What 10th Gen Needs Is Innovation, Not (Just) Power

What are you most looking forward to with 10th gen (choose 3)?

  • More powerful consoles

    Votes: 60 54.1%
  • The next big GAAS trend

    Votes: 5 4.5%
  • Growth from emerging markets (China, South Korea etc.)

    Votes: 25 22.5%
  • More transmedia adaptations (films, shows, anime etc.)

    Votes: 3 2.7%
  • Higher prices

    Votes: 13 11.7%
  • More normalcy/less politicization

    Votes: 31 27.9%
  • More & better console-like PCs/PC handhelds

    Votes: 17 15.3%
  • Remakes/remasters of dormant old IP

    Votes: 27 24.3%
  • More acquisitions (devs, pubs, IP)

    Votes: 2 1.8%
  • Better Western games journalism

    Votes: 6 5.4%
  • More AAA games

    Votes: 27 24.3%
  • More AA games

    Votes: 46 41.4%
  • Other (mention in comment)

    Votes: 9 8.1%

  • Total voters
    111
  • Poll closed .
This isn't going to be like the other next-gen speculation threads I've done in the past, as it's less about raw power and more about business strategy. We already know the PS6 and next Xbox device(s) will be more powerful than the current boxes. However, at the rate pricing and product trends seem to be going, not to mention game release strategy from SIE and MS, simply having "more power" isn't going to be a great selling point for 10th gen hardware. The visual gains more powerful consoles can afford just aren't going to be as impressive as going from PS1 to PS2, or SNES to N64.

So, how do the next round of consoles actually retain market relevance? Well aside from the games themselves, I think it'll come down to business strategies. But first, I want to dispel some ideas around what expected benefits more powerful consoles would bring next gen:

MYTH #1: WE'LL GET SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER-LOOKING GAMES

TRUTH:
At this point, aside from arguably more dedicated RT & ML hardware solutions, the power of PS5 and Series X aren't what's holding most games back from being massive visual leaps over 8th-gen titles. It's budgets, manpower/manhours and lengthy development cycles. I could also arguably throw in the ever-increasing open-worldness factor games pursue (more content volume = less time for visual polish) and pursuit of GAAS (by their nature, GAAS target high framerates and huge gamut of system specs, necessitating simpler art styles & less demanding graphics).

A PS6 or NextBox offering 16x the TF and bandwidth of current-gen systems, only means it'll take 7-8 years for a massive 1,000+ person studio to put out a single AAA game actually leveraging that hardware to its fullest. And by that point, new hardware will be ready to launch. Simply pushing ever-more-powerful versions of what we already have is a band-aid to the problem of overly complex and bloated development cycles, which are the REAL bottleneck in us getting a consistent flow of significantly better-looking games (industry trends in areas like GAAS being a good runner-up).

MYTH #2: EVERYTHING WILL SCALE WITH MORE POWERFUL HARDWARE B/C OF SMALLER NODES

TRUTH:
When some people see "N3P", they think every component of the APU/SOC will be linearly scaled at the same rate. That isn't true; in fact, some components aren't even on that particular node process, and certain layers of a given chip component could be on larger, older node processes.

As an example, on-chip cache generally does not scale down at a linear rate the same way shader cores might (assuming they are architecturally the same as those on an older process). Other things like the memory controllers scale down even worst, or in some cases not at all, so those are things which still can take up a considerable amount of die space even if the chip design is moving to a smaller process.

MYTH #3: MORE POWERFUL CONSOLES WILL MEAN MORE GAMEPLAY INNOVATIONS

TRUTH:
This has been a thing of increasingly less happenstance gen-over-gen, and in the past when it DID happen, was usually paired with technological innovations in some other area, such as controller inputs, storage, online connectivity etc. The PS5 and Series consoles have mainly offered up simply prettier iterations of games that were common on the PS4 & XBO, albeit with streamlining (some would say oversimplification) in certain areas following "best practices" and things of that nature. One could argue the 8th gen was the same to 7th gen, but I'd also argue 8th gen both streamlined certain game design choices & practices, while also making certain emerging genres fully mainstream, such as GAAS battle royales, hero shooters, and single-player cinematic 3P games.

Considering increases in team sizes, budgets, time-of-development windows and the negative effect that has on risk-taking choices of game design & experimentation (not to mention decreased presence of things like VR/AR), what technological innovations will come paired with power increases to drive new ideas and concepts in game design of AAA titles?

Now that we've gotten the clearing of those myths out the way, what actual business innovations can 10th gen bring to customers to excite dedicated & casual customers? Perhaps even expand the customer base again? Well, this is mainly going to be a reiteration over things I've mentioned in the past, hopefully with more clarity. I'll also be breaking it down by platform holder, and try keeping things as brief as possible.

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[SONY/SIE]

[MICROCOMPUTER-IZING THE PLAYSTATION]

This should be simple in concept: in the same way the Amiga could do productivity tasks alongside having a focus on pushing games (for its time), I feel PlayStation will eventually have to take a similar
approach if pricing trends this gen continue, and things like tariff trade wars become more common. In addition to providing value which can grant the system categorization exemptions and tax benefits, it also generally acts as an easy way of buffing the value proposition.

Additionally, it acts as a way of expanding that value proposition while still securing the general operating environment, i.e keeping the OS locked down to a single proprietary provider (the platform holder). It would bring just enough of the open aspects of PC, without having to relinquish vertical integration of the stack (kernel, OS, storefront, hardware, APIs). SIE don't even have to necessarily farm out development of productivity software components to 3P; they make certain applications for Windows and could simply port them over to the PS OS, while making additional applications to round out the package offering. Means of providing such software could be in the form of both individual software license purchases, and including them accessible in a running subscription to PS+.

As for what such software packages would provide, well the easiest way to imagine that to look at the PC space and drawing equivalents. So things in areas like music production, audio engineering, video production, graphics modeling (general 3D modeling, CAD etc.), spreadsheets, business documents, audio/video players, chat clients and more. Either developed in-house or in partnership with 3P software developers, with more intensive ones (i.e 3D modeling & CAD) having input from various SIE 1P studios to enable the best technical performance possible.

[ABOLISH THE ONLINE PAYWALL]

Honestly, this is something that will become an inevitability sooner or later. In a world where F2P has gained dominance (and where the paywall is already waived for said F2P on console), not to mention growing influence of PC gaming where online play is generally not paywalled, consoles like PlayStation where 90%+ of the library is shared with PC, WILL have to remove their online paywall to keep competitive. Just the simple truth and, yes, despite what some SIE heads would say, the markets of console and PC are becoming increasingly more competitive with one another for gaming time and dollars.

It's an antiquated approach that has allowed console platform holders to get away with low value proposition in their online services, implemented at a time when game libraries were largely divergent, consoles still enforced many permanent exclusives (intentional & defacto), and consoles had a very large pricing advantage against PC gaming setups providing even "good enough" baseline performance, let alone performance matching & exceeding consoles of that gen. It's time to move on; besides, a company like SIE can add things like aforementioned productivity software suites to subscription service tiers to increase the value proposition (in lieu of removing the online paywall) and potentially make more money along the way.

[A NEW PORTABLE COMPANION]

Thanks to leakers like K KeplerL2 , we've got a fairly good understanding of what SIE's next gen portable plans are looking like. The fact SIE are in fact looking into doing one is, IMO, crucial, because they need something that'll appeal to markets like Japan, where currently the PS5 is doing rather poorly (especially WRT software sales). In that regard, a portable doesn't suddenly make their fortunes better, but it DOES drastically improve their odds provided other critical components come together (i.e appealing software exclusives).

For non-Japanese markets, where the PS Portal has been doing decently well, it adds optional value to those with a PlayStation console, or an alternative means of playing PlayStation games if they don't see need for a dormant, stay-at-home console. What's less known, is if the portable will provide hybrid-like functionality, or natively play PS6 games. Even things like a downscale wrapper, while rumored via leaks, well it's not known how that's implemented or how good an implementation it'll be.

IMO, a hybrid-like approach isn't necessarily a requirement, and by "hybrid" I mean a portable with detachable controls or where part of the processing is in a dock module. Like the PS Vita, it'll have some way to cast output to a connected television (preferably both wired & wireless as options), and a dock could provide substantial active cooling allowing the portable to boost clocks for unlocked performance. Bigger areas of focus should be in ensuring local streaming latency is even lower, and having a scalable design that can facilitate as a cheaper, streaming-only (local & cloud) handheld option for those who don't want local native PS4, PS5 and PS6 play on the go.

As for PS6 compatibility, it sure would be nice if advances with PSSR and other technologies could ensure downscaling of target performance for the handheld, in a way with little dev intervention (outside maybe metadata support), but I'm not holding my breath. Native PS6 game support on the portable will probably be selective, with many games relying on streaming (local & cloud). This could make things a bit tricky, and hopefully SIE have a solution for cloud streaming where at least two game instances can be ran on a single PS6-based server unit at reduced settings (relying on upscaling in the portable to boost settings on the user's end), just to keep the cloud side of things manageable.

[A RETURN TO CONSISTENT AA]

Part of ensuring the rumored portable sees traction in certain markets (such as, again, Japan) is making sure there's a consistent slate of quality exclusive software appealing to the region while also fitting the use-case of a portable. This is where SIE needs to focus on more AA internal productions, or at least co-developed & published productions. Titles like Astro Bot are a great example of what they can do in the AA space, but in Japan that game may've been hamstrung both by PS5's poor software situation plus the lack of physical availability early on.

