Global Hardware Nov 29 to Dec 5 - Switch Dominates Cyber Monday Week

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Wyrdness said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

Trying to please AAA devs that are never happy is fruitless, I agree, but while turn based combat and also some new concepts can be implemented with little HW power, others require more, and even many frugal 1st and 3rd party devs will eventually start needing some more CPU power and main RAM, I'm not talking about graphics, but, for example, larger gaming worlds with higher level of interactivity, better AI, more items and NPCs. And I'm not even talking about now, but late 2023 or early 2024.

The flaw here is the actual reality of things is BOTW was a cross gen title built for the WiiU hardware level it still has more interactions than all other open world games even the likes of RDR2 which was built for more powerful hardware, we recently had CB2077 released and it's interactivity is nowhere near BOTW either and is smaller with worse AI despite having way more power than the WiiU to work with and taking 3 extra years to develop. Power is not what determines that at this point it's developer execution, polish and efficiency I'll bet you BOTW's sequel will also have more interactivity in it's world while being larger than many games that get built for PS5 and X1.

Late 2023/2024 would be 7-8 years for the Switch and the third-fourth year for PS5 and XSS that kind of makes the power point a bit well pointless because obviously at that point a successor would be ready for Switch as it would have done it's active years at that point.

I expected the BOTW example and I totally expect Ninty 1st party devs to use available power more efficiently than anybody else, but:

1) After Ninty HW designers themselves, they are the ones that know their HW best
2) Ninty 3rd party exclusive devs most probably come second in efficiency, but they'll run out of power before 1st parties
3) Further down 3rd party multiplats devs will have to sacrifice some efficiency for portability, even the most frugal and efficient ones
4) Deep optimisation is time consuming, small teams will need to accept compromises for lack of manpower
5) Eventually, 1st parties too will want more power

All the aforementioned stuff can influence, with different weights, Ninty's decisions on next gen schedule, even totally ignoring 3rd party AAA devs overblown needs.

BTW, late2023/2024 would be 6.5-7 years, not a short lifecycle as main console anyway, and after that NS will easily have at least another 3 years as last gen entry level offer, unless Ninty decide for an earlier death. But I don't expect a record long lifecycle, this gives competitors a chance of outselling it lifetme despite never reaching its peak. A chance, not a certainty, as HW power can extend POTENTIAL lifetime, but it's not by any means a guarantee of success.