I dont think I am.  Not with pricing issues.  My 4090 at 24 vram and 32 gb system ram is low 30s with path.  I see the ps6 doing path as well as the S2 does RT.  Very limited and low end (probably with crap frame gen).  Path Tracing is absolutely crushing, even on how end PC rigs.  And rumor has cut the ps6 down from 32 gb of total ram to 24 gb.  

Console power, ever since I was a kid, always gets exaggerated before launch.  I remember when the ps5 was going to be a native 4k system with the ability to hit 8k...  meanwhile Expedition 33 on the ps5 is 1080p upscaled.  

Except RDNA5 is built with heavy RT and PT in mind. Combine that with better uspcaling for lower native res, dev eagerness to do RT/PT and optimizations once that's standard way to do things (like Codemasters is already experimenting on PS5 Pro with F1), and yes - there will be quite a bit of PT games, especially one's that are not fully open world.

I remain skeptical, and would like to be wrong.  I remember when the ps5 was 4k, and RE9 is what 1080p?  Many had the S2 as 4k...  nope, Star Fox is on rails and is 1080p.  

Path, having tried it, makes my 4090 cry.  I don't see how a console at sub $1000 will be pushing PT in any meaningful way, just like RT on the ps5 is largely a joke.  

I am not convinced next gen consoles will even be RDNA5, I suspect specification are going to get cut way back, nobody is going to buy a $1500 console.

Edit

Out of curiosity I asked Copilot, and I tend to agree with their view:

Did you see the Codemaster thing? It'll obviously be some kind of compromised version but its definitely coming to PS6 in some form. Aside from the hardware being more capable, the software engineering will also be much better/more efficient in 2-3 years.

Might be a semantics game.  I think it will be partial not full path.  And it will be used on some, still partial, far from standard.  Perhaps we are all saying the same thing.  I just don't expect full path as a standard.  It will be light use 

Path tracing and ray tracing are sort of mangled concepts, mostly because of Nvidia's marketing.

Path tracing is mostly just a technique to make actual full ray-tracing more efficient using Monte Carlo integration methods. 

Nvidia (and AMD following them) have been improving this technique using a plethora of (mostly ML/DL) acceleration algorithms and hardware. It's to the point that by 2030 it probably will be nearly as efficient as hybrid solutions (like "ray tracing reflections", "lumen", etc.)

Most of what is called "ray-tracing" in games is just hybrid systems that apply ray tracing conditionally to different parts of the raster pipeline. But ray-tracing historically described the general task of modeling lighting using ray intersections with geometry. Path tracing definitely falls in that category.

There are actually many ray tracing methods that have similar quality (within the overlapping target use case): whitted (recursive), cook (distributed), radiosity + ray tracing, kajiya (aka Path Tracing), etc. The only reason it is slower than "ray tracing" in games is because "ray tracing" in games is actually not full ray tracing, but hybrid lighting. 

Edit: All of this is to say we already have "partial" this generation. Next generation will be much closer to "full." 

https://www.digitalfoundry.net/reviews/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-arrives-surprisingly-intact-on-switch-2

Closer, yes.  CP Overdrive, nah, that would stun me.

I mean we'll have like four more years of innovations like this by the time there are exclusive 10th Gen titles. While these innovations are being led by Nvidia, AMD and Intel are quickly following their heels.  

https://research.nvidia.com/labs/rtr/publication/lin2026restirptenhanced/

https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-just-made-path-tracing-better-and-easier-to-run

I think the average solution will be excessive of Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive, which will be a 7 year old implementation by then. 

We're in a software/hardware scaling loop reminiscient of the improvements made with 3D rasterization in the 5th -> 6th -> 7th Gen. It is just the technologies that are scaling are different. 

The 10th Gen will be to raytracing  and neural rendering what the 6th Gen was to 3D rasterization. Largely a generation where technologies that were introduced in the prior generation come into their own. 

A good analogy is that in the 5th Generation many games used 3D character models and pre-rendered backdrops. By the 6th Generation most games had full 3D environments, even if some still did have hybrid setups. Likewise, most 10th-Gen only games will be very RT heavy. Maybe there will be some minimal baking or shortcuts here and there, but it will be the opposite of this generation where RT is mostly selectively applied.

That's why I believe Nintendo is going to win next gen too. Ray tracing is not a great selling point for next gen, but intelligent software is. Nintendo is the company that can release the gaming tablet with native intelligent software support. Visual fidelity is not gonna sell more consoles, but more realistic worlds and smarter game mechanics for sure will. And in the age of AI having something like an art generator like on Wii U, but drawing an image of Link with just a voice command is a killer feature.