Topic: Watered down or True Next Gen. Power House.. You get what you pay for!

What bothers me is that Sony may be cutting features for the PS 5 trying to meet an unrealistic price point that cheap gamer's are expecting and in some cases demanding. The PS 4 was a watered down system and I fear that the same thing may happen to the PS5. The bottom line is, you get what you pay for! Pay for a true next gen power house of a console, you will get one. Pay for a watered down somewhat next gen console, that is what you will end up with. In Sony's marketing strategy I wish they would have shown gamer's the difference and let us choose which way we are willing to go for. The cheap gamer's should stop tying Sony's hands and allow them to build the true next gen powerhouse of a console that gamer's really want! $599.00 or $649.00 would be an excellent price for the PS 5. Final thought: The cheap gamer's who are causing Sony to struggle over the price point of the PS 5 are hurting all gamer's! Because of them, we may all end up getting a much less true next gen gaming experience!

It's more to do with not pricing themselves out of the market. As long as PS5 games look better then PS4 ones then most aren't going to care how much power it has. But they certainly won't be paying a high premium for a luxury item. PS3 was proof of that and Sony know they don't want to repeat that mistake again.

Yeah, you know why your complaint doesn’t make sense. The reality is an expensive powerhouse is a nonstarter. A nonstarter means none of the high quality exclusive games you expect on PlayStation. So, get a good PC if that’s your jam. Otherwise it’s a balancing act between quality and quantity.

So.... those of us without the means to pay a ridiculous price for the console are hurting the ‘true’ gamers with that amount of free cash? Price definitely does not equal quality because if the system doesn’t sell well, the third parties won’t develop on it. I’d rather be able to buy the PS5 without having to sell a kidney. Then I can start buying software, the real money maker for a company like Sony.

You don't have to sell a kidney to buy a True next Gen. Console at $599.00 or $649.00! Just save a little sooner for a longer period of time. I am poor! Very poor! Still, I managed to save $950.00 in a little over 6 months for the PS 3 and PS 4 by just saving candy bar and coke money on a regular basis. If I can do, it anyone can. Bottom line is this, if Sony has to cut features out of the PS5 then gamer's are going to end up with a watered down somewhat next gen console, but, if that's what gamer's really want, who am I to question the great collective. Resistance, even with logic and good reasoning really is futile.

You must have a lot of candies and coke then if you saved that much in six months.

Not really. Same as most. You would be surprised how much you can save in 6 to 8 months, just a few dollars here and there. It even shocked me. I am going to start saving this week or next for the PS 5 and PSVR 2.0. My goal is to have $1,000.00 to $1,200.00 plus enough for a few games.

I am not trying to be offensive with this post, but I truly do not think you understand the world of business with your argument

I think theres a limit where most console gamers (I'm obviously talking about myself haha) wont see any difference.
So we get 4k 60fps we get ray tracing. We get SSD super fast loading. A quality build console, no doubt and better controller. As long as those are secured I dont see the point paying more for ever slightly better results.
Theres just the matter of SSD storage space but that could be optional I guess

@JJ2 Guaranteed 4K 60fps isn't a thing. The PS4 supports that as well. Most games aren't going to be 4K and 60fps if they can sacrifice the frame rate for more in game details. And TBH, it's nice, but 60fps isn't na deal breaker.

@Octane
Yea I mean games that are aimed to be 60fps like COD.

Technology has moved on so sony really need to build a new console that takes advantage of that. Of course inflation has happened over the last seven years so be price will be higher in line with that but there is no reason to try and build a supercomputer outside of the normal console price and form brackets.

The aim has got to be to provide an excellent product at a realistic price not to be the best.

@Octane AAA games will be targeting 4K 60fps the next gen. The base ps4 can not get to that level hence why the Pro was made, and even then that is not 'true' 4K.

