NeoGAF - as things stand right now, are you planning to buy a PS6 Portable? Why/why not?
- Thread starter nial
- Start date
xrnzaaas
Member
I'm not into handhelds and a new portable PS won't change that. Gave it a few shots with a PSP or an Evercade device and it's just not for me. I don't travel a lot, I try to stay aways from electronic devices on vacation and at home I only play in front of tv.
Plus if it's really going to be powerful you can bet it'll be expensive as hell and we all know how Sony basically abandoned PSVR2 right after launching it (with the price being of the key factors to its limited popularity).
Plus if it's really going to be powerful you can bet it'll be expensive as hell and we all know how Sony basically abandoned PSVR2 right after launching it (with the price being of the key factors to its limited popularity).
Icymanipulator
Member
I doubt I would ever get one. I play games when I'm at home. And if I really get the desire to occupy myself like that while I'm out I'll use my phone.
Trogdor1123
Member
limited interest in portables so I won't be
Zannegan
Member
I mean, I'd have a PS5 right now if their first party output this gen appealed to me, so a PS portable doesn't get an auto-buy from me like it would have last gen. Portable power is something that could sway me, but I'm more likely to buy a Steam Deck successor than something Sony puts out.
TKOFromTokyo
Member
I might get a PS6 home console, but I definitely won't get a portable console. If Nintendo had a home console I'd buy that instead of the Switch 2.
nial
Member
It is not, you will not call something that is clearly not a PS5 a 'PS5'.
And how do you make the distinction when everything is cross-generation at launch?
If new PS5 games are required to also run on the handheld, what exactly will change in respect to the AAA biz at large, which is expected to basically support old generation consoles as development costs are getting increasingly larger and can't sustain them from completely new install bases?
What is Sony's gain in making a handheld that shares its architecture with the PS6, only to market it as a PS5? What is Sony's gain in spending huge R&D resources on what would be a complementary device (a PS5 Portable releasing extremely late into its lifecycle) that is not positioned to sell any huge amount of units? What is Sony's gain in releasing it at the same time as the PS6, if it's not another PS6 as well?
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CashPrizes
Member
I would much rather get a Steam Deck 2 whenever that comes out.
Unfortunatecookie
Member
What I saw happening was changes in the industry (e.g., death of traditional AA games, death of traditional MMOs, death of bullshots) and failures of products (e.g., Labo, VR2, Kinect 2, Steam Machines.)
Hard to provide receipts when the conversations were happening in-person, but I have zero reason to lie. The migration of PlayStation software to PC was, in hindsight, the natural conclusion of Shawn Layden's decision-making. That I did not see coming.
Unfortunatecookie
Member
Precisely.
People -- myself included -- game on PC and consoles because each platform has it's strengths and weaknesses. The biggest strength of consoles was, is, and will always be exclusives. It's catastrophically short-sighted to think that PC players will buy PlayStation's just because games like DS2 or Ghost of Yotei won't be on PC day 1. A massive part of the PC software economy is to wait for games to go on sale; this works against PlayStation's idea that PC players will have FOMO.
Clearly, PlayStation want more streams of revenue, and PC makes short-term sense. In the long run, they're unintentionally eroding their hardware business because they're giving less and less reason(s) to use their hardware to play their games. It's just not forward-thinking.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
PSVR was an incredible experience, portable gaming in comparison is dull.
Fess
Member
Agreed 100%. I'm a summer sale and publisher sale purchaser.
Still, from my own selfish perspective I still want them to keep doing ports so I don't have to waste more money on a box that I barely use.
But from a platform holder perspective I don't have a clue how they're thinking. Especially since they only aim for "at least one" timed exclusive per year. Do they expect people to invest in a $700-1000 box for one or two games per year?
Unfortunatecookie
Member
The bolded is the problem.
Their thinking is "Let's make money now" so that the business shows quarterly and yearly growth. That's fine for their accountants and end-of-year executive bonuses. But the strategy completely ignores the reality that PC players won't have a reason to invest in a PS5/PS6 because by putting their games on PC, they've killed the #1 reason to buy their console. It's unbelievably bizarre how Sony (and not PlayStation) haven't spotted this.
Shawn Layden's idea (i.e., meet gamers where they're at) is fantastic if you're just a publisher and or have a failing hardware business. This is why PSVR2 makes a lot of sense on PC; it's not a growing business, so in order to get it going, they need to find an audience for it. I just don't see their strategy being great for PS6 hardware. I could be completely wrong, but if they continue to multi-platform their software, their hardware business will -- at some point -- start to experience irreversible consequences of this.
Lunarorbit
Member
Where the games at Sony? Until Sony decides to actually put out games at a reasonable pace they can fuck themselves.
