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Current Tencent exec Shawn Layden says console arms race has plateaued

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
He worked at Sony from 1987 to 2019. That’s some tenure. He’s got a point. Nintendo didn’t get to where they are by their GPU specs. Consoles will always be at war with PC when it comes to GPU and maxing out FPS/RT. Your up and coming gamer will ask around and more than likely they’ll be told to buy a PC because of GPU power.

Make your hardware serviceable with good games. They’re going to keep losing people if they keep pushing graphics because they’ll be waiting for the PC version.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
There's been some pretty serious diminishing returns this gen despite having a LOT more powerful hardware, particularly the CPU.

I really don't care that much about new gen hardware, looking forward to getting the PS5 Pro don't get me wrong, but it's really nothing I remotely need.

If anything maybe just need to increase CPU power again and chill on throwing too much more GPU power in. Feel like that is what is holding back games more than anything.
 
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The mass market only cares about games. Really always have. So that's not something new. But yes since the ps3 era there hasn't been any major hardware leaps that really spawn new and creative ideas. Like no big game dev has even used RT in any significant way other than eye candy.
Even the PS3's leap isn't worth it when you look at the massive increase in development cost and time over the PS2.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
Last we heard half of PSN was still on ps4. Look at Steam GPU stats. He’s kinda got a point. The average game consumer doesn’t care about high end graphics. As a graphics enjoyer I think ps5 pro is a cool product, but most of the market is cranking away at battlepasses with their friends in a small handful of GaaS.
 

SHA

Member
Lol, I said that before, the gaming community hasn't changed, they're there from the beginning, but at some point we'll get replaced, that's the law of nature.
 

A.Romero

Member
Lol, what a take. Diminishing returns are a thing for sure but it is also very important how developers use the power. Can't say there is no difference with more power when games can't hold up framerate in UHD resolutions. Is a game with not such good graphics enjoyable? Yes, it can be. I have spent hours playing MTG Arena and it even runs on my tablet. Do I want games like that to be the only option? Not at all.

Studios should make their own decisions about what kind of games they want to make. Apparently Elden Ring cost 200 million even with stupid shit like getting George involved for writing and it made 1 billion. High budgets with used well can yield great results. Another example is GTAV. If they don't have confidence they can produce a blockbuster with that amount of money just don't do it and go for something else. Nintendo has been making bank with a different approach.

Also if sunlight is hitting your screen you might as well be playing a Wii game because you aren't seeing shit.

It got my attention that he still says "we need", is he still holding any position in the gaming industry? If he is still at Sony this is a pretty bad take considering they are about to release the Pro.
 
Man, this guy has a lot of opinions and apparently they all require separate threads. But I do agree with him on this one.

Everything's getting more expensive and people are cutting unnecessary costs. Current-gen consoles provide relatively minor upgrades over previous systems (in practice anyway) and lack a fleshed out library of exclusive games. Not to mention they're pretty expensive too. Might as well skip this gen and wait for the next one, which will hopefully be a bigger jump and will get any games they missed as remasters.
 

namenotfound

Neo Member
It's been joked about for over a decade. Buying a $1000 graphics card thinking of 3 4k monitors stitched ultrawide playing AAA graphical blockbusters and instead end up playing Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Terraria, and a bunch of PS Vita JRPG ports that you can emulate on a budget Android phone. A bit heavier than that, Legue of Legends and Counter Strike. Dark Souls 3 hit 10 million sold and that's a major mark in gameplay over AAA narrative graphical monster to me. Also the Nintendo Switch. Hard soulslike games and rouguelites hitting mainstream. PlayStation is a Fortnite and GachaStation. Games people also play on their phones
 
We don't even have Quake 2 RT on consoles!
I will agree about his "plateau", when we get 4k@60 with full RT in most games.

We don't even have fucking Minecraft on console despite MS using it to helo sell the SX. Consoles are treated like shit from the platform holders running the show. They are so arrogant because they hold all the cards. Gamers want and get what they say we want ...and because the games media are a bunch of shills who have no integrity, thus it is so...so he's not wrong, but the only reason we're hearing this rhetoric now is because they realize their current business model would benefit even more if they can convince gamers that we don't actually want or need more 'power'.