Currently SIE are relying on 3P timed exclusives and remasters to pad between 1P AAA releases, but that strategy won't be viable next gen. They're running out of (recent/semi-recent) games to remaster and 3P are increasingly less willing to do exclusivity deals. For the ones they are, the window of exclusivity is shrinking, and SIE's own multiplatform efforts this gen have probably made it harder to sell 3P on doing for PlayStation systems, what SIE have seemed less willing to do themselves. Faced with that, SIE's AAA are generally games which overlap a lot in a similar space/niche, and the number of such releases annually has continued to decline for various reasons mostly related to increased time & budgets.

Also, and we can't forget, the concept of AAA games on-the-go was already tried with the PSP, and while at first novel, ultimately wasn't sustainable. People who want cinematic blockbuster AAA games prefer playing them a certain way, generally on a big screen and on the couch, so portability gets little value proposition from such. These types of games also ask for long sessions where a person's very engrossed into the narrative experience...imagine trying to do that on a bus commute. Not gonna happen (I've tried :P).

This is why you need AA games that, while they can work well for a console experience, also work just as well (if not even better) for a portable games platform. Games that have smaller budgets, therefore can afford to be quirkier & riskier in various concepts (as well as target demographics), have shorter development cycles and can add variety to the audiences that portable appeals to. If you take a look at many of the Switch's best-selling titles both in Japan and globally, you'll see they typically benefit from being heavily pick-up-and-play experiences with smaller budgets, affording more frequent releases across shorter time windows. They are experiences that work very well for on-the-go lifestyles but, all the same, work well when sat at the big screen.

SIE needs more of those types of games not just for the portable, but PlayStation in general.

[MORE MANAGEABLE AAA]

Loading studios with the task of carrying a console platform, with a AAA game that can take upwards 7-8 years to make, is a model that will eventually be unsustainable. Doing so with budgets pushing $300 million (or more) onto a single release, will become unsustainable. Do so with team sizes close to 1K or even more, is unsustainable. If the total addressable customer base for most AAA games is in the 10-20 million range (with exceptions), that type of development cycle is NOT sustainable.

So how do companies like SIE keep up the production values & quality, while making the development process more sustainable? To me it's a multi-pronged approach. On the backend side, they need investments in technologies that can expediate parts of the pipeline while lowering costs. The AI demonstration they showed with Aloy a while ago is a good example of this (while also being a reasonable implementation of AI that's on the more ethical side). The development of things like AI image filters, which we've seen demonstrations of for a while now, is also something SIE should be looking into. Again, there are smart and ethical ways to implement AI technologies into the game development process, and it's time people just accept that because the tech itself isn't going away.

Another thing SIE should probably start reconsidering is their dependence on Hollywood for script writing & VA work of AAA games. I'm not advocating this in order to screw people out of a job; however it's worth asking if the quality of what has been provided the past few years justifies the costs. Did Spiderman 2's story really benefit that much from having multiple Hollywood writers on it? Considering the criticisms, the answer is likely "no". Games like Horizon may benefit from having a few notable VA talent like the late Lance Reddick (RIP), but does such a game need an entire cast of Hollywood VAs? Probably not; after all, a fantastic voice director (or whatever you'd call such a person) can get great performances out of an average non-Hollywood person with good effort & cooperation.

The model for distribution of these AAA games could probably change a bit, as well. On the one hand, waiting 7-8 years for a studio's singular AAA magnum opus of a gen means a lot of time SIE has to eat in not having that game actively benefit the platform pre-release. Between start of development and completion, the entire market could change. The entire audience of those interested could disappear. On the other hand, cutting down ambition and scope of the game simply to release it quicker, can rob the game of potential impact and added value to the platform. It could even damage the reputation of the publisher and studio, and make people weary of future releases from them.

That said, SIE already provided something of a solution in the past, but have for whatever reason stepped away from it: the mid-step spinoff. Uncharted 4 had The Lost Legacy, while Spiderman had Miles Morales. In both cases, you got rather self-contained experiences which built off their immediate predecessors, while still connecting to them narratively & gameplay-wise, having expediated dev cycles (since they were beneficiaries of engine work done on the original installments prior), and keeping momentum going between new mainline installments. For whatever reason (likely due to the misguided GAAS gambit & PC porting initative), SIE stepped away from this approach and their lineup has suffered somewhat for it.

Going forward, I think bringing back that format while addressing points raised earlier WRT bottlenecks in the AAA dev pipeline, can ultimately make them more manageable projects for SIE. Why have a studio take 7-8 years on Horizon Next or TLOU3, when they can split the game into 2 or 3 fully-realized installments interspersed every 2 or so years during the length of the generation? Why take the former approach for a one-time $70 (or $80) sale that'll drop in price within a few months anyway, versus the latter where each installment can go for $30 or $40? You still have the option of compiling the installments into a "final" release later at full price anyhow (and IF you feel it's needed, can do a multiplatform release with that "final" version)?

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about installments where they clearly feel unfinished or like hardline parts of a whole game. Rather, they should feel like total game experiences unto themselves, with a typical difficulty & complexity curve, a fully realized story, a realized cast of characters, a "full-feeling" content package (say 10-20 hours worth of main & side content, depending on game type). All the same, there should be an obvious through line narratively between installments being built up, plus the ability for progress to be carried over between them. If you want a damn-near perfect example of what I'm referring to as a reference, look no further to...Shining Force III. Yes, the Shining Force III games released for the SEGA Saturn almost 30 years ago at this point. THAT'S how you do a series of individual installments wholly full games unto themselves, but still connecting together effortlessly as a larger game experience.

And that is the type of model more of SIE's 1P AAA games should probably aspire to replicating.

[A SMARTER MULTIPLATFORM APPROACH]

So not to mince words, but my opinion on SIE's multiplat approach this gen is summed well in three words: it's been shit. Their PC support went from something reasonable, to what I now call very unreasonable. It was supposed to be a way of providing teases & samples to one audience (PC gamers) and entice them towards getting a console for the full experience. That worked when it was a very small handful of ports, mainly of games like Predator: Hunting Ground or 3+ year-old ports of titles like Horizon Zero Dawn. That worked when the majority of their 1P games were still exclusive to the console and remained so for all or most of the active console gen lifecycle. However, even prior to the PS5 Pro, SIE ended up porting all but a small handful of their 1P offerings this gen to Steam, weakening the impact of those games as long-term value propositions to the PS5 and even the PS5 Pro.

As well, the strategy's now conditioned many Steam players to not bother getting a PS5, feeling they can better wait for a port and get the game cheaper on PC instead. SIE's GAAS spread out between console & PC, have various other incentives on PC that aren't matched on console, such as cheaper pricing, free online, a wider range of options for competitive advantages (better CPUs, GPUs, lower-latency KB&M support, lower-latency monitors with higher refresh rates, etc.). Generally speaking, the PC support has been eroding at reasons to justify the console and in some regions, sales are beginning to reflect this.

The strategy even has problems when speaking of other consoles. Somehow the Switch was able to get a port of LEGO Horizon but not the PS4? They seem to have a licensing agreement with Bandai-Namco to bring legacy IP to Nintendo platforms and Steam which are clearly not GAAS and clearly not non-GAAS taking 2+ years to go from PlayStation exclusivity to other platforms, as was the original promise with the multiplat strategy. Yet all the same, Switch versions of games like Patapon 1 & 2 have features not present in the PlayStation version...how did this come to pass? The frequency of ports to Switch and Day 1 non-GAAS to Steam also increases the likelihood games like Astro Bot, despite protests to otherwise, could definitely come to Switch 2 and Steam sooner vs. later.

To fix these weak points, it's probably time SIE establish some firm rules and indications on a multiplatform pipeline that shows their console is still the epicenter of things, rather than giving it mentions in passing. No matter if they want to pretend otherwise, consoles NEED exclusives and in fact, ALL platforms do, in order to effectively compete. The more you have and the longer they remain exclusive, the better the platform's odds in the market. This doesn't just go for games, but also for any entertainment medium/space, as we can see with the film/TV streaming services. Since 3P exclusives will be harder to come by, for SIE that means 1P has to fill in the void, and their strongest ace in that regard are the AAA non-GAAS titles. SIE need to establish so that 1P AAA non-GAAS remain exclusive for either half the lifecycle of a gen (remakes, mainly) or for the whole 7-8 years. Games releasing after that midway point or near the end of a gen, should range between 3/4 - 7/8 years of exclusivity at minimum, if not longer. Exclusivity shows faith in the platform where those games are exclusive, and also provides motivation to make that platform as competitive as possible so those exclusives can prosper as much as possible, too.

It's a bit different with GAAS; no, I don't think every GAAS needs to be multiplatform. Look at Valve, and see how their GAAS (DOTA 2, Counterstrike 2, Deadlocked etc.) do perfectly fine despite being exclusive to Steam, which has an install base comparable to PlayStation of any given generation. Look at Epic, who at least on PC, maintain exclusivity of Fortnite to the Epic Game Store. Look at Nintendo, with quasi-GAAS titles like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. easily selling tens of millions every iteration while being wholly exclusive to their own hardware. The myth that GAAS need multiplatform (much like the myth exclusives need to be multiplatform) for success only took hold for losers within the gaming space, and serves as a decoy in many cases to have new GAAS fail under the weight of "support bloat"; that is to say, the stress of needing to simplify concepts to safely bring the game to multiple platforms Day 1, provide optimization for all supported platforms Day 1 (big costs), AND provide long-term support for all supported platforms (even bigger costs), leaving little budget for design innovations or polished content updates. Entrenched mega-GAAS (which in some cases are platforms unto themselves) can afford that ubiquitous multiplatform support strategy right out of the gate, but it's becoming a death sentence for new, smaller GAAS titles.

