An analysis of the advantages of innovative next gen consoles, and an assessment of whether the benefits they provide are really worth it to gamers.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.
They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.
If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.
It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
LucasRuinedChildhood,
For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:
1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.
2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".
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New report from Skillsearch found that 22% of those surveyed had been laid off within the past 12 months.
Absolutely
The current generation of gaming consoles have been on the market for the better part of a decade. Starting with the Xbox 360 in 2005, followed by the Nintendo Wii entertainment console, and PS3 in 2006. It is now 2012. We have been fighting the good fight with this generation for many many moons now.
Console cycles are very important for the growth of the gaming industry. Since gaming consoles have no upgrade option as does a PC. It is extremely necessary for updated consoles to drive the industry forward. The only drawback that I see from this is the likely chance of videogame prices hiking up $10 as they do annually each new generation. Also the price to develop games will skyrocket for developers. This will likely result to many studios closing down as they were during this current generation.
If some of these consoles are as powerful as rumores mention a good percentage of smaller dev studios will struggle. Even worse then they are today. Sadly it does not end there. We have a solid chance to witness the beginning of the end of used game sales due to new piracy tech that will likely be implemented into next generation consoles.
Hopefully the games produced next generation will justify the purchase. So far we have heard nothing but negativity in regards of new consoles. I pray that the games speak louder then all the hate thats been going around lately. The Nintendo Wii U entertainment console seems to be the 1st to cross the bridge. Hopefully Nintendo can start the war off correctly and shed some positive light back onto the videogame scene.
Rated E For Everyone
YES
yes for the real furthering of graphics cause i sure aint seeing the next gen with pc so yes next gen is necessary
No. Build games that use the strength of each console. Stop using generic run of the mill engines expecting them to give flawless experiences on everything.
Skyrim is a great example instead of coding for everything code for each platform to give the best it can get. Less bugs, better performance. I'm missing out on the witcher 2 but I would rather miss out then have a golden poo experience.
I own a ps3 and Xbox give each the best do not stifle one to make a profit on the other it just gives everyone a bad taste that lasts for a long time.
Well ofcourse but Nintendo shouldn't continue,they continue to dissapoint me.. I'm done!! -______-