Why so I say consoles get treated like shit? Because compared to PC we absolutely do. Steam could never get away with having refund policies like Sony/MS/Nintendo. Would never think they could force pwople to pay $80 just for the ability to play online. The consoles this gen failed to deliver on promises made early in the gen, such as the ps5 revolutionizing development with its ssd or taking advantage of rdna2 features (sony hasn't even updated their first party engines to use a suite of next gen features or to compete with UE5). Game preservation is at the whims of Sony, MS, and Nintendo too and that's just the way they'd like it, blocking emulators and trying to do away with physical media. PC gamers would revolt over these things.

Look what's happening with the PS5 Pro now ...Sony makes a powerful system for the hardcore but isn't even making Pro Fidelity modes on exvlusives instead handicapping their own system with Performance Pro modes ....they are not even trying.

So don't tell me gamers don't care about power when Cerny just talked about how gamers dont want to compromise between graphics and framerate. They want us to not demand better performance so they can spend less on r+d and keep development costs down=more profit, esp in this messed up situation we're in now economically and within the industry. A problem they created chasing subscriptions and going woke.
 
New tech shouldn't be developed for at least 20 years. Just develop with the tools you have at your disposal and learn to be efficient with it, and then squeeze every bit of last drop out of it. Problem solved.
Agree, but it should go well beyond 20 years. It's going to require a radical rethinking of what buying a game means (users being able to access every version of a game) along with a move to a digital-only console with games never leaving the HW. Keeping ISOs off of the internet and the absence of any resale market undercutting studio profits would allow for a first ever "Permanent Console" that could be exploited to the fullest of its potential over the course of decades if not longer. We never got to see much of what the PS2 was truly capable of because AAA studios moved to developing games for the PS3 - Santa Monica shipping PS2's GOW in 2005 while Rockstar had been working on PS3's GTA4 since 2004. I would've rather gotten another 2 GTAs on the PS2 as opposed to GTA4 on PS3. The things studios were doing with PS2 towards the end of its life cycle were just the beginning of what it's capable of.
 
As long as they don't pull a Wii-like situation where they go after the grandmas and casual gamers at the expense of hard-core gamers bc that was a completely pointless endeavor....getting them interested in games similar to Sports Champions isn't going to compel them to look at titles like Demon Souls or RDR2, which is what needs to be the goal.
 
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he is right, but I think next gen will be a small bump again, as next gen will be the raytracing generation.

that will be the generation where raytracing becomes the norm, so both Microsoft and Sony will need to make sure that their consoles can support high end raytracing.
I’m not sure with raytracing, even on current consoles 4K60 is not default as expected before and Sony has to remove 8K label from PS5 box. I’m losing faith in consoles but with my economic situation I can’t afford an adequate gaming PC so I have to stick with my PS5 slim.
 
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Ebrietas

Member
He's absolutely correct. We're far past the point where the hardware is limiting developers. The developers are now limiting themselves making horrifically overproduced games that take 5+ years to make that aren't any better than older games and often times worse.

Sony needs to realize the hardware race is done and Xbox is finished. Now they need to scale back like Nintendo did. The PS5 is excellent hardware. Focus on making it smaller and cheaper to get it in more people's hands. Refocus software development so their first party budget isn't a bazillion dollars and eats away at their margins. And get back to making games 100% exclusive. If you want to play a Sony game, you have to buy a PS. There should be no question about it.
 
Isn't he the one that said about Ghost of Yotei: "don't like it, don't buy it" ? This article sounds like he wants that mOdErN AuDiEnCE crowd to take over gaming.
 