Therefore I'd suggest SIE look at keeping some GAAS titles console-exclusive, while bringing others to additional platforms. But that doesn't mean all the multplat GAAS have to be on all the platforms; Helldivers 2 for example is on PS5 & PC; no Xbox or Switch versions, nor does the game really need them. While scale up the number of platforms to support, without increasing the studio size and support team network (not to mention server capacity) to accomplish that, while still having to maintain a steady clip of content updates? For increases that could be rather sizable gambles at the end of the day?

AA games (of the small and larger varieties) should have yet another approach. Again, since we're talking non-GAAS, leveraging them as much as possible for exclusivity is key, but the windows for exclusivity (in theory) can be more lenient. It should be very selective, but I don't think too many would get upset if, say, an Arc The Lad or PoPoLoCrois remake went to Switch 2 3 or so years after being exclusive to PlayStation. Or say they did both remakes; maybe one stays exclusive permanently but the other is a Day 1 PlayStation/Switch 2 release. What matters is ensuring the cadence of such multiplatform releases doesn't become so established that people can safely assume "oh they're just going to bring all the games here by ("x" date) anyway!", or assume such ports are inevitable.

Finally, in the case of both AAA and AA titles which eventually go multiplatform, SIE should make very sure that it's a one-way transaction. Obviously I don't mean expecting or demanding Valve & Nintendo bring a game to PlayStation; rather I mean that SIE ensures a new installment or equivalent is coming exclusively to their own platform within a "reasonable" span of time (1-2 years), and that would be a cadence they SHOULD create to act as assuredness for PlayStation customers.

So, you don't want a pattern where you're porting too many games (or too many too soon), while you do want to establish the expectation of when there's a port, it's going to result in something new exclusively for PS hardware within a manageable amount of time.​

[PART 2 BELOW...]
 
[P. 2]

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[MICROSOFT]

[ABANDOING THE TRADITIONAL MODEL]
Between the Gestridens Discord leak, hints & leaks from our own folks like S SneakersSO and HeisenbergFX4 HeisenbergFX4 , and general hints & messaging from Microsoft Gaming folks at large, it's safe to say the era of a traditional Xbox home console is basically dead. Even if you aren't paying attention to any of that, you needn't look any further than the rather catastrophic sales collapse of Xbox Series throughout most of the world outside of the United States (where even there, sales are on a steady decline) to get the hint. Additionally, Microsoft's shift to a more-or-less fully multiplatform strategy supporting PlayStation & Nintendo alongside PC, makes the pitch for a purely traditional next-gen Xbox rather pointless in practice.​
And for Microsoft, that's probably music to their ears. It's not like they've been making a killing on Xbox Series hardware sales; in fact they've been losing anywhere between $100 and $200 for each system sold (yet another reason they've been culling back production of new hardware). For a company that just spent $75 billion on ABK, and another $7.5 billion on Zenimax, combined with general sunk costs into Xbox over the past 10+ years that have bore little in returns, and it's no wonder Microsoft would want to shift from the traditional business model. For them, that model simply is no longer viable. A shift from that model gives more room for Microsoft to get innovative with the value proposition Xbox hardware can bring, and that's something we're going to probably see a lot more of over the next 12-18 months as MS inevitably start talking more about what exactly the next gen of their gaming hardware entails.​
[PC-FYING THE XBOX]
There's going to be an irony in this, as far as things with Xbox hardware going "full circle". After all, the original Xbox was meant to be a Windows gaming machine in a more pure sense, but homogenous convergence of technologies wasn't realized by the early '00s, so they basically stripped out the kernel, heavily customized it, and modified the design to something more a mix between a traditional console with PC influences (i.e x86-based CPU, an Nvidia PC GPU-based graphics solution, 8 GB HDD etc.). I'd call this the point of Microsoft "bringing PC to console".​
What they are likely to do with 10th-gen Xbox hardware, is "bring the console to PC", or at least they're going to try. They aren't alone in that approach and have a surprisingly huge challenge to overcome in Valve (for reasons I'll outline when I get to Valve's section), but theoretically speaking, MS do have the pieces to make it work. Currently, there's word of them shifting the development environment to Win32, and they'll probably want to shift the GDK to something reflective of that as well, while moving away from Xbox OS AppX-specific binaries. If their approach with 10th-gen is what I'm feeling it's gonna be, then they're likely actively seeking ways to bring the Xbox OS UI console frontend to whatever custom (likely locked-down in some capacity) version of Windows 12 they use as the OS base for 10th-gen Xbox devices.​
In addition to this, at least for whatever would be considered the stay-at-home console equivalent, whatever 10th-gen Xbox device fills that role will need to apply some form of hardware modularity, and it'll have to (most critically) do so in a way that's fuss-free like a console. That means avoiding the myriad of complications and error-prone factors which are present with implementing such modularity upgrades on actual PCs. Modularity WRT low-profile GPU upgrades, system RAM upgrades (maybe utilizing something like Dell's CAMM here, particularly for a portable with memory upgrade options?), and cooling upgrade options has to be in some form of play here, to make the "PC-fication" of traditional Xbox hardware have actual meaning.​
[ENTERING TRANSMEDIA]
Since MS are taking a full multiplatform approach to their games software, and given the recent success of adaptations like the Fallout TV series and Minecraft movie, it'd seem Microsoft have found some footing in being able to compete with SIE and Nintendo in the multimedia-games adaptation space. And it's not like they're struggling for IP to spin off into various film, television, or animated adaptations of, either: Elder Scrolls, Gears of War, Starcraft, Overwatch, Psychonauts etc. could find success in various adaptation spaces similar to Fallout and Minecraft.​
As always, it'd come down to maintaining synergy and balance, and remembering that no matter what, ultimately the games are what keep the soul of those IP alive & relevant, not their non-game adaptations (this similarly applies to SIE & Nintendo, but I generally trust them to better understand this than Microsoft, given their gaming success & experience in doing adaptations going back years (decades in Nintendo's case)).​
[RIDDING OF DEAD WEIGHT]
If you look at Microsoft Gaming as a whole, they've got quite a few redundancies and whatnot which become increasingly irrelevant now that their position as a (primary) platform holder has been significantly reduced. These are things that they're either in the process of, or would like to begin, cutting the fat of, as it were. And principally, we can break it down to a few key things.​
[GAME PASS]
Let's face it; this shit isn't going anywhere in terms of major growth or relevance. And whatever growth there is from B2P sales on non-Xbox platforms isn't reason to justify keeping Game Pass around as a charity, either (not to mention, it's potentially illegal, i.e could be grounds for price-shifting arguments later down the road). Game Pass needed to justify it's own continued existence through showing major growth and, well, it's failed to accomplish that.​
What's more, any plans there may've been to bring it to other console platforms are seemingly dead. Microsoft don't want to gamble the B2P sales revenue they're seeing on PlayStation & Nintendo shrink by offering a Game Pass model, meanwhile SIE & Nintendo are very much not interested in a convoluted revenue-sharing model nor setting a precedent for additional 3P subscription services that could depress B2P sales on their storefronts (and lower PS+ and NSO subscription rates). They aren't interested in tying Game Pass access to PS+ or NSO, and neither is Microsoft (since that inherently creates a dependency relationship on top of other dependencies), and for SIE in particular, they'd rather not enable a service from a company that could be competing with them on 3P publishing deals going forward (as seen in things like the Ninja Gaiden 2 remake & Ninja Gaiden 4). With those being MS Gaming-published titles, MS has all the reason to put them in Game Pass Day 1, cutting into B2P sales of those games on any platform where Game Pass exists.​