@JohnnyShoulder Just like they targeted 1080p 60fps on PS4? And most games ended up being only 30fps. Developers much rather sacrifice frame rate for additional graphical fidelity.

@Octane They will tell you that the current gen has a higher percentage of 60fps games than last gen. Its not always sacrificing frame rate for additional graphical fidelity - its often that the game can't run at 60fps and the only alternative is to target 30fps or have a game running unlocked at an average of 45fps.

Its often not a choice of 'resolution' or frame rate. Its more about whether or not they can produce a frame in 16.6ms and if not and not even close enough, then target 33ms. Almost every game could still look better, could still have a higher graphical fidelity. I doubt any are running at PC equivalent 'Ultra' settings.

Big open world games for example may have massive draw calls (draw call contains all the information telling GPU about textures, states, shaders, rendering objects, buffers, etc. encapsulated as CPU work that prepares drawing resources for the graphics card) from the CPU telling the GPU what to draw where, what textures they have and materials they are made from etc. The more varied and complex the scene, the more Draw Calls are needed. That makes it very difficult to hit 16.6ms frame times. The CPU can also be handling the physics and AI too and if you have a CPU that is 'relatively' slow, it makes it difficult to hit 60fps.

On XB1X, a console with a much more powerful GPU, a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider can run at Native 4k and 30fps BUT even dropping the resolution down to 1080p in its 'high performance' mode, a quarter of the size doesn't allow that game to run consistently at double the frame rate. The CPU is the bottleneck.

The next gen systems look to have an 8 core CPU (like current gen) but running at least 2x faster than current gen base consoles. They also will be multi-threaded too - as well as improved latency and efficiency over the 'Jaguar' based CPU's. That puts them more in line with Gaming PC's.

I am not saying that games won't be 30fps - not that Devs have to pick 30fps or 60fps with Variable Refresh Rates - as that will still come down to the vision of the devs and their choices. To get a 'locked' frame rate - or at least one that drops a frame or two infrequently at most - the majority of the game should be able to run above that target. Its 'capped' to keep it consistent and even. With VRR, they could target 60fps and have drops as low as 45fps but you won't get screen tear or judder associated with dropping frames - although will need a VRR enabled display. Its only the displays that have caused console games to target 30fps or 60fps.

We have seen numerous ways of reducing the GPU load over the last gen - Chequerboard rendering probably being the most well known but Variable Rate Shading and DLSS upscaling could also be available. We know Ray Tracing is coming to consoles, so these options will no doubt be used to generate a 4k image in some games. It may not be 'native' 4k either with every game - again though will come down to the devs and their vision/choices.

The big difference between this generation and next though is the 'balance' between the CPU and GPU. This gen, it seems like they went big on GPU to make games 'look' next gen with a much smaller jump in CPU. Yes it went from 3 to 8 cores essentially and much easier to work with but its also running much slower too - around half the speed. Of course it also has the benefits of newer technology - better efficiency and lower latency but it was still a relatively weak component - even in 2013.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what frame rates we get - especially in those multi-generational releases that we always get during the first few years. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of 30fps current gen games running at 60fps+ on next gen and with more than just a resolution jump too....

@BAMozzy In the end, you need to allocate the processing power. And less FPS can mean more things on screen. You can run any 30fps game at 60 if you reduce the graphics enough, but often the latter is preferred because most games are still perfectly playable at 30, and a better looking game is easier to sell.

to be honest as long as the games are good they could run at 30fps and look like a PS2 game for all i care

people (gamers, publishers and developers) now a days are far to focused on the bells and whistles and saying that a "true next gen game has to look amazing and run at 60fps" instead on good, fun gaming experiences

yes great graphics and a high frame rate can make a game better don't misunderstand but they are not the most important factor in a video game that's game play

graphics, fps and the like they just enhance it

@Octane The SSD will take some of the grunt work away. It is not just about making loading times quicker. Not sure about the one in the Series X, but the one in PS5 is supposed to be a game changer devs.