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kevboard

Member
I’m not sure with raytracing, even on current consoles 4K60 is not default as expected before and Sony has to remove 8K label from PS5 box. I’m losing faith in consoles but with my economic situation I can’t afford an adequate gaming PC so I have to stick with my PS5 slim.

well, IMO they have no real choice. on PC we see more and more focus on raytracing. Nvidia proudly promotes more and more games that have "full raytracing", which is their way of saying pathtracing.
Unreal Engine 5 pushes Lumen really hard. and consoles are currently stuck with the shitty software Lumen path, which is just shitty raytracing. but they are pushing hardware Lumen more and more as well. other engine makers are following their trend, as seen in Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine and Remedy's Northlight Engine. Ubisoft already ships games with RT lighting and RT reflections at 60fps on console... it just looks like shit currently due to the awful AMD RT hardware.

so next gen, both will probably jump head first into a raytracing focus. so I think the hardware race will, probably for a last time, be somewhat competitive and interesting again.
will Microsoft go with Nvidia? Will Sony stay with AMD? will both or either of them jump to Intel? Will AMD hardware be finally good enough in raytracing and machine learning acceleration until then?

so yeah. IMO next gen will be all about raytracing, supported by ML Upsampling. so they will both need to be very competitive to not fall short of what engines will require at that point to run "full raytracing" at acceptable quality and performance.
 

kevboard

Member
the dude in a box is talking about it in the context of being a "game" which we all know what types of "games" 99% roblox is made of.

sure. the majority of "games" in Roblox use the default character controller and physics. but, in theory, it is a user friendly game engine where you can copy Call of Duty almost 1 to 1, as seen in the video I linked.

Epic Games is also slowly moving Fortnite into that direction. I bet they will eventually unify all their games under Fortnite to directly compete against Roblox.

they already fully implemented the physics and gameplay of Fall Guys into Fortnite... so I bet that game will come soon. and I bet Rocket League will come soon after that.
 
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bender

What time is it?
Shut your dirty mouth!!!!
tumblr_n1oq5jUqVn1r4yh8wo4_r1_250.gifv
 

Pimpbaa

Member
It’s not about marginally more powerful hardware, it’s about diminishing returns hitting hard. Doesn’t help them demoing the ps5 pro running current games performance modes (instead of quality/resolution/fildelity at 60fps) at a higher resolution.
 
Agree, but it should go well beyond 20 years. It's going to require a radical rethinking of what buying a game means (users being able to access every version of a game) along with a move to a digital-only console with games never leaving the HW. Keeping ISOs off of the internet and the absence of any resale market undercutting studio profits would allow for a first ever "Permanent Console" that could be exploited to the fullest of its potential over the course of decades if not longer. We never got to see much of what the PS2 was truly capable of because AAA studios moved to developing games for the PS3 - Santa Monica shipping PS2's GOW in 2005 while Rockstar had been working on PS3's GTA4 since 2004. I would've rather gotten another 2 GTAs on the PS2 as opposed to GTA4 on PS3. The things studios were doing with PS2 towards the end of its life cycle were just the beginning of what it's capable of.

This is the dumbest idea i've heard in a while unless you're someone who truly gives 0 fucks about graphics at all ...that may lead to better games and gameplay but would mean a complete and total stagnation of visuals and performance in just a couple years, as we've already seen some limits of what these consoles are capable of ...so kiss goodbye advancements in Ray Tracing and other demanding tech, kiss goodbye 120 fps with good visuals, etc

That also will limit what's possible with physics and whatever gameplay improvements may come from that ....until 20 years have passed lol
 

yurinka

Member
Why does this guy keep talking, he was the worst PlayStation CEO in their history
He never was PlayStation CEO. He was CEO of SIE America, the regional subsidiary. His job was to market and sell what SIE gave them in America.

After that he was chairman of Worldwide Studios (PS Studios) during a year and a half, until when he was replaced by a Dieffenbachia Tropic.
 
