There is nothing like a console launch to crackle the synapses and thrill the blood. For those who love games, the anticipation of a fresh arrival is an adventure in its own right, a grand hunt across the meadows of speculation and rumor and conjecture.
At the end, we expect to find a great prize, a world-changing event like PlayStation 2 and Wii. We don't set out to corner some miniscule market like GameCube or Saturn. There is a certain necessary suspension of reality, a compact that all consoles are desirable and noble, at least until they are actually in our hands and have an opportunity to confound our faith.
So it comes as a shock when predictions arrive that the next generation – PlayStation 4, Xbox 720 and Wii U – will perform poorly. This week, one analyst stated that the next Nintendo machine will sell only a third as well as the last, while both Microsoft and Sony's consoles will only manage about half as much as the current generation.
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".
The name "Hewson" carries a special weight for anyone who grew up during the golden age of British computing. As the son of Andrew Hewson—the man behind legendary publisher Hewson Consultants—Rob Hewson didn't just grow up playing video games; he learned to spell his name from their title screens. However, Rob didn't just rest on his family's 8-bit laurels. From leading major LEGO franchises at TT Games to tackling the high-stakes world of technical porting at Huey Games, Rob has carved out a unique path in an ever-evolving industry. In this candid interview Rob to discussed the burden and beauty of a family legacy, the technical "scar tissue" left by the ambitious Hydrophobia, and why porting a masterpiece like Inscryption to consoles is far more than a simple copy-paste job.
NE: "We rank the 10 best main series Super Mario games in celebration of the recent MAR10 Day with 2D and 3D included."
Best 2D, Mario World, best 3D, Mario 64. Can't say there's been a bad one, although Mario World 2 wasn't a true sequel. The Mario Land games were good (not the first one) and also Wario Land. I thought after Mario 64, Mario 3D World was excellent.
I believe next gen consoles will be more successful.....i'm sure that the big 3 will adapt to the market and expand with more social features/apps...the casual crowd will play a major part in the growth of the install base along side us core gamers....
I would actually agree on a hardware standpoint. Software idk. This past gen was unique with HD and the casuals buying into Wii, netflix, web etc. The only company that has really been able to constantly see consumers upgrade is apple. I just don't see the masses upgrading like they did this last gen unless it's leaps ahead and I just don't see it happening cause we are slowly hitting a wall of sorts. People seem satisfied. Again last gen was just kind of unique and I don't see the same next gen. Sure consoles will survive but they just won't see the same popularity.
Sony and Microsoft survived for quite some time on the core market alone. I think from here on out if any of the big hardware producers bring out gaming hardware, they should focus on the core audience first and casual audience second. Nintendo learned the hard way that the casual crowd is not a particularly loyal one.
I personally believe what could possibly make or break the systems will be the games available on release day. If we find ourselves in a nice mix of casual and hardcore games, they'll be set. (As long as the prices aren't fatal to my wallet.)