I secretly hope (well not secretly)

That Xbox One and OG PS4 bite the dust by 2018. We don't need these cheap plastic boxes holding back the Scorpio and the Neo. 2018 will be their 5th year in the industry. High-time we forget about them.

People shouldn't get used to seeing consoles last over a decade. Technology moves way too fast for that.

Yeah, no. Companies spitting in the faces of their fans and laughing that our 400 euro systems are now worthless ain't great for business.

If I were being selfish I would agree, since I didn't buy a ps4 or xbone.

But let's get real here. The software on those systems has only been acceptable for about 6 months now. It was a very rough start to this generation for sure. It would be a slap in the face to their consumers to cut the gen that short.

Also, as much as game makers like having great hardware to work with, I think they'd rather have a console that has a massive install base so they can get game sales in the 5-10 million range for good titles. The ps4 is selling well but only has 40 million users roughly. I'm sure the gen won't be mature until it hits at least twice that.

Why just quit? They can slowly phase them out over a longer period of time while getting the Neo and Scorpio base up.

This could be the last gen in a matter of speaking. Incremental upgrades over a shorter period of time very well may be the future of co sole gaming. That being said, push new ones out too fast and gamers may not bite. Gamers feelings are easily hurt, sad but true.

@locopatho: But they aren't. From the SNES all the way to the Wii a gaming console's lifespan was about 5 years. 360 and PS3 broke the trend by having cutting-edge technology and Microsoft and Sony offset the losses by leaving the consoles on the market longer.

X1 and PS4 are long in the tooth already and sacrifices had to be made to run games on them from the moment they were released. They should last 5 years as is typical for a gaming system with their capabilities.

Why? They have the same 8 GB of RAM and x86 architecture. There's nothing that they can't create that the newer systems can at lower settings.

I disagree -not everyone is like a pc gamers buying £200 - £300 kit on a 1-3 year basis. A lot of people playing consoles are on lower income or simply kids given one for Christmas e.t.c....

The wii was a fairly weak console but it still had titles like Super Mario Galaxy 1/2 wiping the floor with Microsoft and Sony's big hitters.

@Blabadon: Crytek with Ryse for example had to lower the polygon count of their models from 150K to 85K for performance issues. The same wouldn't have happened if they had a Scorpio to work with. They'll have to dial back on some things that couldn't be recovered with just a resolution and frame rate increase if we still use the the X1 as the lowest common denominator in a few years from now.

That's also why games like The Division or TW3 didn't end up looking as good as advertised.

@Juub1990: ok, but that's nothing affecting the gameplay of said games. They literally can just turn up settings for the newer consoles a la PC.

@Blabadon: True but turning up the settings won't magically add back the cut out polygons. A Neo as the lowest common denominator would hold back games much much less than an X1.

@Juub1990: not seeing the reason they should die out though. They wouldn't be holding anything back that's vital to an experience, and there's always going to be a lowest common denominator. It's no guarantee whether titles will scale up for the newer consoles or scale down for the old ones, but if it's going to work the same way as PC I have no issue with games still coming out on the old consoles.

it is true that in the Neo for instance, that Sony will have the same games as the ps4 only ramped up settings. However, it is also true that it will eventually affect gameplay. There will be things like AI and other core features aside from graphics, mainly CPU functions, that will have to be scaled back from what they could have been with better hardware, and there is not allowed to be exclusive content on the Neo (unless Sony breaks their promise to PS4 gamers).

For instance, maybe a game like Star Citizen is not possible on the ps4 but is possible on the Neo. With Sony's policy, the Neo is not allowed to get it.

Would like a source for this.

They just might. Open-world are highly popular these days. For instance, Unity on the older consoles ran like complete garbage in part due to the absolutely monstrous crowds and amount of interaction being processed on screen at once. They severely dialed back in Syndicate and got better performance but the game is no doubt less impressive despite being more recent. As a result Syndicate just doesn't feel as grandiose and advanced as Unity even though it was released over a year later.

A game like Star Citizen probably wouldn't be the same at all on the X1/PS4, they'd have to turn down so many settings you might as well be playing a different game and it would detract from the core experience, something that would be mitigated on more powerful hardware. For fighting games or most games of a small scale, sure, PS4 and X1 wouldn't hold back too much but for huge ambitious games with ample amounts of spectacle they would indeed hold back the final product if they are used as the lowest common denominator.