So what do they do? The answer, I think, is obvious. They're going to slowly keep increasing sub tier prices while paring back features per tier, then turn the service into something basically for only legacy titles (no Day 1 releases at all, regardless of tier) with additional perks for various 1P-published games, and at best retain that model going forward while rotating out smaller selections of mainly old 1P titles every so often. Naturally, console Game Pass will see this happen at a faster clip than PC Game Pass, and it's also possible console Game Pass is ceased altogether by the time legacy support for Series S & X ends. After all, if Xbox basically becomes a PC, why would it need anything other than PC Game Pass far as subscriptions go?​
[SERIES S & X]
Microsoft have already massively scaled back production of new S & X systems given sales freefall, and one justification for wanting 10th-gen devices to roll out ASAP would be to justify the complete discontinuation of Series S & X production. Support-wise, they'll probably stick around for a few more years (maybe until 2030), and maybe some new features introduced with 10th-gen get back-ported to the 9th-gen Xbox devices to act as a bridge, but eventually MS want to move customer bases to buying the new systems soon as possible.​
Series S & X will only get more expensive to produce as time goes on, and costs to R&D their designs to smaller nodes won't come cheap, either. There is little community nor business incentive to continued production of those systems any longer than needed, as they simply represent albatrosses around Microsoft's neck.​
[343i, NINJA THEORY, TURN 10, COMPULSION, INXILE]
Right now MS have some 30+ internal studios, and that was always going to be a lot to manage long-term. Given some recent releases, it's also looking like some might either be on the chopping block or due for serious restructuring WRT their role in the whole of Microsoft Gaming. For example, I can easily see Compulsion being folded into Double Fine, while some team members of the former are cut or moved to technical support roles at other studios. Double Fine & Compulsion have a lot of overlap in terms of genre and themes, but Double Fine is much more competent & experienced at it, so why keep both studios around? It's better than closing Compulsion, but I don't see Compulsion remaining as-is for much longer considering the sales flop (and soft critical reception) to South of Midnight.​
Turn 10 is another studio I can see where many team members are dispersed (likely to Playground Games to bulk up a Forza Horizon team while other members form a separate team for projects like Fable) while the studio itself either gets shut down, or turned into technical support with a new name. All the while, we can probably expect the Forza Motorsport brand to fade away; it's not like the latest version was that great, and in a reality where MS are bringing all their games to as many platforms as possible, why offer a redundancy to compete against a strong mainstay like Gran Turismo (especially when that redundancy is weaker in quality), when you can offer a complementary filling a specific niche with good market potential instead (i.e what Forza Horizon accomplishes)? I don't think we'll be seeing another Forza Motorsport, and Turn 10 will undergo significant restructuring.​
Ninja Theory had an amazing opportunity to truly become the "Naughty Dog of Microsoft" with Hellblade II, but ultimately squandered the opportunity. The sequel was largely a regression compared to the first in all ways but visual, and IMO you can hardly call it much of a "game", no more so than fare like Kenji Eno's D was back on the Saturn, 3DO & PS1. For a game that spent five years in a hype cycle with not one, but TWO trailers at Geoff's TGAs, you'd of thought Hellblade II would've been a more ambitious title than it ended up being. Is it fundamentally broken in any given area on a technical level? No. But in almost every measure where narrative immersion matters, where energetic combat & sophistication matters...the game was a stunning disappointment.​
Now, how much of that was due to creative choices by Ninja Theory vs. marching orders from higher up, I don't know. We'll likely never know. But considering the game did absolutely nothing for Game Pass or Xbox in both sales nor platform prestige, it's safe to say Ninja Theory are probably on shaky ground. I've no idea where Project MARA went or if it's alive, but if that was going to be more Hellblade II then for NT's sake I hope the game was internally delayed so they could considerably rework the actual "game" aspects of the concept. Also, while Hellblade II's story had some neat ideas, the realization and through line tying it all together was quite sloppy and poorly done. Future NT games need to improve on that....​
...or "game" as it were. I genuinely think NT have one more shot to justify themselves as-is under Microsoft Gaming, and if their next game is as meek as Hellblade II, well...that could be lights out for them. Once again, I don't see Ninja Theory being shut down altogether, but they'd probably have many people reallocated to a new technical support studio under a different name, while remaining members likely just depart and get employed elsewhere (i.e Rockstar, Naughty Dog, CDPR etc.). The "brand" of Ninja Theory would be dead, but spiritually live on in some other form. Wouldn't expect a damn thing more out of their IPs tho; with such little market relevance MS could just chuck them into the vault or sell them to a wanting 3P to scoop up some extra cash.​
As for 343i--oh wait, I'm sorry, isn't it "Halo Studios" now?--...yeah, well you can probably see why my thoughts on the other teams is heavily influenced by what we've seen happen with this particular studio 😁. Not much maybe need be said here.​
[PHIL SPENCER, MATT BOOTY, AARON GREENBERG, SARAH BOND]
I won't mince words here: in my honest opinion, the death of Xbox as a console platform has mainly occurred under Phil Spencer's direct watch and control. You can argue the seeds were planted by Don Mattrick and the early process began under him, but I'd still say a fully competent successor would've been able to identify the problems and fix them give or take 3-5 years after assuming dominant control. Phil Spencer's been leading Xbox one way or another for 11 years and we've seen the console gone from still being somewhat competitive in the early XBO years, to a dying also-ran with Series X & S. Gambles Phil spearheaded such as buying ABK, may've breathed life into Microsoft as a games publisher platform but also guaranteed the demise of their traditional console business model. Even if Phil & Booty had delusions in leaked emails & memos to make Bethesda games and COD exclusive at some point, in reality superiors above them would have nipped that in the bud.​
Phil Spencer was a terrible CEO for Xbox as a console platform, and I have little confidence he can do better trying to sustain & grow the brand as a publisher on multiple platforms. Or at least, I lack that confidence in them long-term.​
People like Aaron Greenberg, meanwhile, basically just look useless to me now. A person who relished in pushing console war rhetoric & hype for diehards, can't really do much of that anymore when they don't have much of a console left. How is the marketing style he's known for, going to translate into a more neutral multiplatform space? IMO it doesn't, so why is still there and getting promotions outside of being a good buddy to Phil? Where's the merit at to warrant his sticking around? Meanwhile, a lot of the problems we've seen with Xbox Game Studios initiatives and things relating to Game Pass, can be blamed on Matt Booty & Sarah Bond, respectively. How much of that was due to their own choices or restrictions imposed by superiors (in their case, Phil Spencer), again, we don't know and probably will never know. That said, the idea of letting internal studios run loose with no strictness in quality control, or pumping money into a subscription model that was ultimately unsustainable for video games, were always farcical on some primal level. You didn't need years of actual application to guess the results we've ended up seeing.​
Personally, I think Phil Spencer's going to retire before the next main Xbox devices launch, and I can see Aaron Greenberg leaving the company or getting reassigned to another position. I do feel MS will try getting Bobby Kotick back at least as an advisor role for general studio management, and Matt Booty having a 50:50 chance of staying onboard or departing. Same goes for Sarah Bond, as I think her position will be reduces in scope if/when Xbox hardware eventually gets folded into MS's Surface division or general computing hardware division (again).​

