out if the water. I seen the commercials, its got Ultra Blast Processing and 7k petaflops of GPU power. Ad said so.
- Psssshh like Microsoft can stick to naming conventions. Everyone knows the next Xbox is Tokyo Drift.
- cuz u turn 720° an walk away

Valve entered the chat

Part of the issue is, a lot of developers just aren’t inclined to use the extra power. It costs development resources they’re not guaranteed to earn back. And, their idea, while unique, isn’t reliant on ultra-realistic visuals. In some cases, it’d be harmed by them.

We even see the PS4 stick around as a “low cost option” for some players. It can’t run the rare PS5 exclusive, but it will still let you join for significant games like Fortnite, etc.

Layden says releasing PC versions of PlayStation games years after they first arrive on the console causes plenty of anger among Sony fans, so Xbox releases from PlayStation Studios would result in even more outcry, potentially harming Sony's brand reputation. "I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze," he said.

Waiting years to release on PC causes anger among Sony fans?

Yeah, the petulant children get angry because they lose their exclusivity
I really don't get that. I have had every PlayStation console, and was overjoyed when God of War came to PC so more people could play it. Every Souls fan should have their face mashed by Sigrún.

I mean, major leaps are hard to come by in all hardware, not just console. Everything since about the PS2 has been slow and steady iterations. Major leaps each time seemed to be PS3 era upping the RAM dramatically, and PS4 era forcing games to be installed to HDD. This gen was SSDs with a sprinkling of RT.

SSDs were a major one. The seek time on a traditional spinning HDD is about the same as latency on your internet connection halfway across the country. Boot a laptop on HDD now and it's so slow you'll think it's broken.

Ray Tracing has tried, but needs to be several orders of magnitude more powerful to realistically be able to replace traditional rendering at the quality levels gamers expect. So it'll be just for a bit of reflections and nicer lighting here and there.

I guess VRR/FreeSync/GSync is nice as well. Moving to that means games can run as fast as they are able on lower end hardware. There's a world of difference between a 40-50fps VRR display and a 60fps display skipping frames.

I don't think this is it, but they do need to stop for awhile. I could see them integrating VR into consoles (instead of an add on), and, as always, some graphic update. Technology is always improving, so I doubt this is where it'll stop. But they're going to need to be patient. 🤷🏿‍♀️

VR is just not attractive for most people in the way you need lots of space and have to cut yourself off completely from the world and might only find out it gives you motion sickness after you already spent the money.
- I feel like they'll keep working on that, to try and make it safer or easier to use. I don't know if I'll be around to see it, but people are pretty clever.

Ai co-processors are still missing.

For that to become useful AI would first need to produce something you can use without a manual inspection round.

If he has no new ideas for consoles that's why he's a former boss.

SSD and 60 fps was the biggest perceptible change this gen for me. Going from 1 minute to boot the console, 1 minute to start the game and 1 minute to load a save to just 60s to jump straight into gameplay changes how one interacts with the console.

Similarly, it may not seem like a lot but 30 fps > 60 fps is a 16.66ms difference while 60 -> 120 is 8.33ms difference.

Neither of these change how a game looks. One may argue chasing next gen graphics has lead to poorer image quality (we're looking at 720p upscaled to 4k), so staying same as previous gen but 60 or even 120 fps would've been a much better route in hindsight.

With this knowledge, I feel the next gen might give us 120 and 240 fps games (frame generation might help to ease CPU burden) for cross gen stuff while most games would burn themselves trying to path trace at 720p at 40 fps and abuse upscaling and frame generation to pass it off as 4k120 (yes that's 2 ai frames between 2 real frames)

Famous last words