This medium is creatively bankrupt spending millions on unambitious ass gameplay ideas, and you people think it's a power issue?

It's a competence issue people. Just giving devs a bunch of horse power isn't going to make the triple A space more interesting, they actually begin to design some clever and well designed games. Metal Gear Solid V is one of the best playing games this gen, and some of the more progressive mechanics for one of the triple A franchises this gen...it was a cross gen title. What the **** was everyone's excuse? Too much money on their shitty story? Gamers are aids? What?

Let's not even sugar coat it, even the games that were pimping out the virtues of PC horsepower and design don't stack up favorably to those Mario Galaxy games. Good game design doesn't actually need a shit load of horse power.

a source for what? I don't know if Star Citizen is possible for the ps4 or the Neo if that's what you mean. That's just my guess, especially considering they are not making a ps4 version. If it were possible, I think they would do it just for the sales.

If you mean about Sony's policy, it was talked about here a lot, and I googled this source pretty quickly:

"Moreover, no game will be exclusive to the new console. Games will have an 'enhanced' mode that will improve the graphics on the upgraded version, but they still have to work on normal PS4 consoles.

According to Sony President Andrew House, PS4 Neo is intended to "sit alongside and compliment the standard PS4" and both will be sold througout the console lifecycle"

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/ps4-5-ps4k-playstation-neo-news-rumours-price-release-date-games-psvr

Having more horsepower won't magically make good design impossible. We can have both. This discussion is about the hardware of the X1 and PS4 limiting technical achievements/progress. Game design is the most important thing but this is not what is being discussed here.

And I'm saying that I'm not exactly looking at dropping an install base that is actually going to still be important for selling games, when the actual games we got this gen barely took advantage of the modest horse power bump. I have no issue with the notion of Neo/Scorpio exclusives, as it's in Microsoft/Sony's best interest to sell those things, those machines being dropped cold turkey because we're going to speed up a generation where the triple A space

-It takes forever to make a game because making a modern game is that much more complicated
-It's super fucking expensive
-And as a result we haven't had a truly good year for triple A games until basically this year.

Last year had its standouts (MGSV, The Witcher 3, Bloodborne) but this year it's felt like we've had reasonably good offerings every month from that space. And not reliant entirely on the indie/middle market side to carry the fucking year. Those old machines aren't holding shit back as far as I'm concerned, a bunch of creatively dull ideas being turned into poorly fucking produced video games? Now that's holding shit back.

Simply not true, the NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2 all had decade long (or close to) lifespans, with first party games and third party support being pumped out long after their successors launched.

The only consoles that die after 5 years are commercial failures. Like the Xbox Original and Gamecube.

Get the **** outta here, this gen has barely even got going. We've had at least two years of mainly ports, cross gen, remakes and indie. If these guys don't last until 2019/2020, at least another 3 or 4 years of ACTUAL next gen games, then they're pathetic failures imo.

Keep on hoping pal, it ain´t gonna happen anytime soon as long as there is one penny to be made from there.

They're not "worthless" except to a few upwardly mobile console users who have invested in 4k super early. The rest of us will continue to get a lot of use out of the 1080p machines until next gen comes, and probably a few years after.

Can't say I disagree with that but what concerns me is the fact that some games already had to cut out things for the sake of the X1 and PS4. Syndicate as I said before isn't nearly as impressive as Unity mainly for performance reasons. I do agree the creative landscape is barren and that getting rid of these consoles wouldn't change that but again, this isn't the point being discussed. You do make a good point by saying they have a solid install base which would lead to more sales which in turn would lead to bigger budgets and perhaps better games. Then again, I don't believe an absolutely ludicrous budget is needed to make a technically and visually stunning game. Way too much money these days is being spent on marketing and fluff(more than on development) and it causes devs to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to sales.

The last game released on the SNES was in 1998 but after 1996 game releases were far and few on the SNES. Nintendo was mainly focused on the N64. Perhaps I exaggerated by saying they should bite the dust in 2018 but I do think the support and games should start dwindling and by 2020 I'm hoping they won't be a focus any more. The PS2 is the only console that still saw major support and many releases after 5-6 years. Some other system still had games coming out after half a decade but the attention had mostly switched to their next-gen brethren.

