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Kyuu said:
 

That'll depend entirely on how well the Switch does in Japan and the US. A typical generational jump won't mean too much in the not-too-distant future. I'm almost certain that -at most- PS5 will be the last relevant conventional console. PS6 might have a modest performance jump in favor of either becoming a hybrid or including VR (which will depend on PSVR's success as a peripheral)

When PS5 generation ends, no matter what path Sony will take is going to be a risky one. Raw specs won't cut it at that point, as development costs and techniques won't be increasing to a level that would meaningfully harness a 50-60TFLOPS GPU, or be troubled with a modest 20TFLOPS GPU.

I disagree with the raw power argument. We are far, far form having enough raw power. Just look at the level of quality offline CG has. Even Pixar movies still have big jumps in quality due to increased power in server farms. Realtime CG trails offline rendering by more than a decade. Until offline rendering stops advancing we are nowhere near the level where the power is enough. Offline CG couldn't even be decent enough to remove a mustache on Superman for JL without looking like Agent Smith. Realtime graphics still have to evolve a lot.

We are still far from realtime raytracing or decent physics simulation. And I mean on high-end PCs. We are really decades away from this kind of breaking point where more power isn't helping. A 20 TFLOPS GPU can't do raytracing in a decent scale. Even a 50-60 one can't. So my point is that we still have tons of stuff that can't be used due to low power. A good example is the video Digital Foundry did comparing Toy Story 1 to the PS4 Kingdom Hearts game. The PS4 version beats the 1994 film in some parts, lose in others. And that was a 1994 film that had a comparatively low budget since it was not a tested thing. Beating a modern Toy Story 3 with its huge budget is completely out of reach.

The increase in costs will be offset by better tools and development methods. The visuals are not that much of an impact, the scale is. So maybe they will have to stop increasing open world environments a bit and control the costs. Engines will pack up more stuff ready to use. This is clear even today, you see indie devs doing great looking stuff on Unreal. Lots of great ready-to-use tools. Another method they will surely use is increasing the length of gens, like the current and the previous one.

The problem I see with an hybrid is that it would have to be weak. So weak that high-end smartphones will catch up mid-gen. That is a complete recipe for catastrophe. Nintendo pulls it out, but that's because they are not the ones that have to carry the 3rd party industry. They do their own stuff and half of the times it backfires, but they are on this business just to sell their own games. Now, if Sony and MS let phones catch up on power by playing hybrid, 3rd parties will jump to mobile phones and consoles are 100% dead.

Last edited by torok - on 29 November 2017