[PART 3 BELOW...]
 
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Actual games would be a good start, yes Xbox is starting to release good games but Sony need to step up their game big time !
 
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[NINTENDO]

[AN *ACTUAL* SWITCH (2) PRO]
Although I personally feel Switch 2 is quite capable for what it is, and will be able to provide more of a performance boost than some want to give it credit for, the truth is that by the time PS6 and the NextBox launch, Nintendo could find themselves in a situation where they have no viable hardware to garner big 3P support. Given the gains they've been making on that front with Switch 2, it'd be rather dumb to let all that hard work go to waste in just a few years time, even if the base Switch 2 remains the priority in support.​
That's why it wouldn't surprise me if sometime around late 2028 or early/mid 2029, we get a Switch 2 Pro, and one that does actually give a substantial performance boost. I'd like to think the base Switch 2 has been designed to where a powered-up dock with additional processing power could be combined to give a "Pro" level performance, but I don't think the USB-C port has enough juice (bandwidth) to facilitate that, and there's no Thunderbolt connection on the thing, either. Not a big deal; however, having some type of Pro model to provide a spec 3P can option to target for software support of then-new AAA and AA games may not be such a bad deal.​
In fact, it might benefit Nintendo if, provided future 3P ports can't run at a satisfactory level on base Switch 2, they allow 3P to bypass that and just support the Switch 2 Pro instead. Nintendo can always invest in a cloud streaming solution for the base system, and I think a Switch 2 Pro would have all the major factors required to constitute a big part of the Switch 2's sales, especially if it's positioned like the Switch OLED (which, of course, means also having an OLED screen).. The Switch 2 Pro alone could have enough an install base to make such decisions viable for 3P who could find the base Switch 2 a bit much to optimize for as 10th gen gets underway.​
I don't wanna speculate on pricing, but considering Nintendo, I wouldn't be surprised at a $649 or even $699 price tag. The specs would just need to be damn good to justify it, that's all.​
[...AND MORE ECONOMICAL, CHEAPER SWITCH 2, TOO]
Of course, a Switch 2 Pro is only part of what constitutes a good long-term strat for Nintendo. Let's face it: Switch 2 is a considerable jump up in price compared to the original, and pricing trends this gen with PS5 & Series X mean it could at best stay steady, if not see nominal MSRP increases rather than price drops. Nintendo's also not one to drop their hardware prices, unless a specific cost-reduced version is introduced.​
So, like the original Switch, I don't see why they'd forego a Switch 2 Lite that cuts costs in some areas (outside of raw processing performance, which'd remain identical) to bring costs down. I'm expecting perma-docked controls (but new JoyCon 2 controllers still usable with the system, as an option, especially for games leveraging the mouse control), possibly a smaller screen with a lower resolution & refresh rate, less peripheral ports, and removal of the dock. It'd probably also lose the feature of connecting to a TV, but might support another similar option (such as retaining casting to another Switch or Switch 2 device), and also can't forget: smaller internal storage (but still upgradable). One final thing: I'd expect these models to likely be region-locked similar to the Japan region-locked Switch 2, if it helps in keeping the MSRP low.​
As for when a Switch 2 Lite would come out, I guess the best timing would be sometime in 2029, around a similar time frame as the Switch 2 Pro, but maybe a tad earlier. And, assuming base Switch 2 holds at $449, then I can see a Switch 2 Lite at $299 realistically speaking. It'd need to have all the same raw performance capability as the base Switch 2 and, since it'd be intended for portability exclusively, a better battery.​
[A BIGGER PLAY FOR 3P EXCLUSIVES (AND CONTENT EXCLUSIVES IN 3P PORTS TO SWITCH 2)]
One of the highlights and big shocks at the Switch 2 Direct, for me, was Nintendo netting a From Software exclusive in Duskbloods. Yes, it's a multiplayer game and, yes, it's not a Soulsborne. But I'm still very impressed that Nintendo, and not SIE, were able to net a From Software exclusive first this gen, in spite of all the financial investment SIE and Sony Corp have made in them and the parent company, Kadokawa. And for those saying SIE could've gotten the game but passed because it's somehow "not interesting"...ask yourself, why did they pass on Duskbloods for....Foamstars? For...Concord? The more I think of it, the more I think not getting Duskbloods is SIE's version of Microsoft cancelling the Phantom Dust remake. Luckily in this case, Nintendo weren't asleep at the wheel.​
And that's got me thinking, of what other 3P exclusives Nintendo can potentially aim for with Switch 2? They're the only platform holder of the Big 3 who still heavily pushes genuine exclusivity, and that reflects well on them when they want to ask a 3P to prioritize a Nintendo platform over others for software exclusivity. Lead by action, and others will follow (if they want). I don't expect Nintendo to get much from Western 3P who aren't indie in scale, but Japanese & Asian 3P are a different matter. Even simply licensing out re-releases of classic 3P IP for Switch 2 exclusivity (either as retail games, or additions to their online service games offerings) isn't out of the question, let alone making plays for new AA and (certain) AAA 3P Japanese/Asian game exclusivity. The assured dominant install base of Switch 2 in Japan alone will also be helpful in this regard, and for smaller 3P games, likely get them many defacto console exclusives (if not outright platform exclusives).​
But, the strength with Nintendo is that they don't even need game exclusives from 3P to still bring unique value to 3P versions of games to their platform. A while ago I talked about Nintendo codeveloping/licensing out development of Switch 2-excluive content based on Nintendo IP that would be relevant to the game in question, and I think that is something they are going to leverage with certain 3P multiplats to their system, whether they're Day 1 or come later down the line. Nintendo don't even necessarily need marketing deals to do this, and the profile boost a 3P port could get with association to Nintendo IP is extremely tempting to consider. More than even outright 3P exclusives (which, again, I think will probably be mostly Asian games, likely new IP or smaller AA & indie titles with maybe some occasional bigger AAA or well-known IP timed exclusive), I expect this to be something Nintendo leverages to make 3P games on their platform stand out vs. others like PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam.​
Yes, arguably speaking other platforms could take a similar approach, but let's actually think about that in full. Valve don't even have enough IP to provide that type of value in such a strategy, and Microsoft no longer revolve around a sales strategy where selling consoles is the major push. That basically leaves SIE and, while IP like TLOU and GOW certainly are major, mainstream hits, they're also not malleable enough to effortlessly be adapted into a wide range of other IP spaces without breaking in-universe cohesion. Basically, most of SIE's IP are too mature and narrative-based to afford them the required flexibility.​
So if we're talking platform holders here, only Nintendo truly provide the necessary amount of big mainstream IP, that are all-ages spanning and malleable/flexible enough to be readily adapted in some form as bonus content in other IP without breaking in-universe cohesion of said other IP, with the purpose of driving value proposition to their hardware, where exclusivity is the biggest driving factor. They've spent something like 5+ decades cultivating their IP and brand image/synergy to reach such a level; this type of strategy is a reward for that effort.​
[BOLDER INNOVATION ON FUTURE MODELS]
While I think it's an overblown point (for example, I disagree with Shuhei Yoshida's take regarding it), some people think Nintendo's lost their "magic spark" with Switch 2 in part because it's quite an iterative design instead of a revolutionary one. The reason I think some takes along those lines are overblown, is because no company is going to throw everything out the window that worked with a platform selling nearly 160 million units globally during the course of a generation. Did Apple do the complete opposite of the first iPhone when it came time for its follow-up?​
That said, I think there's room for Nintendo to still be innovative with the Switch concept. The mouse functionality of the new JoyCons is one example, but why stop there? Other aspects of the PC laptop space could be attempted, such as a convertible form factor, or modular screens. What about screens that can rotate into "tate" (vertical) display mode? There are probably a lot of other concepts I can't even think of that are worth exploring, but hey, this is something Nintendo should be thinking about.​
[MORE ROBUST TRANSMEDIA]
Initiatives like the Mario movie and theme park expansion with both Universal Studios and their own Nintendo World have done amazingly well, but it's important Nintendo keep that going and more importantly, ensure the quality remains top-tier. More manga & anime projects with select IP (i.e Zelda, Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus etc.) should be in consideration, alongside further expansion of Nintendo World, and more elaborate merchandise opportunities.​
In terms of TV and film adaptations (particularly live-action), Nintendo aren't in as strong a spot as SIE simply due to the nature of most of their games, but live-action adaptations shouldn't be a priority for Nintendo anyway. It works for the Mario IP, so keep that going, but aside potentially Zelda (and possibly Fire Emblem), I think animated affairs might suit many of Nintendo's IP better.​
[*MAYBE* A DABBLE WITH A PC/PLAYSTATION/XBOX/MOBILE/SWITCH 2 MULTIPLAT (NEW IP GAAS)]
Now this one is potentially controversial, because we know that while Nintendo might've had some mobile spin-offs based on popular IP, they've done no actual straight-up ports to the mobile platform, either. And those spin-offs have been mobile exclusive; absolutely no PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam presence whatsoever.​
The truth is, Nintendo doesn't need those other platforms to sustain their output or see growth, but I do think the lingering question of "well, what could performance of a game from us on PlayStation look like?" will be one Nintendo eventually seeks to see answered. However, I strongly doubt it'll be with any of their established IP. At best, they may bring back one of their obscured failed ventures like ARMS for the task, and mainly license the IP out to a 3P with some Nintendo studio providing assistance, but otherwise I'd expect it to be a brand new IP. Hell, I doubt Nintendo even publish such a game under their own label, honestly.​
As well, I 100% would expect it to be an online-centric, GAAS-type title, with the goal of basically being on all available platforms. So, that's Switch 2, mobile, PlayStation, Xbox and PC (primarily Steam), and there's maybe a 10% - 20% chance it could happen within the next 5-8 years. Nintendo are going to use that game as a litmus to see what potential support of a game they're involved with, beyond their own hardware & mobile would look like, and if it's successful, they'll likely continue support for the game and try another similar venture as well (but maybe with a slightly less obscure IP or keeping it a new IP yet with some obscure Nintendo IP bonuses thrown in there).​
OTOH, if the venture's a failure, Nintendo can simply terminate the effort and carry on as they always have. They'll have done absolutely no negative impact towards their own platform or optics, and would have data to cite when deciding not to pursue such an idea any further.​
[PART 4 in next post...]​
 
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MYTH #1: WE'LL GET SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER-LOOKING GAMES

- This one is not fully true. You do mention AI/ML improvements, but the impact of that cannot be understated. Specifically, the issues the consoles face now is shit tier upscaling via FSR/TAAU and RT that is limited and has severe issues with noise (just look at the compromises software Lumen needs). Next-gen will have AI powered upscalers to replace the former, and much more powerful RT hardware and AI denoising to deal with the latter. Just these two things alone, regardless of any other changes, will result in much cleaner and less artifact prone games. Now the games outside these two factors won't be a massive leap over what we currently have, but I'd argue that not having to deal with noise, FSR, SSR, subpar GI, and blurry image quality would be a nice jump by itself.
 
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I want a super duper high end model that squeezes a high end PC into a console form factor with unified memory and SOC, cooling and power supply. And it has to be quiet too.
Time to take a good hard look at the state of Unreal Engine as a defacto tool set. Renegotiate you licence terms for payment upon actual meaningful fixes to Unreal Engine.
Developers are not getting the moneys worth for the quality being delivered.
 
[LAST PART]

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[VALVE]

[STAYING SEVERAL STEPS AHEAD OF MICROSOFT]

Between Steam itself as a gaming storefront, Big Picture Mode as a UI wrapper for a console-like gaming experience on PC, Steam OS, and Steam Deck, Valve are basically doing right now, things Microsoft WANTS to eventually start doing later on. Better yet, due to having this experience under their belt, Valve can retain a lead position in practice, even if Microsoft have the potential to usurp them in theory, when it comes to "console-fying" PC gaming.

It'll be important for a company like Valve to remain ahead of Microsoft if they want to ultimately be the standard-setter when it comes to the future of PC gaming, and despite being a significantly smaller company, that does give Valve the advantage of better internal communication and agile coordination & flexibility. It lets them adapt quickly to sudden changes in a way Microsoft simply can't, while also keeping operating costs comparatively low. The dominance of Steam as a storefront also provides them a great cash flow, something the gaming side of Microsoft couldn't even begin to flaunt until they spent $80+ billion to acquire Zenimax & ABK.

I think Valve being a privately-owned entity helps in this regard as well, since it means they don't have greedy shareholders to appeal to, even if they obviously still have people to ensure are having their needs met both in the company and among users of their platform. These are things Valve can continue to lean into, stay focused on, and ensure they're always ahead of Microsoft in some capacity in what will likely become a drawn-out platform war in the PC gaming space.

[LEVERAGING OEMS TO BOOST TRADITIONAL MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION IN RETAIL]

Since Valve (up to this point) have little (successful) experience in areas of traditional advertising and retail distribution, such was admittedly a weak spot for them versus a company like Microsoft. Yes, Xbox has done poorly in both areas during the back half of XBO and pretty much all of Series S & X, but those have still done better in said areas than the best of what Valve's managed to provide. The original Steam Machines were quite a disaster despite early promise, and Steam Deck might be a great product, but it's also barely a presence in retail stores while having no form of traditional marketing to boost its profile.

