Has Sony lost its technical edge this generation?

EN250 said:
Sony is coasting this gen not giving a damn about pushing the boundaries with games anymore, just trying to catch lighting in a bottle wasting time and money on failed GAAS games
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They dont need to focus on games as much anymore. Their game division consistently make $2B+ profits per year. I believe it's now tracking closer to $3B as per their latest earnings reports.

When you got this much money off third party cuts and some PC ports, there isnt much urgency to make a splash with big new SP IPs to win gamers and sales that way.

Valve/Steam is similar. But realized that much earlier. When Valve was getting the ball rolling in the 2000s dominating PC digital sales, Valve released tons of games back then. Even on 360/PS3 too. They even released console version of Counterstrike.

In the past 10 years, suddenly they've done a 180 and released hardly any games. And one of them was to promote their VR.
 
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K' Dash said:
Maybe we shouldn't focus so much on visuals and put more effort on creating games that don't resemble shit we've been playing since 2008.

I remember the promises of game design change because of the ultra fast SSDs and 5 years later we're playing the same shit... oh, and the Ratchet fiasco was hilarious.
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So much this! Who gives flying fuck about if the visuals are fucking high tech or not. I'm more worried about Sony's exclusives taking too much "inspiration" from Ubisoft and Marvel.
 
K' Dash said:
Maybe we shouldn't focus so much on visuals and put more effort on creating games that don't resemble shit we've been playing since 2008.

I remember the promises of game design change because of the ultra fast SSDs and 5 years later we're playing the same shit... oh, and the Ratchet fiasco was hilarious.
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Thats not a Sony issue, but gaming as a whole.

Graphics improve over time, but I remember devs saying way back power is holding them back on physics and enemy AI and such.

Well, PCs and consoles are pretty powerful now and anytime a company wants to promote something cool about a game, it's still usually graphics based.... lighting, RT, hair strands etc... Just like 3D demos in 1995.

Where's all cool physics and smart AI? You wanted power, you got it. What a load of BS that was.

It's crazy that BF games with destruction (which goes back to Xbox 360 days I believe) are still the posterboy for cool crumbling buildings and debris flying everywhere.
 
Sony has lost its sense of urgency. Whether that's them trying to get over and recover from how they misallocated priorities or what, it's clear they're not working to try and win anything.

Since the NFL season just started, here's an analogy. They're up 10 points and are just playing not to lose.

That usually ends up with the team losing, but in this case, the other team didn't come out of their locker room after halftime, so who knows what the rules are now?
 
Throughout the entire PS5 gen so far, they've delivered games that run at 60fps and, in the majority of scenarios, very consistently so -- with image quality equal or better than PS4 Pro. All while continuing to have the best motion capture and animation work in the biz.

I'd argue all of that makes for a better tech package than what the majority of broken ass UE5 titles have brought to the table.
 
Losing technical edge not a big problem, the biggest issue is they don't have a single capable character designer in their western studios, same problem in microsoft, this could be solved by just outsourcing the designs to south korea but so far the western studios refuse to do so.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Graphics improve over time, but I remember devs saying way back power is holding them back on physics and enemy AI and such.

Where's all cool physics and smart AI? You wanted power, you got it. What a load of BS that was.
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Yep. remember the whole GIVE ME SSD CERNY! what have they done with it all gen? fuck all.

Same thing with CPU. It's the devs man. they are all lazy fucking hacks. this is why i groaned when i heard Cerny talk about ssd and io, devs barely even bother upgrading their graphics engines. were they seriously going to redesign their games to take advantage of the ssd and cpu and implement actual physics in their games? its been five years and no one has done anything with the ssd or the cpu. well, maybe ac shadows.
 
I think we need to look at Sony's only sports franchise to see how far they have fallen compared to literally the worst company in America, EA, and fucking konami, a publisher that fired kojima then pulled out of the gaming business a decade ago. And yet has managed to produce a game that actually looks next gen.

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SuperC said:
Each generation, Sony's studios used to push the technical side of gaming to the max. Last gen they were killing it with games like
The Last of Us Part II, God of War (2018), and even The Order: 1886. But this time around, we're not really seeing that

Now Halo a series that was never really known for its visuals got a crazy good technical showcase, Hellblade II is still
the most impressive-looking game so far, and we're already halfway through the generation. Cyberpunk 2077 has
the best graphics and dynamic lighting in an open world. Black Myth: Wukong is huge and looks stunning

Meanwhile, Ghost of Yotei doesn't show much of a leap compared to the last game besides better draw distance, Spider Man 2
also didn't feel like a true generational jump over the first one. And up to now, we haven't seen Sony's first-party teams actually
use new rendering tech or dynamic lighting in their own engines while Remedy already pulled it off with their in house engine
instead of relying on Unreal Engine 5

At this point it really feels like Sony has lost that technical edge they used to have
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Its the PC games that have been pushing graphics tech since RTX launched in 2018. Sony still has good looking games but their tech is dated since the PS5 can't do path tracing.
 
