This is the same conversation we had throughout the entire rumorwave about this project: Who is going to buy this and which developers will actually anything worthwhile with the new hardware? Because all signs points to an expensive console (at least $600) with the only upgrades being a slight graphical bump and higher resolution. There are no new gameplay features.
I think people would be much more happy with a smaller, more power efficient version of the PS5 instead.
There’s also questions around the game industry as a whole. I think the recent layoffs at major companies aren’t just another cycle, but systemic. The market no longer bears production of giant games with crazy graphics that cost $70 and have a bunch of DLC and gambling mechanics attached.
Games won’t go away, but they’ll play fine on something like the Steam Deck, Switch 2, or modest gaming PC. What would high end console hardware bring to the table anymore?
Graphics are no longer a major selling point in most cases. Most people would be fine with a good game that works and isn’t saddle with microtransactions, even if it means it will look somewhat worse.
Consoles themselves are a source of microtransactions. Just look at how much money you have to spend to have online play.
Guess how much it costs on Steam. Come on… guess!
About $3.50?
Switch 2 will be underpowered and boring.
I’m saying the Switch 2 does not need power, because nothing will be pushing graphics so hard anymore.
the switch 2 IMO needs a power upgrade for sure, my switch 1 struggled to actually play higher ended games, and the actual graphic quality on those games wern’t bad but not the great either.
Nintendon't Rant
That being said, I decided recently that Nintendon’t is a company that doesn’t need my money, between the actively hostile acts to its fan generated content with the shut down of third party non-profit games, it’s prosecution of Gary Bowser(which was the extent of charging a sales associate for the entire companies fraud) and it’s downright abusive treatment of the right to repair and archival/emulation communities. They are basically the Apple of the game development world. I won’t spend money on their stuff anymore.
Current switch needs to stream current and last gen games, they will still need power.
Switch 2 is likely to be around the power level of a PS4, which is good enough for this hypothetical.
Not even higher resolution. I mean, potentially on paper but consoles have been UHD capable(-ish) since the PS4 Pro and higher resolution’s are neither viable nor necessary. So it’ll just upscale a few titles a little less or run some games with a little higher fps…
Seems like company decision makers continue to be out of touch with what people want. People seem much more excited about products like the steam deck which play most of your whole library on Linux at very reasonable quality.
I think the console exclusivity game is nearing the end, there’s going to have to be some actual innovation for people to come out of their pockets.
Most people don’t seem to care about the Steam Deck running Linux (I do), but they’ve been wanting a good handheld gaming experience, and nobody is offering it. Nintendo is stuck with decade+ old hardware, the PS Portal doesn’t work w/o network, and the Windows handhelds kind of suck.
Steam Deck works well with minimal effort, and people love it.
I don’t know about the rest of the world but my country is in a recession. There are no jobs and no houses. Rent is huge.
The number of people who can buy expensive toys is going down. People want good value for money, and good value for money is winning the market.
Yeah, besides the PSSR feature, I’m struggling to see the point in upgrading to this if you already have a PS5. It feels like Sony and Microsoft are just going with plans they made at the start of the generation when they assumed they would need a mid-gen refresh. But with the massive shortages it doesn’t really feel like we’re at the kind of midpoint that calls for a console refresh.
If Microsoft is working on an enhanced model it’s a new development, their console development plans leaked during the Activision purchase thing, it had their next gen plans and the digital only Series X but no enhanced model.
The same thing but more FPS. What’s not to understand?
The question is who would want one?
If you’re a big graphics nerd, who really needs the highest quality everything, you probably have a PC. If you’re an average consumer , the PS5 is fine. A PS5 Pro seems unnecessary.
The question is who would want one?
I would, the reasons are simple:
-
I am a patient gamer
-
I’m a poor gamer lol (bad streak)
-
I know there is always gonna be a pro model, or at least an improved slim version, that was not the case this time unfortunately.
-
I have a PS4 slim so I can hold on with many many games (also have a huge backlog of PS plus games).
-
PS5 does stuff PC still doesn’t.
It’s not enough for me to buy games there first, but mostly because of Steam Deck. Even though PC supports pcie4 as well, the fact that it’s a standardized hardware feature with built in hardware decompression means games can rely on proper loading bandwidth.
Here’s the thing though, when you’re CPU-limited (and a lot of the games that struggle on current gen are) the upgrade won’t do much.
You should expect better resolution, ray tracing and possibly better image quality if devs implement PSSSR and it’s better than whatever upscale solution they’d use instead. Maybe if a game is pretty close to hittong its frame target it’ll give you a smoother performance but don’t expect much last that
As a lifelong lover of video games, this generation is pretty underwhelming, bar a few exceptions like Gran Turismo 7. I don’t even buy Switch games anymore because the value proposition is so bad. I’d love that Mario RPG remake but instead, I just play the original on an emulator.