Thankfully, since they're now leaning into having OEMs make Steam Deck variants, they stand to learn a few things from those OEMs when it comes to retail distribution and marketing, which Valve can then iterate upon on their own end. If they want to grow the market share presence of Steam devices (and by association, Steam OS), they'll need to, and perhaps hiring some talented folks from SIE, Nintendo or even Xbox would also be a good play.

[SPINNING UP MORE INTERNAL GAME & CONTENT DEVELOPMENT]

Like I said before, features may be a big play in pushing a platform, but when we're talking games, it's the games themselves which will still ultimately matter. That said, Steam is something of a quandary: as a platform it has a lot of exclusives in actuality, but the platform is also readily available on an even larger platform (Windows) owned by a competitor, Microsoft, who are very much intent on allowing Steam on their next generation of Xbox devices. That in a sense does mute some of the impact software exclusives would otherwise have, but this is something that could actually work out to Valve's advantage.

IMO, MS providing Xbox devices that have full access to Steam, will do to Xbox what DOS & Windows functionality did to OS/2. You guys remember that? Well, I was a snot-nosed kid back then and didn't know any better, but I've done a lot of reading into the history of OS/2. What IBM though was a killer app feature for their operating system, turned out to be a death sentence. Since a significantly more popular OS's software was compatible right out of the box, devs were not incentivized to port or optimize programs for OS/2. This also made OS/2 marketing confusing, and the cost of OS/2 distros with DOS & Windows compatibility was much higher than simply getting DOS & Windows normally to install on a PC.

So now I'm thinking, is MS walking into a similar trap with enabling Steam support on the next gen of Xbox devices? Keep in mind, Valve wants large market proliferation of Steam and Steam OS, but they don't necessarily need both, and they don't need either insofar as staying afloat for shareholders (since they aren't a publicly traded company). Either/or is good enough, and if that means they grow their market presence through Xbox hardware, so be it. Because given their current advantages, any PC gaming device offering any type of access to Steam, will likely end up defaulting to Steam for a user of that device. That inherently still gets Valve what they want; doing so with Steam-branded hardware would simply be a bonus.

And once Valve have those users via Steam or Steam OS, having yet more games to sell to them (especially ones where Valve gets all of the revenue as profit) just enhances the deal on their end.

[COMPLETING THE HARDWARE LINEUP]

Last but not least, we have to consider that Valve's ambitions for growing the presence of Steam and Steam OS within the space of PC gaming, doesn't simply end at the Steam Deck. While bringing back Steam Machines might not be in their immediate plans, I think it's realistic to consider they will eventually revive that aspect of their hardware initiative, while improving all the mistakes that happened the first go-around. Their experience with Steam Deck has immediate transfer of value to a new iteration of Steam Machines, and since that's just providing yet another option, no need to not give it a go.

Having said such, Valve still need to ensure the hardware strikes a solid range of performance & pricing targets. Part of Steam's appeal is that, compared to console gaming, it's a lot more affordable for certain types of gamers, and hardware offerings need to reflect this. A sub-$300 or even $249 device option as an entry point into the Steam gaming hardware ecosystem would be an amazing accomplishment; pair that with wider retail distribution and some attempt at solid traditional marketing, and I think they've got a strong winner. That's a key ticket in truly expanding the install base for console-like PC gaming devices, no doubt.​

---------------------------------------------------------------

So, those are my thoughts on what I feel 10th gen needs to rely on in order to really stimulate the market. This was looked at from the perspective of platform holders, but it's just as possible to view it on a publisher or studio POV, if you're thinking about the trajectory of said pub/studio and feel to know the best direction for them to take. I wanted to talk about this more because already, I can see much discussion on 10th-gen focused on what the CPU & GPU gains are going to be, what AI tech will be there, RT & ML tech, etc. etc.

At one point, that was the main focus for myself as well, but in light of various industry developments, I've come to realize that "more power" isn't going to solve any of the current problems any specific platform holder or the industry at large is currently facing. At least, not on its own, so it's maybe time we start really asking ourselves what we want to see out of this industry and hobby as time goes on, to keep things exciting and stimulate some real improvements.

What sort of things are you looking to get out of the 10th gen that don't revolve around simply more powerful hardware?

EDIT: Hopefully this being split across four posts doesn't end up too confusing. I can't beat the character limit 😐
 
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I voted for the following:
More Powerful Consoles
- I feel this is a fairly obvious choice

More and Better Console Like PCs/PC Handhelds
- Loving my current PC Handheld and excited to see where this type of device goes.

Remakes/remasters of dormant old IP
- If for nothing other than the chance to show studios that people still have love for IP that might otherwise be considered forgotten.
 
Actual games would be a good start, yes Xbox is starting to release good games but Sony need to step up their game big time !

I think SIE's put out some pretty solid stuff this gen between Rift Apart, GT7, Astro Bot, HFW and a few others. But they've also had some big flops like Destruction All-Stars and worst of them all, Concord. Marathon isn't my type of game, but I guess impressions are mostly positive for the moment.

They definitely need to shift away from a lot of these pointless remasters though.

MYTH #1: WE'LL GET SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER-LOOKING GAMES

- This one is not fully true. You do mention AI/ML improvements, but the impact of that cannot be understated. Specifically, the issues the consoles face now is shit tier upscaling via FSR/TAAU and RT that is limited and has severe issues with noise (just look at the compromises software Lumen needs). Next-gen will have AI powered upscalers to replace the former, and much more powerful RT hardware and AI denoising to deal with the latter. Just these two things alone, regardless of any other changes, will result in much cleaner and less artifact prone games. Now the games outside these two factors won't be a massive leap over what we currently have, but I'd argue that not having to deal with noise, FSR, SSR, subpar GI, and blurry image quality would be a nice jump by itself.

Those things will help with IQ yes, but how much does that alone add to what would be prettier versions of games we're already getting this generation? I want platform holders to think beyond just prettier graphics because the impression prettier graphics have is dropping gen-over-gen.

And given these companies want to appeal to younger gamers, they should be realizing a lot of the big surprise hits among young gamers these days have been games which are nowhere near the peak of pushing visual fidelity. Objectively simple-looking games (visually). So there must be other things in those games drawing people in. Ideally, I'd like platform holders to take lessons from some of those titles while providing the visuals & polish only a platform holder can really justify.

I want a super duper high end model that squeezes a high end PC into a console form factor with unified memory and SOC, cooling and power supply. And it has to be quiet too.
Time to take a good hard look at the state of Unreal Engine as a defacto tool set. Renegotiate you licence terms for payment upon actual meaningful fixes to Unreal Engine.
Developers are not getting the moneys worth for the quality being delivered.

That type of console is going to cost at least $1500 😖

At that point, why not just get a comparable computer?
 
Your crusade against the Sony PC ports are admirable, but the evidence we have at hand indicates it won't stop. It has been almost 5 years since the first PC port with Horizon. Here is what happened:

- Sony MAU is at an all-time high.
- The PS5 is selling better than the PS4 in its largest market, and is now closing the gap between it and the PS4 worldwide, and will likely overtake it, despite the shortages and issues from covid. At this point in the PS4 lifecycle, it was also significantly cheaper, especially in non US countries. If the PS5 had a decent price cut this gen, it probably would have exceeded PS4 easily by this point.
- There has been no significant increase in the CCU count of the Sony ports to PC. This goes to show, while a profitable porting market exists on PC, no major exodus from Playstation to PC is occurring. For those PC gamers that picked up the Playstation for exclusives and no longer will, it hardly matters to Sony, mostly because that addressable market is very small, and because they will still pick up those same exclusives on PC anyway. People entrenched into their respective ecosystems are hardly going to be swayed to switch primary platforms because of a handful of games, especially in the increasingly digital age.
- Most critically, despite what us armchair analysts might think, the data Sony themselves has indicates this is a winning strategy so far. They will only change when the market forces them to change, and right now PS5 is setting record revenues, highest MAUs, and billions from the PC ports. Perhaps if the PS6 is a total disaster, but I'm going to bet that won't happen.

As for securing third-party exclusivity, this is getting increasingly harder to do. Western Studios are well aware that skipping PC equals a ton of lost sales, but Eastern companies are hardly asleep to that fact. More than 50% of Capcoms revenue comes from PC now. Monster Hunter Wilds sold the most on PC. Skipping PC these days can potentially mean hundreds of millions in lost revenue.
 
I'm happy to see Sony is doing more PC ports than they did in the past, and they are coming more quickly. I hope that continues. I'm fine with waiting 6-12 months to get a PC version if it means I don't have to buy future PlayStation hardware. I'm happy to have TLOU on PC. Now if they could just give me Demon's Souls and Bloodborne...
 
I selected more powerful consoles because who wouldn't and remake/remaster of dormant ip.

To be honest I'd just like games to become games again and really not the route that Kojima is taking with his interactive experiences. Also shorter dev time.
 
It needs some or all of these IMO from experience:

1. Better and higher level tools to make stuff like cloth design, character creators, better RT pipelines, better virtual texturing and geometry pipelines. Devs can't expect to have higher output expectation while using the same old pipelines with the substantially higher project requirements... Like they can't expect to continue sculpting and baking everything (geometry, lighting, textures, etc.) as they've done all these years because games are way too complex, leave those tasks to hero assets or specific stuff like armors, etc.