They were pathetic failures the moment they released with components from 3 years ago and devs had to cut back features so their games could run on the consoles. Of course they are long in the tooth when CDProjekt RED pretty much admitted they had to hold back on the graphics because of the console versions. They brought almost nothing new to the table unlike the 360/PS3/Wii. At least the Scorpio/Neo will give free reign to ambitious, large worlds and devs will have to dial back much less.

iF the Scorpio and Neo are $400 or less by 2018 then sure, I dont care.

But if they are $500 $600, then **** it.

I would have to have a 4k tv by then too, which i dont see happening since they are still $2000 +

The issue this gen has been with the software people, not the hardware.

Unity isn't a good game, that franchise prioritizes bullshit over actually improving the game mechanics or coming up with gameplay scenarios more interesting than "follow that dude".

As for the money, no making a game at a triple A scale totally costs. Marketing a game still matters, because without good marketing you don't actually sell. There is way too many people working on those games getting a paycheck, so it's not like the budget isn't already increased on that front alone. And given how much people love their tech and need shit to look detailed and immersive and all that nonsense, yep that costs, that's a lot of man power to get that stuff done, and then there is production value cost. Because it's not like we're going back to the era of no voice acting and no mocap in video games.

So yeah completely dropping a healthy install base that has responded to reasonably marketed video games by making them successful, I'd say dropping them cold turkey is super short sighted for something we don't necessarily need and wouldn't push shit forward to begin with. Given that MGSV is an unfinished video game, and Kojima spent a shit load of money on that game (and it fucking shows with how many different gameplay options you can have going in any given mission, it's mechanically head and shoulders, and fucking torso over any other open world game we got this gen, like not even close); I'd say part of the issue is that high end production games just cost too much to do anything, and then take a shit ton of time to boot.

The triple A space's first big deal isn't getting new fancy tech, it needs to be readjustment of their business. Going cold turkey to Scorpio/Neo will more than likely piss off the audience, and saying pissing off the audience is no big deal. Yeah that's true a lot of times with gamers, because they are the worst fanbase of anything ever. But every now and then they gain a backbone, and you get the Xbox One scenario where the community gave it a cold middle finger.

So no fam, the creative bankruptcy and how expensive modern games are totally plays in this discussion. Because it would only add to the problem as opposing to improving anything.

This hits the nail on the head. Even in the face of new models being released, continued support for the previous installation (within a reasonable time frame) is crucial for the market health of any platform/brand. Yes it's a well established cycle of 5-6 years for a particular system as the primary generation front runner unit for the platform, BUT... it's also been just as well established to see a 4 year overlap for it's continued support while its successor begins its slow progression to building up the user base for that new generation.

This has been seen in Nintendo; as the NES was given continued support when SNES launched, just as it got 4 years overlapping the N64, and N64 into Gamecube and so on. Same with Sony, each Playstation model being given a 10 year lifespan, while only 5-6 as the most current iteration. And while Microsoft broke tradition by dropping the OG Xbox to only focus on the new X360, there were economic reasons that made sustaining the forst console unviable at the time. Thakfully this wasn't the case for the X360 when the XB1 launched, even when 360 already had a 10 year cycle as the primary model for the Xbox platform.

This isn't just because the company needs the revenue from the previous gen to supplement the shortcomings of the next gen system when it's new, but from a more practical standpoint to avoid alienating the established user base. They can't just drop an older model on the spot which conveys a message of trying to "force" their customers to adopt the new model right away to get new game options. Especially not in the first year when the shiny new next gen system is at its most expensive. History has always shown any console hits its peak adoption midway when it drops to an ideal consumer price point, not in the beginning with a higher sticker price that halts the average consumer.

The consumers have to be given the flexibility to migrate to the next generation when they're ready to, not when the company wants them to.

If that's the business model that suits them, this was easily the worst generation for retail video games I've ever witnessed. There were more Atari 2600 games I got hyped about than what I saw at a a Gamestop this gen. Bring on the crash baby.

Not me. I don't expect the rest of the world to live by what I want. I may want a new console in 2018 but I have a friend who still plays on PS3 and nothing else. Like he said to me, "I go to Gamestop and there are still games on the wall I haven't played". There are people who may be fine with the lower price and specs of these consoles by then. Wont hurt me if the industry has options for them.