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ZehDon

Gold Member
... Nintendo didn’t get to where they are by their GPU specs. Consoles will always be at war with PC when it comes to GPU and maxing out FPS/RT....
Very much agreed. That's one aspect that Sony seems far too keen to drop: cost effective gaming. One of the reasons Nintendo doesn't chase the latest tech is to keep costs down and their profits way up. They don't fill their games with MTXs and Battle Passes because they don't need to when they're printing money from two generation old nVidia hardware. With the PS5 Pro, Sony is releasing it's most expensive hardware ever, and appears to be signaling the end of its subsidised console model. Console gaming is about to get a lot more expensive across the board, with Xbox moving into a PC-hybrid setup. And when you subtract "cost effective" from console gaming... what's the benefit? Nintendo may just be the last real console company left.
 
sure. the majority of "games" in Roblox use the default character controller and physics. but, in theory, it is a user friendly game engine where you can copy Call of Duty almost 1 to 1, as seen in the video I linked.

Epic Games is also slowly moving Fortnite into that direction. I bet they will eventually unify all their games under Fortnite to directly compete against Roblox.

they already fully implemented the physics and gameplay of Fall Guys into Fortnite... so I bet that game will come soon. and I bet Rocket League will come soon after that.
i understand. but using Roblox or Fornite in the context of this topic is missing the point. and i will argue that engines likes Unreal or Roblox (more accesible technology) overall make Shawn's points puzzling.

1. The console arms race is over
2. AA games/lack of creativity.

if graphics reached a plateau last generation, and what this generation has been offering is primarily upscaling technology and higher frame rates with better shadows and reflections thanks to ray tracing, why are games costing more and taking longer to develop, only to offer more of the same in terms of graphics, and even worse; cookie-cutter game design?....

so, either graphics still have a long way to go and we haven't seen a revolutionary game that brings game design to this generation (because they are still trying to figure out of these consoles) OR the issues are the priorities these devs/publishers have.

and the irony for men in boxes is what Shawn states about publishers focusing on monetization and shit like that
 

Stu_Hart

Member
Took him long enough to say it, but years ago, iwata (RIP) said:

“I don’t think the next-generation consoles that Sony and Microsoft are considering have a future. If I thought so, we would be doing the same thing, right?” Iwata says, according to subtitles on the video. “Even if I had a machine with 10 times the processing power and 20 times the graphics, the work would be harder, and I don’t think it’s that easy to make customers clearly recognize the difference.”

“When other companies release products that are improvements on existing ones, the question is whether Nintendo can release something that can be called revolutionary. In this way, our goal is for our challenge to bear fruit, and I believe that is what we should be doing,”
Link: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/satoru-iwata-e3-2004-restored-interview/
 
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Took him long enough to say it, but years ago, iwata (RIP) said:

“I don’t think the next-generation consoles that Sony and Microsoft are considering have a future. If I thought so, we would be doing the same thing, right?” Iwata says, according to subtitles on the video. “Even if I had a machine with 10 times the processing power and 20 times the graphics, the work would be harder, and I don’t think it’s that easy to make customers clearly recognize the difference.”

“When other companies release products that are improvements on existing ones, the question is whether Nintendo can release something that can be called revolutionary. In this way, our goal is for our challenge to bear fruit, and I believe that is what we should be doing,”
Link: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/satoru-iwata-e3-2004-restored-interview/

And Iwata was wrong. Clearly Playstation, and even Microsoft after that E3 2004 interview, have had tremendous success.
 

reinking

Gold Member
. Almost everything about vr is WORSE than normal gaming.

But I do think someone like Nintendo could make something great in vr.

I ❤️ VR for the experience it brings.

Also, they arleady did...

mariotennis.jpg




I am not going to jump on the "but Nintendo is doing it without power" team because the main reason the Switch works in its current state is because it is also a handheld. Much in the same way the Steam Deck works because it is a handheld. Nobody would mainly play PC games on a potato PC with Steam Deck specs unless it made games portable. I believe the Switch, as a console only option, would need to be more powerful or it would have died years ago. Are we really going to argue that consoles have plateaued when they are still being outclassed by midrange PCs? Games currently have to makes sacrifices to achieve where they are now. When games can reach at least current graphics at a consitent high resolution and at a consistent 60/120 fps, maybe we are close. Even then, TVs are starting to come out with 144hz and I am sure they will consitinue to push for achieving monitor-like stats even further. I don't think we are there yet.
 
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