2. Reuse, don't listen to people crying about a tree being the same tree than that other tree in that other game, they don't know how complex game dev is.

3. Reduce projects scope... Not everything has to be big open world, etc, etc. AA gaming is reigning these days because it is what AAA was years ago, gamers want to spend a good time, not to lose forever into some infinite world.
 
The trend of focusing to much on raytracing, for me is not good. in the future, I want too see more games focus on physics, like for example environmental interaction , destructible environment, movable objects, weather effects on characters and environment, and weight, height, and speed effects on characters on environment, etc. There are still very few games with good physics. I hope for more focus on improving physics engine like for example a newer and much more feature and capability Havoc engine.

That is why I like Astrobot, Death stranding, and even old games like Half life, and MGS1- MGS4.
 
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PS6 for 2027 or even 2026

Improved graphics but not too much cause I mostly want a better increase in processing power. The gap between PS6 and PS5 pro of course would be higher than gap between PS5 Pro to the PS5 in everything, graphics, processing power etc.

Eventual great games would be

Elder Scrolls VI
Witcher 4
Fallout 5
Big Rigs 3: The New Rig
Resident Evil X
Final Fantasy XVII

Cross gen games
GTA VI
Ratchet and Clank : A Blast from the Ass
Resident Evil games
Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3
Stellar Blade 2
 
I don't know why people are asking for more powerful consoles considering the new race to put a nuclear reactor in a console e.g PS5 Pro

The 10th gen needs better games and quirky features on consoles. Nintendo have been dominating for this reason.

I don't care about the market research you got from some random research firm with employees with the IQ of a fish, people want consoles with good exclusives and good features.
 
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  • leave mobile/home hybrid to nintendo
  • specialized/unique hardware so consoles arent just value-PCs
  • better tools, so games dont take 10 years + $100m
  • try some crazy/stupid controller ideas... maybe the console can connect to your phone/tablet, suppository feedback device
 
Microsoft/ Sony has enough power I think they should go Nintendos route and go hybrid this time around have a console/handheld device. Microsoft should've just done that this gen since they crippled XSX with XSS would've been better to make xsx a hybrid and maybe bundle it with a three month pass with game pass or something ppl can bring their devices to school or work and play with friends during break time or something
 
Nintendo's switch and mobile gaming is more sticky since you can carry the switch and phones with you everywhere so Sony/microsoft needs to make their devices more sticky that's not too annoying to carry around
 
Gaming has, by and large, entered the extraction phase of the enshitification process. Innovation is dead. Unable to attract more customers with new ideas, the goal is now to innovate in how to monetise for maximum revenue, while delivering as little as possible to maximise profit margins.

Sony lead the charge this generation, and doubled down on paid patches, pointless "remasters", and overpriced hardware - but Nintendo aren't to be outdone and are pushing for sky-high prices for yester-year's games and tech. We'll see higher prices for hardware as companies abandon the subsidised approach. We'll see higher prices for software as companies desperately try and increase their profits despite there simply not being more gamers to sell to. We'll see higher prices for services as companies try and steal as much money as possible for doing absolutely nothing.

With the 10th Gen, I imagine we'll see an industry retraction; there will be less gamers than the prior generation, as companies price them out of the market with their greed. In this vacuum, new AA titles launching on existing hardware will explode in popularity.
 
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I'm not looking forward to anything.

First and foremost high end gaming is about building new worlds that people want to discover. Things like transmedia can be effective at explaining to people why those worlds are worth looking at. As are things like high end graphics. Neither of those are necessary at all but are part of the "money is no object" AAA culture. The only real innovation expected here is very marginal improvements in graphical fidelity and new marketing techniques such making high profile netflix shows as promotion for IP.

You can also not underestimate getting basics right such as making a game actually fun to play or making role playing satisfying in a game. Things like that cannot be defined by budget related terms like AAA/AA/Indie.
 
we already know the next console will be a 9070 at the very best. Thats why it's not exciting anymore. The only one who tries to do cool gadget stuff is Nintendo and GAF hates it because it raises the cost.

You don't have to wonder. Just imagine a mobile version of that GPU and then take your worst case scenario for CPU and go a step lower.

I miss cartridges that actually had chips on them that enhanced the game in some way. Made it able to do something other games couldn't.
 
I want Sony to perform a deep dive into development bottlenecks and find out the real reason as to why games take so long to make these days.

People often quickly point out graphics, which is a very broad answer. Does that mean they are lacking artists? Great, getting more artists should become a priority, paying one person a short time vs everyone a long time will save them money.
 
Video games. Old school video games. That's what I want. All of the best recent video games were actually...video games. Astro Bot, Space Marine 2, Stellar Blade, Wukong, Helldivers 2, Clair Obscur...just plain old video games. No intense monetization, streamer FOMO, GAAS, Season Pass/Battle Pass, sociopolitical agendas, long-term engagement, recurring transactions, blah blah blah.

And when I say video games I don't simply mean the technical definition of interactive software. I mean video games, where you press the buttons and smile and you have fun when you play them, and that's all they're designed for as opposed to toxic monetization and videophile cancer and trophy whoring and streamability. If you want more power go buy or build a PC, and I don't say that in a negative way. Consoles have traditionally been built around the premise of affordability + convenience. Other than more memory, the power is good enough for a long time. Diminishing returns hit full tilt last gen.

I grew up playing video games that were fun and simple. That's all they need to be. Nowadays everything is trying so hard to look real or offer 700 dull and arbitrary things to do ad nauseum with overly crowded control schemes and long checklists. And bring back the AA/middleware/budgetware market. It was what sustained the industry between big releases. And bring back shorter development times. I think there were something like 12 Street Fighter games released in 12 years, and then SF4, 5, and 6 launched in the span of 12 years. It's only one example of how the industry has chugged to a halt in terms of development cycles, and yet despite how long games take to make nowadays they are more boring, empty, and soulless than ever.
 
A lot of the options in the poll are rather poor. It needs better use of power and more small games to support it. Give us less ultra photo realism and more fun games.
 
I feel we are getting less innovation because it's a combination of less talent being in the industry unfortunately and many companies being very risk averse. Why do you think we get weekly remakes and remasters so often now?
 
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In part one, you repeat a common misconception concerning Sony's PC port strategy. Shawn Layden put it best: "The strategy as we were developing it when I was there was that we need to go out to where these new customers are, where these new fans could be. We need to go to where they are... Because they've decided not to come to my house, so I've got to go their house now. And what's the best way to go to their house? Why not take one of our top-selling games?"

From the outset, they recognized that there was a large hitherto untapped audience on PC that was not interested in purchasing console hardware -- they were plenty content with all the advantages afforded by the PC platform, why spend extra money on what they considered to be an inferior platform? -- but might shell out cash for quality first-party games made available to their preferred platform. This fantasy that Sony hoped to entice PC gamers with late ports to buy a Playstation system for subsequent exclusives needs to be put to rest already. Consider the recent economic backdrop: heavy inflation has been putting a strain on many people's budgets, apparently there's a recession looming on the horizon, prices for certain PC components are ludicrous. If anything, I expect that at least some PC players will switch to consoles full-time simply because they offer the most bang for your buck; but setting aside hundreds of dollars to get a secondary system for just a handful of exclusives? Very few people would fall into that bucket.
 
I hope cool hardware comes back. Or at least something interesting and differentiated. Outside of the Switch everything since PS4 has been the same shit (an x86 AMD APU) with slightly different specs.
 
I selected more powerful consoles because who wouldn't and remake/remaster of dormant ip.

To be honest I'd just like games to become games again and really not the route that Kojima is taking with his interactive experiences. Also shorter dev time.
Right, I cant wait for a Last of Us remaster/remake.
 
I had a eureka moment with Returnal. The raindrop haptics, incredible 3D sound, the scale of some of the levels and the visuals and shit, basically instant load times.

I just would love to see more experiments like that on a maybe AA or whatever level. Games that look to the past for gameplay fun but put a modern, new spin on it.
 
I started scrolling with a simple finger gesture and suddenly the post wasn't over!
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Anyways I'd settle for new ideas and less safe AAA. But I'll probably get higher prices and that's it.
 
The next gen of consoles should have a really powerful CPU and at a minimum, 24GB of GDDR7 RAM, but 32GB would be ideal.

Second gen AMD 2nm fab for a more efficient, smaller console.

Much faster SSDs (PCIe 6.0?).
 
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Absolute focus on gameplay, new ideas, new mechanics. Please surprise me.

Way less focus on graphics. I don't care about the peach fuzz on the skin of your fucking annoying protagonist.

Much quicker production. I want full trilogies per gen. See above on how this can be achieved.
 
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It needs some or all of these IMO from experience:

1. Better and higher level tools to make stuff like cloth design, character creators, better RT pipelines, better virtual texturing and geometry pipelines. Devs can't expect to have higher output expectation while using the same old pipelines with the substantially higher project requirements... Like they can't expect to continue sculpting and baking everything (geometry, lighting, textures, etc.) as they've done all these years because games are way too complex, leave those tasks to hero assets or specific stuff like armors, etc.

