Xbox Next-Gen Console Confirmed, Will be 'Largest Technical Leap in a Hardware Generation'

simple@lemm.ee to Games@lemmy.world – 95 points – Xbox Next-Gen Console Confirmed, Will be 'Largest Technical Leap in a Hardware Generation' - IGN
ign.com

Rumors of Xbox not wanting to continue their hardware are now confirmed to be false.

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I feel like we hear this every single time though. "Largest tech leap in a hardware generation" very much means "we'll bump the graphics a little, we're still targeting 30fps though"

I'd argue this generation actually did deliver performance-wise, most games release with a performance mode that targets 60fps whereas the PS3/PS4 generation felt mostly stuck to 30FPS.

Honestly, that's fair. Maybe I was being a little too harsh, plus this gen did come with more customizable settings (IE, setting to "performance mode" or "fidelity" mode)

And often, the fidelity mode is close to or sometimes native 4k, whoch is impressive for a console. Remember when full 1080p was the push?

Well, yeah, this gen is pretty much last gen but 60fps.

Except when it tries to do fancy UE5 features or raytracing then you get that 30 fps with smeary FSR

Up until recently I think most TVs weren't 60Hz

TVs have been 60Hz as standard for a long long long time. We're talking multiple decades.

Even in the CRT days, almost all TVs (in North America, that is) were rated at 60Hz.

30/60fps is always a developer choice. Not related to hardware capability.

That being said, every generation console makers will make the most powerful hardware they can for the price point they are gonna charge. It's not exactly like Microsoft have any secret sauce here. It's the same amd/nvidia hardware choices for the price point they think they can sell at that anyone can make a machine with.

I don't know why you were being downvoted. It's true. FPS is the developers decision. If a game had like 9 pixels on screen, they could make that game do ultra high framerate.

Developers usually prefer better graphics over framerate however. I just hope that more games allow the choice between graphics, framerate, and a balance between the two... like with Hogwarts Legacy.

It’s funny that you enjoy these settings.

Personally I hate these as I’d just want to play the game the way the developers wanted me to play it. I hate that PC influence.

I guess everyone is different 😅

So you hate that PCs are more capable and can display better graphics at higher framerates and have rationalized it to yourself that worse graphics and framerates on a console are "how the developers intended".

I can understand not wanting to tinker with settings and just load a game up and know what to expect in terms of graphics and framerate, but I just cannot disagree more with what you are saying here. Building games to console limitations and not even giving the option for fidelity or framerate just seems like a step backward.

You have a point.

Personally, I was mostly thinking about these options for games developed mostly for consoles.

It’s true that I hadn’t taken into account that some games are developed for pc and downgraded for consoles.

Still, even for such a game I would want the developers to think about their perfect ratio between fidelity and performance.

30/60fps is always a developer choice

Yes, a choice to code and optimize the game properly or not is always the creator's choice.

Honestly, I don't think I'll own another console at this point.

PC will have my focus.

Console are great for the audience that doesn't want to pay the prevalent PC/GPU premium at this stage.

They'll pay it anyhow. They just won't get a GPU for it and be stuck with only what's on their specific platform.

I don't even need the giant GPU. I just need the open platform to keep playing the games I already love.

At this point, a preowned Steam Deck is so much cheaper than any next gen console might ever be. So the barrier to entry for PC gaming is even lower and from a customer perspective, we know what platform players should go for

Except you definitely make up for it and probably pay more (depending on what hardware cost your comparing to of course) on the consoles. All three consoles have subscription-based services that are more or less required. Some of the controllers for the consoles are as much or more than a keyboard or mouse. You rarely see a price decline of any of the games (especially Nintendo), and certainly nothing as near as what you'll find on PC.

So consoles are a cheap upfront cost that's recouped overtime. I'm not saying that consoles are definitely more expensive, but the true cost of ownership is somewhat muddled.

I don't really agree with that, at least outside of niche situations. The upfront cost on a PC today puts the cost for playing on consoles much cheaper up front such that it would take years to make up the difference, even if you were paying for Game Pass.

My point isn't some pedantry over PC vs Console and cost nit-picking. Its that consoles aren't a bad deal. It's OK for people to own and play games on a console, and they work well for a lot of people.

I've been putting together PCs for a while now and the idea that they're more affordable for playing games than on consoles is becoming more and more of a misnomer. You can thank the major part duopolies for that. I don't think console companies aren't greedy or somehow noble, but consoles are still fill a gap and enable people to play games.