Fess
Member
Hard to say, but it's a fair concern.
Microsoft started the same way, late ports on PC, and PlayStation fans often said that Xbox wasn't needed since they could just play their games on PC.
Today Sony do late ports on PC, and Xbox fans often say that PlayStation isn't needed since they could just play their games on PC.
Unfortunatecookie
Member
Bingo.Hard to say, but it's a fair concern.
Microsoft started the same way, late ports on PC, and PlayStation fans often said that Xbox wasn't needed since they could just play their games on PC.
Today Sony do late ports on PC, and Xbox fans often say that PlayStation isn't needed since they could just play their games on PC.
With Xbox, it made sense to try to find an audience on PC. Their console sales were terrible, their software sales were terrible, Microsoft owns Windows, people had always criticized GFWL and Microsoft's overall lack of effort in the PC gaming space, Valve was seriously investing in Linux, new entrants (e.g., Epic) threatened to lock Microsoft out of being the alternative to Steam, etc. It made sense for the Xbox business because at the end of the day, their business is run and owned by the exact same company that 'owns' the PC platform.
With PlayStation, it makes little to no sense. It's like their software arm was simply told to "Make more money", and their solution was to uppercut the hardware arm of the company -- not realizing that they were causing permanent, irreversible brain damage. I have no clue what math they did that showed them that the best solution to growing the PlayStation business was to do the thing that would shrink interest in the PlayStation business. Their calculators must be showing them something that the rest of us aren't privy to.
kevboard
Member
it's gonna use AMD hardware, it's gonna support the same APIs, it's made by Sony, it plays PS5 games... that's a PS5, no matter what revision of AMD's architecture it uses.
the distinction will be that developers could make PS6 only games if they want to, but aren't allowed to make PS5 only games without also supporting the handheld with a port
the fact that we can expect a very long cross gen period is why this handheld can work out well in the first place.
due to cross gen games and due to a possible backlog of titles that can get patched, this handheld will almost be self-sufficient and will have guaranteed support by 3rd party devs
requiring to also support a handheld that is only half as powerful is absolutely doable. it's not too much to ask, as it will be less of an issue to port stuff to it than it is to port stuff to the Series S even.
what they gain is a path forward for the PS5 that doesn't feel like it's just keeping the old gen running. this handheld can keep the PS5 generation relevant for even longer.
they could basically release "handheld games" to support the PS5 with new first party stuff... these handheld centric games then just so happen to also run on PS5 and PS6's back compat.
no risk for the customer, as support is guaranteed. no risk for third party Devs as all games will work on PS5 and PS6 too, and therefore have a huge pool of users. and the opportunity for Sony to make PS5 games still, without cannibalising their PS6 game developments, by focusing on smaller, handheld centric titles for PS5 going forward
the key thing however is catering to developers.
and no matter if you think it's worth it to be tied to the PS5 instead of the PS6, the truth simply is that requiring game pairty with PS6 would be an insane ask for developers.
I gave a conservative estimate in my last post, where I said the Devs would need to accommodate both a system half as powerful as the PS5 and one 5x as powerful... what if this conservative estimate of 5x is too low? and this low estimate already means a 10x GPU perfomance difference between the handheld and the PS6.
what if the PS6 has 6x the GPU power of the PS5? now we are at a 12x difference.
to port a PS5 game to this leaked handheld would mean cutting the framerate in half, or lowering the resolution by 25% on each axis... or maybe keep the resolution and lower a few settings. lots of ways to make a straightforward port.
now imagine a 10x GPU difference... Devs would need to somehow reduce the needed GPU resources by 90%.
you'd need to run at ¼ resolution and ½ framerate to get close to that.
so a native 4k 60fps game would be doable sure... 1080p 30fps + reduced settings. what if it's not a native 4k 60fps game on PS6 tho? what if it's a 1440p 60fps game? suddenly we'd need to go to 720p 30fps.
what if it's a 1080p 60fps game that is designed around heavy raytracing or even PathTracing? now we're at 540p 30fps, if we assume the RT hardware (which will be stripped down massively as well) can handle it.
ok, now, what if we see a game like Alan Wake 2, that pushed the PS6 to its limits? a game that is well sub 1080p in its 60fps mode, and barely at 1080p in its 30fps mode? what then? will we see 240p 30fps games then?
the hardware power difference is just way to large. and if we assume the PS6 will have 6x the GPU power of the PS5, then well... that'd be something.
and you'd have lots of people being pissed about "holding the PS6 back!", look what people said about the Series S, which only had a 3x GPU power difference to the X... and that already was lambasted by people for "holding the generation back"
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