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Forums - Gaming - Are there any benefits to shorter lifespans for consoles?

SvennoJ said:
Aeolus451 said:
1337 Gamer said:
Shorter cycles are better. The longer a console generation goes the longer visuals stagnate. Thibk about last gen and how long that cycle was and as a result game engines get optimized for old hardware and graphics top out relayively quickly. The evolution of hardware is inevitable and the quicker we transfer over the better it will be. I think 5 years is about the perfect time. 5 years is an ETERNITY in technology.


A lot of good games come from long gens and some of the best looking games in a gen come out in the tail end of it. The last of us for example. I just want good games. Graphics are just the cherry on top. 

With shorter gens, you're gonna have more cross gen games and not less. If you honestly want more up to date graphics, get a gaming pc.

TloU was an exception, which would have worked perfectly well as a ps4 launch title. Many said at the time that it should have been a ps4 launch title. Same with GT6, kinda died in sales by releasing on ps3.  It's not just that the visuals stagnate, things like Skyrim have a bigger chance of occuring, running out of memory left and right, crashing because the developers want to push it further than the hardware allows. The drive for better graphics with each sequel is always there. When the hardware remains the same, other things will start to be compromised.
Shorter cycles will give developers more incentive to better budget for development time. The longer a console cycle lasts, the easier it is to let a release date slip.


If you give western devs smaller windows which to launch games, the more likely they will be buggy because they wouldn't want to delay it versus taking the time to fix it.  Japanese devs manage to make a game that works like it's supposed to on less budget with a smaller team but it takes longer to make. 

Skyrim was buggy because it's a bethesda game and they never take the time to polish their games smooth. it has nothing to do with them pushing the limits of the console.  It has everything to do with them being lazy as a dev and just wanting to push their product to market asap. Why do you think they're gonna let pc mods work on consoles? Free patches. 

If people want more scenarios like the batman arkham knight pc version than keep pushing for shorter gens. What happens when a game should be delayed for polishing but can't be because of it's narrow launch window? Release it anyway and shrug off the complaints.

I see no point in trying to mirror nintendo's average console life spans when they don't even use the best hardware at the time and they rarely dominate the gens anymore. Perhaps one of the reasons why third parties don't like putting their games on nintendo consoles so much is because of the console gens being so short. Nintendo should keep doing what it's doing for the most part.

If someone wants high end graphics consistently, choose pc. Consoles are not for you.



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If it is bleeding money, I can see the benefit of that.



Can't wait for The Zelder Scrolls 3: Breath of The Wild Hunt!

Aeolus451 said:

If you give western devs smaller windows which to launch games, the more likely they will be buggy because they wouldn't want to delay it versus taking the time to fix it.  Japanese devs manage to make a game that works like it's supposed to on less budget with a smaller team but it takes longer to make. 

Skyrim was buggy because it's a bethesda game and they never take the time to polish their games smooth. it has nothing to do with them pushing the limits of the console.  It has everything to do with them being lazy as a dev and just wanting to push their product to market asap. Why do you think they're gonna let pc mods work on consoles? Free patches. 

If people want more scenarios like the batman arkham knight pc version than keep pushing for shorter gens. What happens when a game should be delayed for polishing but can't be because of it's narrow launch window? Release it anyway and shrug off the complaints.

I see no point in trying to mirror nintendo's average console life spans when they don't even use the best hardware at the time and they rarely dominate the gens anymore. Perhaps one of the reasons why third parties don't like putting their games on nintendo consoles so much is because of the console gens being so short. Nintendo should keep doing what it's doing for the most part.

If someone wants high end graphics consistently, choose pc. Consoles are not for you.

Yet none of the launch games were riddled with bugs... It's all about budgeting your time correctly and avoiding feature creep whether you end up behind schedule with a buggy release.

Skyrim was buggy because of the legacy save system costing too much memory as the changelog kept growing over time. Sure call them lazy for not rewriting the entire world engine code. They should have cut down the graphics which they did in later patches trying to free up memory.

Batman Arkam knight works very well on console. Not sure what the botched pc release has to do with shorter console cycles. The PC version should have been delayed, like most PC releases come after the console release. Getting something to run well on hundreds of GPU/CPU combinations is more work than 1 specific hardware target, no big shocker there.

3rd parties don't like Nintendo consoles because it takes too much work to port down to weaker hardware. Plus the small install base and 3rd party games generally not selling well on Nintendo makes it not worth the effort.

Shorter console cycles have nothing do do with consistent high end graphics. The new hardware also gives room for better physics, AI, bigger worlds, which can lead to new gameplay opportunities. For years PC gamers have been complaining consoles were holding PC games back. So wouldn't shorter cycles be beneficial for PC games too?

Last gen was too long. Console software sales declined, GPU sales increased, indicating a shift from consoles to PC. People gave up waiting for new consoles and you might as well wait a year to get a game in a Steam sale if new stuff isn't any better anyway. It might be a smarter cheaper way to play games, not good for the gaming industry anyway.



When Nintendo was running the industry there were an abundance smaller IP's that could fit into a 5 year cycle because it took a shorter period of time to make the games. Today, its totally different. Sony's 10 year plan was made for their profitability. They take great risks making consoles as they do. I don't know if they knew this or not but with the costs of making games these days and the time it takes to make games, the process had to change. Sony's plan has actually proven to be more cost effective for gamers since they dont have to buy a new iteration every five years. They can just enjoy the same console for a prolonged ten years (seven years until its replaced though).



SamuelRSmith said:
- Lower prices of consoles
- Less risk for console manufacturers
- Smaller spikes in the cost of game production

this.



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Aeolus451 said:
1337 Gamer said:
Shorter cycles are better. The longer a console generation goes the longer visuals stagnate. Thibk about last gen and how long that cycle was and as a result game engines get optimized for old hardware and graphics top out relayively quickly. The evolution of hardware is inevitable and the quicker we transfer over the better it will be. I think 5 years is about the perfect time. 5 years is an ETERNITY in technology.


A lot of good games come from long gens and some of the best looking games in a gen come out in the tail end of it. The last of us for example. I just want good games. Graphics are just the cherry on top. 

With shorter gens, you're gonna have more cross gen games and not less. If you honestly want more up to date graphics, get a gaming pc.

Yes but the biggest leaps come from generation changes in hardware. No amount of optimizing with low end hardware can ever replace brute force with new age hardware. Why have devs waste additional time and resources to keep trying to improve graphics when its easy enough to get new hardware every couple of years. I actually do have a gaming PC. And i really dont like getting cross platform games from consoles with low res textures and what not. You can only upscale a game so much. The length of last gen really stagnated the graphics on PC as well.



Long Live SHIO!