The hardware is fine, but yeah we did get a lot of lazy sequels from Sony this gen. Last gen feeling games with the pc equivalent of maxing out the graphics settings. Significant asset reuse. Even my one of my favorite Sony published games (not in house, so I dunno if this counts) this gen, death stranding 2 reused a lot from the previous game and was graphically not pushing a lot (did have nice performance and resolution on the ps5 however). Ghost of Yotei looks like DLC for the PS5 version of Ghost of Tsushima. This coming from Sucker Punch who made 2 of the most technically impressive games last gen. You got writing taking a nose dive too, but that isn't a technical issue.
 
blue velvet said:
Hults spent all the money on GAAS instead of R&D for their 1st party developers.
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spiderman 2 cost $300 million.

Expedition 33 dev team had a total of 4 programmers who were able to integrate with the latest version of UE5. if sony studios dont have the money for R&D of next gen features like ray tracing, nanite, physics, hair etc, they can simply start licensing UE5.

lets stop blaming hulst and start holding devs accountable. CDPR is 500 devs, same size as insomniac. 100 more than ND and GG. IO interactive is also 500 devs and are able to leverage ray tracing in their new engine. Remedy is the same size as SSM, around 250 devs, and were able to use mesh shaders on consoles on their own custom engine. Ubisoft Massive is around 750 devs split between two teams, Avatar and Outlaws. Roughly the same as Bend, GG and Kojipro all working on the same engine. And yet none of them could implement support for mesh shaders, or RT in 5 years.

Absolutely shameful. And it's all of the devs who were never given any GaaS mandate by Herman or Jimbo. They did however spend a lot of time adding missions for deaf people, strong female action heroes with a taser in a spiderman game, uglifying every female lead, adding lesbian make out sessions after retconning the sexuality of lead characters, and whatever the fuck this is.

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I doubt herman asked them to put any of this in.
 
Pimpbaa said:
Even my one of my favorite Sony published games (not in house, so I dunno if this counts)
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it counts. They literally play the PS studios logo when you boot up the game. They didnt let other timed exclusives like Rise of Ronin, Stellar Blade, etc use the logo/marvel style intro vid. Sony is treating this like a PS studios game so who are we to say anything.

Besides, they are also using Decima which is a first party engine that has not been upgraded to use ray tracing or mesh shaders. Shocking considering we are 5 years into the gen and will be starting year 6 in two months.
 
SlimySnake said:
it counts. They literally play the PS studios logo when you boot up the game. They didnt let other timed exclusives like Rise of Ronin, Stellar Blade, etc use the logo/marvel style intro vid. Sony is treating this like a PS studios game so who are we to say anything.

Besides, they are also using Decima which is a first party engine that has not been upgraded to use ray tracing or mesh shaders. Shocking considering we are 5 years into the gen and will be starting year 6 in two months.
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Rise of the Ronin had PSS branding.
 
It's either high res or high-end graphics. Can't have both on that hardware.

I'd rather have decent looking games that look good on a 4k screen than those awful 720p-1080p upscales we've been having. Most of those don't even look good on a 1080p screen so I think Sony has made the right choice in that regard. Pushing console gaming to 4k was a bad idea in its own right but they're at least handling it the right way.
 
Until I see another publisher (outside of Take2 spending over a billion dollars) manage to release a game that runs and look as good as Horizon Forbidden West on the PS4, I cant take anything about Sony "losing" their technical edge serious. "Cutting edge" is basically Sony's DNA, but saying stuff like that makes me think you dont understand, or you've taken what they've given you for granted.

Do you know how hard it is to make something like God of War all take place simultaneously in one single shot? Its practically impossible for film, and there a reason why its the only game that has it. Sure they use some tricks to hide the loading screen but it done very cleverly to make you feel like it doesnt exist. Their programing devs deserve more respect.

Did you forget Spiderman 2 is the first "all raytracing mode" game for consoles? Not only is raytracing a default setting, but its the default setting for an open world game that still runs at 60fps and above. There isnt another open world game doing that unless you have a beefy PC to run GTA or Cyberpunk with mods.

