Have the PS5 and XBSX hit the limit of practicality in terms of console power?

[Quillion]

With all this industry news in the past several months or so, it really seems like the writing is on the wall about the console arms race reaching its limit.

• Cross-gen games are very prevalent, even as Sony IE and Xbox Studios admit that this console gen is half-over for them.
• Waves of layoffs have hit so much of the big western companies, even console makers SIE and Xbox.
• We have producers like Tekken producer Harada complaining about how costly it is to make and maintain games these days, especially online multiplayer ones, saying that there's no choice but to have microtransactions to increase revenue.

I've seen a lot of people blaming AAA budgets for getting out of control, and yes, that is one of the core problems with this whole deal. But I still can't help but think that just trying to make games that take advantage of the PS5 and XBSX's power is barely practical at this point, as seen by all the releases for those two consoles that amount to better-looking and/or performing ports of games for their predecessors. It's just too costly to do so.

Now, one wrinkle in this thought is the rise of AI, which has proven to be a big help in making coding a lot easier. Perhaps AI will be the key to getting over this hump if it is one, but that's a whole other can of worms.

 

[BritishGuy54]

With cross-Gen games still being prevalent, and the Switch 2 on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS4 becomes the new PS2, with it still being supported because there is that large of an install base on it.

Nintendo hanging back in terms of power seems to be a good thing, as they can make their money back through hardware and software, alongside not being crushed by massive budgets.

Sony and Microsoft traditionally tried to sell consoles at a loss, and games to make up the profit, but with budgets increasing massively, they’ve had to branch out onto each other’s platforms, and PC.

 

[fogbadge]

Nah they reached that a few gens back

 

[Quillion]

With cross-Gen games still being prevalent, and the Switch 2 on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS4 becomes the new PS2, with it still being supported because there is that large of an install base on it.

Isn't the PS4 already there?

Nah they reached that a few gens back

You've got a point in that the PS3/360 gen was very awkward since the HD leap drove up budgets back then too, and a lot of AAA games were forced to be linear because of it. At least by the mid-late part of that gen, studios got used to the tools and got better.

Maybe not so different from AI potentially assisting in AAA game development these days.

 

[BritishGuy54]

Isn't the PS4 already there?

The Switch 2’s possible parity to the PS4 would just extend the PS4 to having another few years under its belt for cross-platform releases.

 

[Quillion]

The Switch 2’s possible parity to the PS4 would just extend the PS4 to having another few years under its belt for cross-platform releases.

Yeah, and I think that happened with the Wii and PS2 to some extent too.

It'll definitely be a lot more prevalent with the next Nintendo console and PS4 though considering how standardized game development frameworks and tools are nowadays.