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.

Welcome to our world. A next gen console always just does the exact thing that gaming PCs already can do and better. So the only exciting thing about a new gen is that they finally slightly catch up, which potentially brings improvements in multiplat games since they're not held back too much anymore.

That excitement lasts for a year or two and then it's gone because they have drifted apart too much and are holding everything back again.

As in Microsoft seems to be focusing more on Game Pass/xCloud type capabilities.

Sony seems to be focused on horsepower and their new controller.

Nintendo seems to be focused on "fun" and not sure what else, lol.

AAA studios will be influenced by each of the major consoles to make different games.

The three consoles all seem to be moving in different directions, which is a good thing for consumers overall.

I'm just not a fan of a focus on graphics, game streaming, etc so to this point overall I'm not excited by "next gen".

I don't see gaming PCs getting games optimized for up to 9 GB/s SSD direct to video RAM transfer speeds...

Nor do I see gaming PCs getting major AAA games that just work without needing to go into settings or checking requirements :p


It's funny how the most next gen game atm, Flight Simulator is not part of GAAS, but good old fashioned pay up front with likely later DLC like Flight Simulator has always been. However now while streaming from 2 peta bytes of world data in the cloud to offer the best detail.

That's what he said.

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.

1. PC had the speed of SSDs for years already and a slight boost won't do a lot about it. I also have yet to see any next gen games being optimized for fast SSDs that have a significant impact on gameplay or loading times. At least not enough impact to justify $400 when you already have a PC.

2. That's probably because you haven't played anything on PC or because you are just lying to prove a point.

If fast storage that is already bound to be easily eclipsed by PCs is the only selling point for next gen consoles then I stand correct that there is nothing they can offer and will be painfully outdated within 2 years as usual.

I play on a gaming laptop and always have to go into settings to get decent performance (i7 8750h, GTX 1060) out of bigger games. Elite Dangerous I have to change settings while playing depending on whether I meet up with other people. Train Simulator I have to change settings based on the track / area. Forza Horizon 4 works better with CPU boost disabled, while train sim needs the boost or stutters very badly when loading the next chunk of data. Forza Horizon won't work with a DS4 controller, Ori does mostly but still better with 360 pad. Need I go on.

PCs can't make tailor made games for fast storage since it still has to work from HDD. Consoles can balance everything perfectly, just look at HZDs woeful port to PC. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-horizon-zero-dawn-pc-tech-review When consoles start optimizing for SSD porting to PC is only going to get harder, or they'll simply require more and more ram to compensate.

Fast storage is not going to be painfully outdated since PCs simply won't require you to have a 9 GB/s SSD to play certain games, nor do they have the ability to transfer direct to video ram. But yes they can compensate with 32 GB of system ram.

Next gen is getting rid of the 5400 rpm HDD bottleneck, can't wait!

Most of the next-gen games I've seen so far have been anything but impressive, so no, I'm not impressed so far. For a decent price, I'll probably upgrade at some point even without anything too impressive, but for now, I'm in no rush. There are some impressive games, so there's definitely potential, but we're far from being able to call the next generation impressive.