You've completely skipped over the Decima Engine which received its own rendering tech upgrade when the sequel to HZD released. Go look at the rendering tech for the Intergalatic the Heretic Prophet trailer. Naughty Dogs in game graphics presentation was equal to Rockstar GTA6 trailer cinematics...

Playstation is in a great spot. The Dualsense has the best controller features, the PSVR2 headset is a great piece of tech, PSSR make 4k60fps gaming consoles possible, and the PS6 is sounding like Playstation starting to reach its final form as an ecosystem of gaming entertainment.
 
i don't see they lost in technical
ps5 still beast

what i see, they are not they are not used to be

back before, they are leading in quality, they also start lot of new trends
but now, they are only chasing for trends, quite backward, and they still fail with that

time changes, i see, but i wish sony return to what they used to be
it might be hard for them though
 
Ratchet, Demons Souls, Gow Ragnarok, both Ghosts, GT7, Last of Us PS5 editions are imo technical masterpieces. Also the PS5 pro, as hardware, is above anything else console-wise.
THey havent lost their technical edge, they just held back on certain releases (PS6?) and lost time and money on the live service BS.
 
I think the amount of time and resources needed to make games that would fit that profile wouldn't be profitable currently. The games they are putting out cost them over $200 million to produce so how much would game that are more detailed than those cost?
 
No this topic is silly. Who would they lose it to in their space? Microsoft? Nope they basically killed their console dreams, Nintendo? Nope their system can't hold a candle to it. In Fact the PS5 and Pro are more technically powerful than I would bet over 60% of all PC gamers systems.

So No, and Im sad because Im not sure they will try as hard now knowing they don't have any real competition in the console space.
 
I wouldn't say so, they still have super talented technical people in some of their studios. IMO technical excellence & evolution isn't the problem.
 
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If making technologically cutting edge games makes them vulnerable to death of an IP if the game didn't do bonkers sales numbers, then I would prefer the Ghost of Yotei level jump of graphical fidelity.

Just what IOI thought of when making 007 First light.
 
You use a current generation game as a best example which was incredibly short and not much of a game. Compare to an open world game design to deliver many tens of hours of play.

Diminishing returns and fiscal responsibility are important. As a whole Sony takes still on average well ahead of the competition outside hand selected examples.

Also stop spending other people's money and using resources. Stop chasing graphics.
 
I opened this thread with the intent to disagree with OP but I actually agree. Or it's just that with diminishing returns, it gets really hard to be head and shoulders above the rest.
 
Forbidden west looks absolutely gorgeous. I think hardware is pretty good. They just dropped ball on first party output. I don't think we are going to get any first party titles soon. Each studio is going to produce 1 game each gen.
 
I feel only thing they are doing differently this gen is, less dev time and polish.

If they delayed GOY by a year, it could match visuals from best games out there.

This is fine IMO, SP games should be made in reasonable budget. Only games that have potential to become cultural phenomenon should be given 100s of millions of budget.
 
I really do believe that diminishing returns will kick in big time soon, even if it sounds like a trope at this point. Especially consoles have been products for ordinary / normie customers historically, and these people will probably soon stop noticing any visual difference in graphical innovations. From there on out, all you can sensibly do is increase frames per second and other metrics like that, but at some point just upping the hardware grunt isn't doing anything for you anymore. I'm actually optimistic this will lead to better quality tech as things can get cooler, smaller and nicer to look at.
 
Rivet said:
We'll know for sure when they finally decide to release games. Hopefully before the PS6.
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Everytime I have people questioning why I still have a ps4 in 2025, I always mention that there was quite a lack of launch titles for it back in the day when it first released. Several years later, I'll admit that there are some interesting games, but the next generation is soon here anyway so still not worth it for me. I hate how some people on the internet make fun of you for that lol, but whatever, I get to save my money for something better.
 
For me, Sony is just one of many software developers. I've never considered Sony to have any particular advantage in terms of graphics or technical innovation. I use a PlayStation because it's currently the most popular console, guaranteeing me access to the widest selection of games.

There are simply too many great games available for me to worry about Sony's game output.:messenger_grinning_squinting::messenger_sunglasses:
 
Rivet said:
We'll know for sure when they finally decide to release games. Hopefully before the PS6.
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Pretty much this, their output has been exceedingly anaemic the last few years. After a good run, they put most their studios on GAAS, most of which have been cancelled after many years of dev. With games taking 5-7y to make it means most have literally nothing to show and probably won't have until ps6 🤷‍♂️
 
Death Stranding 2 is the best looking game I've ever seen. In fact I'd argue its the best looking console game in existence.

Who gives a toss about whether it uses RT when the results are so good.
 
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