They'll never set a cut off point, they'll phase out into the new hardware, right now they have to say everything that's going to be made for one will be made for the other, but at some point it's going to be more advantageous for both to take full advantage of new hardware, and of course there'll be an "I'm sorry" and yadda yadda yadda. Hopefully they'll make it an easy choice by doing it with some killer apps.

I guess I am conflicted. I love the 360/3/wii long life span, but they actually had good releases. This Gen is just starting to get games that I want again. You are right though, 2018 is good.

Honestly some of you hve made a great point. They should get the tech they have now mastered before jumping to another gen. I mean ubisoft is still downgrading games this gen.....

2018 is a little too quick I think, but maybe because I pay more bills now.

God damn right.

And even visually speaking, it's a dev issue too.

Fucking tragedy, man

then why did dead rising 3 drop to 20 fps and fallout 4 to 0 fps on xbox one is that not a hardware problem? Can you explain that to me is that software problem or a hardware problem the games can't keep up on the xbox one hardware thats just a fact.

In dead rising's case they were just rushing for launch, it could've been a stable 900/30 with more time. And Bethesda sucks

but it would be 1080p 30 FPS if it had better hardware correct? my tv is 1080p correct? it wasn't dropping framerates below 30 on PC correct?

So? Doesn't change the fact it was rushed. Which points to a bigger problem ; how much time games take to make, and how incomplete some games are at launch. More and more powerful hardware will only exacerbate that.

I think people are talking about hardware all the time, because well you have to talk about something while these damn games still aren't out, or getting fixed. Besides I play 6th gen/Wii games on my 1080p tv just fine so no i'm not going to cry about 900p, I just want good games.

4 years is enough for a generation.if you can't afford new tech every four years then should take up coloring crosswords or walking for a hobby. Tech is too quick to held up by peasantry

@kend0_kap0ni: 4K Tv's are much cheaper than that at this point. Decent brands like LG and Vizio have 60 to 70 inch 4K Tv's for around 700-800 bucks. Still a large amount but much better than they were even a year or so ago.

There is way too much focus on hardware and performance these days. I'd prefer a longer gen and much more focus on FUN games and less on frames per second and resolution. We need original, inspired gameplay not graphical improvement nearly as much.

I thought Scorpio and Neo were Xbox Ones and PS4's...

It's also putting the cart before the horse: current-gen systems can't even run 1080p at 30+ frames per second* with high-quality textures and visuals for most games, and now they're suddenly bypassing that milestone and jumping on the 4K bandwagon?

It's all marketing and bullshit. People are being suckered.

*Not trying to be a hater, mind you, I have nothing against consoles or anything. It's just, I feel like people have been sold a car and promised certain things. And they got by. And now the companies are like "Hey, we are coming out with the same car, but it's better because it has a heated steering wheel!" And that's not worth buying a new car over when you got about 200k more miles left on the current one.

Guess what I am saying is this: realize you have something good, there's always something better, but you don't need to jump on it just because the salesman says so. Make the best with what you got, especially when it is already really good.

Why do I keep seeing things like this posted on here? It's not true that this was a new thing for PS3 and 360 - the SNES was in retail for NINE years, the Genesis was in retail for, well... effectively similar but technically still for sale. The PS1 was for sale for 11 years, the PS2 was for sale for 13.

Now, granted, they did NOT get all the big games over this time. In fact, for much of those times they were just being sold with the old games, devoid of new development. More couldn't be expected; it would be unreasonable because their tech had become so wildly outdated. But it seems like the "true" time of death is something nobody would agree on for those machines.

In direct response to this point: "360 and PS3 broke the trend by having cutting-edge technology and Microsoft and Sony offset the losses by leaving the consoles on the market longer" - no, the 360 and PS3 didn't have extended lives relative to such predecessors, and I fail to see what made them more cutting edge for their time

@ProtossRushX: The example you have given is an example of software not being optimised efficiently. I never tried to argue the Xbox as being the stronger machine in terms of hardware. My point was both consoles have been let down by lacklustre games available across the board.

Swallow your fanboy for a second and compare this gen to those preceding it and you might gain an insight into the point I was trying to make.

Welcome to a market consisting of disposable electronics.