Of course you are gonna get games that do not hit 4k 60fps, but I reckon more games will.

@JohnnyShoulder I know. But if the devs have the extra processing power available, it's still a choice whether they want to use that to render more frames, or have a higher graphical fidelity, either through increased resolution, or more objects rendered on screen.

I mean, maybe we will see more 60fps because diminishing returns in the graphics department aren't worth investing into over frame rate. But it has always been a choice, and I don't see any reason to assume we're suddenly getting a ton more games that hit 60. Developers could've made every PS4 game hit 60fps, they didn't, so I don't see that changing anytime soon.

@Octane That's not always the case. If the CPU cannot do everything its tasked to do in time for a 60fps frame rate, it doesn't matter how much you reduce the visuals down, you still won't get 60fps. The bottleneck is the CPU in this case and not the Graphics.

The CPU is the Brain that tells the GPU what to draw, what the materials are, what shaders and textures to fill etc. It's usually used for all the physics calculations, how objects interact etc and all the AI too. A game like AC:Unity had a lot of NPC's and those NPC's had more complexity and variety - different clothing and colours so would require a LOT of Draw Calls. That could be far too much for the CPU to do in 16.6ms (or less) to hit 60fps - regardless. Even if the Graphics were reduced to SD (480-540p), the game wouldn't run at 60fps because the CPU isn't able to do everything it is asked to do in 16.6ms (or less).

I guess you could change the visuals - reduce the draw distance to reduce the draw calls and end up with pop-in or that old 'fog'. To be honest, I find that much worse than playing at 30fps - more distracting. You can simplify the game too so you don't have as many shaders or textures, so many different materials with different properties etc, reduce the number of objects (vegetation often gets culled in games) and even put walls up to reduce draw distances which to me changes the game from the Devs vision and other versions. It may not affect the gameplay, unless they are reducing the enemy count but if you have to go in and put something 'different' into that version to block the players view, thus reduce the draw distance, that is different to reducing a few visual settings in my book. Even reducing the density of Vegetation can make a the game look and feel different but that's about reducing the CPU Draw Calls.

There is a balance to be made by Devs and we all know first impressions count. All you have to do is look at any game reveal and many people will make up their mind on it based on what they 'see'. If the game looks bad, its often slammed before anyone even gets to play it. If the game looks great, it gets a lot of people excited. If the game gets visually downgraded by launch, that's a BIG issue - even if the game is running perfectly at whatever frame rate - those visual downgrades were made to achieve that stability. I am not saying visuals are the be all and end all and there are examples of games (Minecraft for example) that are graphically lacking compared to others and even the Switch versions of games look 'terrible' compared to PS4 (let alone X/Pro and especially PC) but can work. I don't know if people would want to buy a PS5 if games looked worse than current gen standards we have become accustomed to but ran at 60fps instead of looking like a 'next gen' game but running at 30fps - maybe they should give us a choice to pick between various options. I don't think we will see the PS4 type visuals but 60fps or PS5 visuals but 30fps but I can see Native 4k with high settings and ray tracing 30fps gaming or a CB reconstructed 4k with medium/high settings and maybe a lower number of Rays 60fps option. Maybe even a High Frame Rate (over 60fps) mode with no Ray Tracing and 1080p with DLSS to upscale to 4k.

I don't think it will be as 'bad' as it is on PS4 and by bad, I mean the number of games that are 30fps with NO option for higher frame rates. The CPU is looking to be quite a BIG upgrade by comparison - even compared to the Pro/X consoles. I know GPU may well be a sizeable upgrade over base consoles but compared to those mid gen consoles, the leap isn't as significant as CPU. To me, that says that the jump up visually from say an X may not be as big but frame rates will be higher on average. Again, that doesn't mean EVERY game will be 60fps or more as that will still come down to developers but I do think we will see a higher frame rate average next gen and more choices given to the player to select their preferred setting to play the game.