We don't really know yet how Nanite will perform on pc storage, but when we're talking about cross-gen games that have to run from the ps4/Xone HDD, it's pretty obvious that Nanite isn't going to work on there.

True, Global dynamic illumination is not completely new tech that technically can also be done on ps4. But it's the combination of nanite and Lumen that probably has developers creaming their pants, as it will make things that much easier. By still supporting current gen HDD in multiplatform games, the whole point of Nanite is kinda lost, as they would still have to do all the extra optimization work they're doing now for the current gen version of their game. Like I said, it's not about if assets and geometry can scale, the point of Nanite is that you don't have to waste a ton of resources on scaling at all anymore. Not only will that look better, it's also way more efficient, allowing developers to simply put more stuff in their games with the time and budget they have.

Personally, I always thought Ray Tracing would be the biggest feature on next gen consoles. But I guess I was wrong, now that we finally got a glimpse of why Sony was banking so much on their SSD tech. It's a complete evolution of how games can be designed and I can't wait to see what that means for AAA next gen games. 

Epic aren't selling their engine dude, you can just download it for free... You only pay a revenue percentage once you're selling your game. Since 99% of the developers will be using these next gen consoles as the base platform, it's very important for Epic that their engine is completely optimized for next gen consoles. That's why they've been collaborating so closely with Sony and I'm assuming MS as well. If both consoles didn't have a SSD, Epic probably wouldn't have designed Nanite and gone with something else.

The SSD is obviously there to tackle bandwidth bottlenecks that we're seeing in current gen game development, and it's not rocket science to figure out that Sony's 1st party studios have their own engines that tackle that same problem. Since their engines will be specifically designed for the ps5's architecture, I'm guessing they'll be even more efficient. I mean when was the last time an Unreal powered game beat the Sony exclusives in visuals?    

Just keep in mind that Lumin and Nanite are separate technologies, they augment each other, sure.
But lumin isn't even the best of lighting technologies we have right now or even the best lighting supported in Unreal Engine 5, more intensive lighting can potentially make it look even better, that is entirely up to developer discretion of course and what their particular goals are.

And you are right, one of Nanites advantages is not having developers scale/rebuild assets, the engine does it, this will benefit indie/A/AA developers the most, suddenly they are going to be able to focus their limited resources on more impactful aspects of their games.

Ray Tracing is one of the biggest features of next-gen consoles, that isn't even in doubt.

Lumin is Ray Traced lighting. The demo even used Ray Tracing.

You don't need to exchange money to actually sell something.

Epic in this instance however most certainly does gain financially out of the promotion of the Unreal Engine, lets not kid ourselves here.

Bandwidth bottlenecks between Storage and Ram will still exist, it just won't be as pronounced as the 8th gen which stagnated on that front... We aren't at a point where we can fill the Ram 30x in 1 second like with the Nintendo 64 or where carts are 1/2 the bandwidth of the Ram.

But it does open up a ton of extra opportunities that spinning hard drives would have prevented, absolutely no doubt.

But SSD's aren't the second coming of Jesus, they don't process data, they simply allow developers to be more efficient with their memory use, it cannot entirely replace Ram.

I think, not having to scale assets, will benefit developers of all shapes and sizes. It will be great for Indie developers working with a limited budget, but AAA games should also benefit greatly on the creative side. Just having a massive leap in assets variation alone is going to be a major game changer and should make for much more interesting and immersive world design. 

Not scaling down assets in advance will probably also let the file sizes of games explode.

Unfortunately Epic games didin't tell use, how many GB storage space were necessary for that 9-minute demo on the PS5 dev kit and how much nessesary storage space we can expect for a full-sized 20-hour AAA game with unscaled assets.

This is more in relation to models and poly counts though? Pretty sure its the textures, Audio and video that take up all of the space in game files.

But the textures for that PS5 demo were much bigger than for normal PS4 Pro or XBO X games:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo-analysis

"Unreal Engine supports Virtual Texturing, which means we can texture our models with many 8K textures without overloading the GPU." Jerome Platteaux, Epic's special projects art director, told Digital Foundry. He says that each asset has 8K texture for base colour, another 8K texture for metalness/roughness and a final 8K texture for the normal map. But this isn't a traditional normal map used to approximate higher detail, but rather a tiling texture for surface details.

"For example, the statue of the warrior that you can see in the temple is made of eight pieces (head, torso, arms, legs, etc). Each piece has a set of three textures (base colour, metalness/roughness, and normal maps for tiny scratches). So, we end up with eight sets of 8K textures, for a total of 24 8K textures for one statue alone," he adds."

Didn't Unreal 4 already have dynamic global illumination? I remember it was just too expensive for current gen consoles, so they ended up replacing it with a number of graphical effects that were less demanding. We will see, but I got a feeling that path tracing, like we're seeing in Minecraft, is a bridge too far for next gen consoles, at least when we're talking graphically demanding games. I hope I'm wrong, though, and maybe we will see some smaller scale games using it, or games running in 1080p. I mean Series X should be better at handling Ray Tracing than the ps5, but they also had to go with 1080p just to run Minecraft. My guess is that for path tracing we're going to need at least a RTX3*** gpu. However, Dynamic Global Illumination like Lumen looks like a fantastic alternative for next gen consoles, as its far less resource heavy than full blown path tracing.  

To me the SSD enabled tech does sound like it will the biggest break-through next gen when we're talking about consoles. Me thinks we'll see a much bigger leap than going from ps3 to ps4, because of it. But I also think it will be a much bigger limiting factor in cross-gen titles that still have to run on a HDD compared to just having a weaker gpu. Scaling things on the gpu side is one thing, but scaling the entire world design is going to be a different matter entirely.     

Not scaling down assets in advance will probably also let the file sizes of games explode.

Unfortunately Epic games didin't tell use, how many GB storage space were necessary for that 9-minute demo on the PS5 dev kit and how much necessary storage space we can expect for a full-sized 20-hour AAA game with unscaled assets.

I wonder if at least 4 "nanite-like" AAA games will fit on the 825 GB SSD (so less than 200 GB on average per game).

However, you have to keep in mind that duplicate assets will be a thing of the past, there will be much better compression in hardware, and you will be able to install parts of a game. It'll depend on how ambitious the game is, but overall they might actually be smaller than we're seeing now. 

Didn't Unreal 4 already have dynamic global illumination? I remember it was just too expensive for current gen consoles, so they ended up replacing it with a number of graphical effects that were less demanding. We will see, but I got a feeling that path tracing, like we're seeing in Minecraft, is a bridge too far for next gen consoles, at least when we're talking graphically demanding games. I hope I'm wrong, though, and maybe we will see some smaller scale games using it, or games running in 1080p. I mean Series X should be better at handling Ray Tracing than the ps5, but they also had to go with 1080p just to run Minecraft. My guess is that for path tracing we're going to need at least a RTX3*** gpu. However, Dynamic Global Illumination like Lumen looks like a fantastic alternative for next gen consoles, as its far less resource heavy than full blown path tracing.  

I think, not having to scale assets, will benefit developers of all shapes and sizes. It will be great for Indie developers working with a limited budget, but AAA games should also benefit greatly on the creative side. Just having a massive leap in assets variation alone is going to be a major game changer and should make for much more interesting and immersive world design. 

To me the SSD enabled tech does sound like it will the biggest break-through next gen when we're talking about consoles. Me thinks we'll see a much bigger leap than going from ps3 to ps4, because of it. But I also think it will be a much bigger limiting factor in cross-gen titles that still have to run on a HDD compared to just having a weaker gpu. Scaling things on the gpu side is one thing, but scaling the entire world design is going to be a different matter entirely.