PCs are brilliant! But I like console

I play on both! I like pc for cheaper prices and some different games. I like my xbox to just "plug and play", it is simple and I don't have to keep verifying if it will run smoothly. My pc is kinda strong, but not super strong, so AAA titles a no go there

At this point, unless the PS5 shapes up and offers exclusives that matter, I will probably do the same.

After the Helldivers 2 release Sony started talking about getting more aggressive with PC releases, so I think we're going to see a lot less console only releases.

Game pass is too good for me to resist consoles tbh, the PC app is ass. I can't be bothered at this point to buy an expensive PC to be able to play AAA games.

I've dropped buying them after the 7th Gen. 360 and ps3 were enough for me. My PC can do way more stuff anyway.

"And what we're focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation,

Pretty sure that is said by at least one player in the console game every time they announce new hardware.

The big 2 vendors jumped on the Raytracing bandwagon too early and it shows.

Ray tracing was the hot new buzzword after CP2077 showed off what consoles couldn't at the time.

Unfortunately the tech didn't even mature on PC yet, at least not without upscaling and now frame gen to help get it to more pleasing framerates.

Yeah I thought the same reading that.

Even in the very game, CP2077, as impressive as it can be, it can also be just as disappointing. It's still a nice technical marvel, but it's not at all the gamechanger it wanted to be.

And there's games such as A Plague Tale Requiem where the baked lighting looks flat-out better in most scenes than the raytracing, since unlike the "realistic" raytracing they hand-crafted it to be unrealistic but fitting for the tone and atmosphere of the scene. So I turned it off again.

I'll be honest, so far the only game where RT universally made me go "I'll leave that on, that's awesome!" is Riftbreaker. And it has a comparatively minor effect there, but at least a purely positive one (CP2077 I prefer at native rez over RT + DLSS which gets a weird pseudo-blur even with carefully tweaked resharpening, it's just part of how it renders I think as other games don't have this issue).

And all for prettier shinies. No offense, but SSAO/Cubemaps are still damn pretty looking and cheaper in terms of resources. For me, 2077 still runs like ass with raytracing even today.

Ray tracing in this generation was a classical case of "biting more than you can chew". Huge distraction.

The biggest jump in the current consoles was the load times. I don't think there's anything the next gen could do to impress.

Ray tracing performance that’s actually good enough for games to fully ditch rasterized lighting and reflections

That is beyond optimistic for consoles. Maybe three or four more generations worth.

It’s possible with high end PC hardware today. Since when have consoles been 20 years behind PC?

That sounds a lot like the jump from HD to 4K. Which is to say a lot less impactful than the previous jumps and tech. And something a lot of people might not even notice.

Are there other benefits to this? Like less work for developers?

A lot less work for developers, smaller game sizes, and map and game design no longer needing to be built around the onerous limitations of raster lighting and reflections.

Ray tracing is a bigger deal than most people realize. It feels like a gimmick because the games that support it today are still ultimately designed around rasterization.

Path-traced lighting in particular is a huge game changer, and means developers will no longer have to choose between rudimentary global dynamic lighting and very static and storage-intensive baked lighting. You can get the benefits of both without the drawbacks of either, assuming the hardware is up to snuff.

Could I get paddles and gyro on the controller for my PC needs please.

It's such a tragedy that Xbox controllers are the only major controller not to have any gyro. We could've had cross-platform shooters that allow for gyro ironsight aiming, or even allow it on PC (it's currently a common option on Steam Deck, with some tinkering)

Allow me to recommend the Flydigi Vader 3 Pro. It has Hall-effect sticks, gyro, back buttons, six face buttons, Xbox style trigger rumble and every button is mechanical. It also works on the Switch and Android

The current limitation I’m finding with third party controllers is that I can’t bind the back paddles to what I want in Steam. I can only bind them to buttons that are available on the controller through their software.

I like to use the back paddles as modifier’s like Ctrl or Alt or to apply an action layer to temporarily modify my other buttons.

Microsoft has clarified that it wants its games to be experienced across various devices

Microsoft, please give me streaming with keyboard and mouse. It is not rocket surgery (tm) to do that and it is promised now for so long.

GeForce Now ?

They presumably want gamepass or they want to stream to twitch from their console. Not sure.