This is where I was thinking AI-accelerated modeling pipelines could come into the picture. Both within the backend side (API stack & SDK tools support) and hardware in the system using metadata code to implement transformations on-the-fly. For example, would it be possible to implement hardware in the system to auto-generate LOD levels based on feedback from the framebuffer, allowing devs to simply do a single LOD mesh for models? Would it even be possible for them to make a low-geometry LOD mesh and then use AI trained on that mesh data to generate metadata that can generate more complex LOD meshes based off it, that the system can then build at runtime depending on need (again by doing things like framebuffer analysis)?

That's the type of technological innovation I personally want to see with new hardware, because the benefits it'd bring to development, the player experience and so forth, would be magnificent. And it's way more interesting to talk about than simply higher TF counts or how much memory can be thrown at a system, personally speaking.

2. Reuse, don't listen to people crying about a tree being the same tree than that other tree in that other game, they don't know how complex game dev is.

Yeah, as long as teams make use of those assets in a balanced fashion (don't reuse to the point of milking, space it out etc.), it's something that should be embraced, not shunned. The assets can always be touched up as time goes along anyhow. People generally don't have an issue with many games using or reusing the same engine, so smart reuse of assets shouldn't be a problem anymore.

Some companies do it, like SEGA with the Yakuza games (although in their case it could arguably be considered egregious), but most don't. I suspect Square-Enix are probably reusing a ton of Rebirth assets for Part 3 and rightfully so; it's not like they aren't going to make adaptations to those assets, clean them up further, or not add new assets in addition to them. Especially for AAA games, it's a reality more people need to be willing to accept.

3. Reduce projects scope... Not everything has to be big open world, etc, etc. AA gaming is reigning these days because it is what AAA was years ago, gamers want to spend a good time, not to lose forever into some infinite world.

A lot of games that are open-world really don't need to, so no qualms there.

  • leave mobile/home hybrid to nintendo
  • specialized/unique hardware so consoles arent just value-PCs
  • better tools, so games dont take 10 years + $100m
  • try some crazy/stupid controller ideas... maybe the console can connect to your phone/tablet, suppository feedback device

Mmm....if a company thinks they can deliver well on a mobile/hybrid system concept, I don't see why they shouldn't try. If it gives some competition for Nintendo, that'd be great, as it means more for gamers at the end of the day.

Nintendo's switch and mobile gaming is more sticky since you can carry the switch and phones with you everywhere so Sony/microsoft needs to make their devices more sticky that's not too annoying to carry around

There's some truth to the portability of Switch/Switch 2 and mobile devices enabling a lot of appeal of them with segments of the market, stay-at-home consoles like PS and Xbox have been lacking. Probably yet more a reason both want to have portable devices next gen in addition to their regular stuff.

Gaming has, by and large, entered the extraction phase of the enshitification process. Innovation is dead. Unable to attract more customers with new ideas, the goal is now to innovate in how to monetise for maximum revenue, while delivering as little as possible to maximise profit margins.

Sony lead the charge this generation, and doubled down on paid patches, pointless "remasters", and overpriced hardware - but Nintendo aren't to be outdone and are pushing for sky-high prices for yester-year's games and tech. We'll see higher prices for hardware as companies abandon the subsidised approach. We'll see higher prices for software as companies desperately try and increase their profits despite there simply not being more gamers to sell to. We'll see higher prices for services as companies try and steal as much money as possible for doing absolutely nothing.

With the 10th Gen, I imagine we'll see an industry retraction; there will be less gamers than the prior generation, as companies price them out of the market with their greed. In this vacuum, new AA titles launching on existing hardware will explode in popularity.

This is a bleak outlook and I'm not going to say it's wrong per se. We've been seeing all of this in one form or another, and long-term it's going to damage the industry significantly. Could it end up causing another, even bigger gaming crash? Nothing's out of the realm of possibility, though FWIW what we've been seeing this at has mainly been in the console space; a lot of this affects PC too but the openness in choice there with storefronts and software generally gives more breathing room to escape some of the more negative effects.

That said, I think the outlook's only looking at one side of the coin. Personally I think there's an untapped audience out there for gaming; the problem is the incumbents are too tunnel-visioned to see it. You'd need an outsider with enough resources to come in, see that potential, and invest towards it. Or, one of the incumbents to suffer heavily enough to where they're forced to think differently. Right now Microsoft have "suffered" in terms of Xbox consoles basically dying, but the gaming brand is too attached to the larger corporation in order to be truly desperate. After buying Zenimax & ABK, none of that desperation is there, either. Between that and stuff like Minecraft, they don't need to feel "desperate" to reinvent as a console platform holder, because they see themselves as a publisher now instead.

Which basically means it'd take either SIE or Nintendo suffering a major hit with their current or next platform, to get a fresh perspective and try something truly new. Honestly with the way SIE have been the past couple years I don't put it past them to rather shift into a publisher-first focus similar to Microsoft, rather than really push to reinvent PlayStation as a console platform. So that basically leaves Nintendo, and I strongly doubt Switch 2 will perform significantly worst than Switch. Maybe a little bit in units sold, but not much. That said, I don't think Nintendo are going to stop pursuing new audiences just because Switch 2 is an iteration of the original.

we already know the next console will be a 9070 at the very best. Thats why it's not exciting anymore. The only one who tries to do cool gadget stuff is Nintendo and GAF hates it because it raises the cost.

You don't have to wonder. Just imagine a mobile version of that GPU and then take your worst case scenario for CPU and go a step lower.

I miss cartridges that actually had chips on them that enhanced the game in some way. Made it able to do something other games couldn't.

Yeah there is a pessimism on my part for 10th-gen just being "more of the same". Already a lot of speculation is hinged on 'Zen 6/6c CPU', '12C/24T', '32 GB RAM', TF etc. Like those are the main things that'll bring a big influx of innovative games next gen, when it hasn't done too much of that this gen.

For me it's also about just having something interesting to discuss. I can look at and talk about older console designs practically forever. Like the SEGA Saturn, N64, Jaguar, PS3...not just about the architectures themselves but getting into the reasons why certain choices were made, what problems they sought to tackle vs. how effective they were in tackling them, the differences in their solutions vs. competing products, the effect those choices had on game design for those systems etc.

Once everything basically started trending to x86-64, that type of meta discussion's become less and less interesting.

I'm looking at Switch 2 and Steam Deck 2 to be the wild west of game innovation.

That'll likely end up being the case.

I want Sony to perform a deep dive into development bottlenecks and find out the real reason as to why games take so long to make these days.

People often quickly point out graphics, which is a very broad answer. Does that mean they are lacking artists? Great, getting more artists should become a priority, paying one person a short time vs everyone a long time will save them money.

IMO it's down to three simple things: budget costs, amount of required manpower, and required time of development (in part influenced by scope).

That's why most AAA games have gone from taking 4-5 years last gen to 6-7 years this gen, and if no major advances are implemented 10th-gen to address that, it'll probably jump again to 8-10 years (assuming resolution targets jump; they likely won't tho so it could still hang around 6-7 or maybe go 6-8).

Video games. Old school video games. That's what I want. All of the best recent video games were actually...video games. Astro Bot, Space Marine 2, Stellar Blade, Wukong, Helldivers 2, Clair Obscur...just plain old video games. No intense monetization, streamer FOMO, GAAS, Season Pass/Battle Pass, sociopolitical agendas, long-term engagement, recurring transactions, blah blah blah.

And when I say video games I don't simply mean the technical definition of interactive software. I mean video games, where you press the buttons and smile and you have fun when you play them, and that's all they're designed for as opposed to toxic monetization and videophile cancer and trophy whoring and streamability. If you want more power go buy or build a PC, and I don't say that in a negative way. Consoles have traditionally been built around the premise of affordability + convenience. Other than more memory, the power is good enough for a long time. Diminishing returns hit full tilt last gen.

I grew up playing video games that were fun and simple. That's all they need to be. Nowadays everything is trying so hard to look real or offer 700 dull and arbitrary things to do ad nauseum with overly crowded control schemes and long checklists. And bring back the AA/middleware/budgetware market. It was what sustained the industry between big releases. And bring back shorter development times. I think there were something like 12 Street Fighter games released in 12 years, and then SF4, 5, and 6 launched in the span of 12 years. It's only one example of how the industry has chugged to a halt in terms of development cycles, and yet despite how long games take to make nowadays they are more boring, empty, and soulless than ever.

Well TBF with the old SF games, they kinda milked those out with re-releases that'd be DLC nowadays if it were a thing back then 😉

But I agree with your general point tho. I don't have an aversion to, say, cinematic games that you might have, but I think the template could be greatly improved. There just seems to be little motivation to improve that style of game, however, and maybe make it more "gamey" while still keeping the cinematic approach critical to the style.

It's definitely true there are many games chasing trends and trying to appear "stream-friendly" and such even if that might come at the detriment of the playing experience. Maybe there's space for those types of games, same for GAAS or games with social commentary, but they shouldn't be the main focus of publishers and studios. They shouldn't be at the expense of games outside those spaces, and players shouldn't be harassed/shamed/shunned/bullied (respectfully) not wanting those types of games or not wanting to support them.

There have been some attempts at new platforms aiming to be 'purely' about games, but they always got caught up in controversy. That Chameleon retro console, the Intellivision Amico, the Atari VCS (at least that one released and became a decent mini-computer) etc. Actually one of the most interesting developments I've seen of a new platform focused mainly on pure gaming, was the exa-Arcadia. But that has mainly been for the arcade market, not home console, and I don't know if they ever had plans for a home variant similar to the Neo-Geo AES (I know some home users can/could buy arcade boards for home use, but that's not the same thing).
 
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