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HoloDust 1 day ago
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Mummelmann said:
HoloDust said:

GabeCube has pretty terrible specs - so unless it's not reasonably priced, it is indeed DOA.

Helix on the other hand will have pretty good specs.

This is a valid point, but price on its own is a key factor right now. Streaming platforms are seeing widespread adoption of lower-tier subscriptions with partial ad support, much for the same reason. Owning expensive tech used to be desirable by most, but it looks like a new age is emerging where people take functionality over premium quality, especially in the sections of products that can be labelled optional or luxuries. 

Nerds, like myself, will probably have little interest in a pricey console with much less customization options and specs that still fly well below a decent rig. On the other end of the spectrum, more casual consumers are unlikely to be swayed by specs (as the mentioned PS5 Pro sales percentage would also indicate). That leaves a rather small demographic somewhere in the middle; people who find regular consoles a tad too weak but don't want the "hassle" of traditional PC-gaming on a large screen.

Hey, I could be wrong as hell, won't be the first time. But looking at how the overall market sentiment across the entertainment industry is now, the Helix concept seems like a ill fit. 

Boils down to price I guess. As someone who is currently handling 4 gaming PCs in house, I can see at least 2 of them being replaced with Helix, for its access to Steam libraries AND being console like, which means at least, just like with Deck, games getting extra fine tuning for its particular hardware.

Again, if the price is right, especially compared to building equivalent PC.

SvennoJ said:
HoloDust said:

It is true that every gen have smaller leaps, but Helix (and PS6) will be the generation that allows for Path Tracing to be fully implemented in lot of games - at least when it comes to more contained game worlds.

Think Alien Isolation type of game fully path-traced...or some Souls-like dungeon crawler (like Deep Down appeared to be when it was revealed).

For the regular player that's not a big leap though. Lighting models without RT are very good and most people don't care about the accuracy of reflections.

Hm...if anything, even RE:Requiem is good example at how much, even with not so greatly implemented PT, is better than non PT solutions. Not that there aren't solutions from the past that work quite great, but PT finally gives option to build everything be highly interactable, while lighting (in all aspects, and particularly shadows) behaves as it should. Of course, if they're gonna use it on static environments, that yeah, why waste resources.