By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
scottslater on 07 August 2020
Edit Thread
hinch said:
scottslater said:

I will reserve opinion on the Ratchet and Clank concept until we see it in actual hands of gamers, not in a controlled environment, it's easy to make anything look good in that scenario.  Everything on the Xbox One/PS4 but bigger isn't necessarily better.

I'm aware it came out on the Wii U as well, but next generation gaming isn't just about graphics. There is UI, form factors, pricing, game delivery, services, etc.  I have played on PS4s. I own a high end gaming rig and an Xbox One X (only for the Game Pass), I've played plenty of technologically impressive games.

I'm not sure how BOTW is an example of next gen in terms of gameplay when its playable on last gen, but okay. The Switch is impressive for portable console, but thats it. In terms of power and potential the Switch pretty much aligns with gen 8 hardware and offers nothing in terms of capabilities over the latter (its actually quite a bit less), never mind PS5 and Xbox Series X.

The PS4 and Xbox One have been on the market for 7 years now and have held back PC gaming. Whether its down to its ancient CPU, old GPU's and feature sets, lack of ram (or just bad implementation, think DDR3 on Xbox One) to the I/O of the harddrives. First party and third party have had to design their games around said hardware for years. Which is part of the reason why games haven't really evolved over 7th generation in terms of gameplay.

About UI - will be considerably faster due to faster CPU and storage - this alone is worthwhile the upgrade for a lot of people as the UI on last gen consoles are painfully slow and cumbersome. Form factor - its a home console. DualSense is a small evolution of Dualshock with added functionality (build in mics, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers). Not to mention massively reduced load times. Game delivery/services? Eh, pretty much the same since last gen apart from the relatively new GamePass from Microsoft.

There's a longer demo of R&C and does look fairly impressive imo. Just be aware of crappy stream quality, there isn't a better source as far as I'm aware.

In any case you can expect Sony to push the boundaries on graphics. Microsoft will be much more competitive this time round with their new Studios once it gets rid of the Xbox One S support and third parties all move onto developing exclusively for the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. And no, its not just graphics either. For all the reasons I mentioned above.

Again, until games are in the hand of gamers, I don't care about controlled environment demos.  Remember Fallout '76...

Dismissing a next gen console based on hardware specs is pretty petty, Wii didn't lineup with PS3/Xbox 360 and it crushed both of them that generation.  Switch has plenty of capabilities that the PS5/XsX won't be able to offer, such as play anywhere which is much more appealing to a lot of people than you realize.  Game play is a factor of next gen, if games didn't evolve then the gaming market would most likely die (like it almost did before the NES).  Dismissing game play as part of next gen offerings is again very petty.  You even mention that games haven't evolved because of old hardware...

Form factor... the big, ugly, gaudy offering from Sony will turn people off alone, so yes, form factor is certainly a part of the next generation.  The Xbox One X/PS4 Pro have really good form factors that are subtle and fit in with modern living rooms.  The next generation consoles, to me at least, do not have appealing form factors at all. The DualSense controller so far seems like a gimmick that will be abandoned fairly quickly.  And yes, things like Game Pass/xCloud are a part of the Next Generation of gaming.

And again, pushing boundaries with graphics is having a much less impact as time goes on. So what if a game looks a little better because it has better makeup, eventually you will look past that makeup and realize that you were duped into a bad decision.  If I really wanted to just have the best looking games possible I will just stick with my PC.



Nintendo with the Switch: