You certainly haven’t missed it, but there it is, the new generation of home consoles officially started last November and is now time to gradually settle in homes around the world. The official launch, however, does not necessarily mean the machines will actually have the capabilities they have, and the real rise of the PS5 and Xbox series should begin in 2021.
A transition phase is hardly in progress
With marketing just two months ago, it’s hard to say that the “next generation” has revealed all of its know-how. As we know, the launch titles of the new consoles are usually not necessarily representative of those that will be released at the end of the cycle. One just has to take a quick look at the games that will accompany the release of the PS4 / Xbox One and compare them to the rendering and depth of the games released this year or last to realize this observation also applies to the previous generation.
On the Sony side, Demon’s Souls undoubtedly gave a clear indication of what the Sony console was up to in terms of visual rendering, display, and fluidity. Astro’s extremely friendly playroom also had to serve as a showcase for the diverse possibilities offered by the very responsive Dualsense controller, the charm of which, however, was received with a certain amount of enthusiasm, but with varying intensity. For its part, Microsoft has continued to support its desire to provide a particularly accessible service, positioning itself on affordability with very acceptable performance on its S-Series and on the more impressive technology on its X-Series. The technical performance of the machine, some of its functions and the impressive quick resume clearly show that the generation change offers the player an unprecedented level of comfort.
A period of time between two generations
However, the main disadvantage of any introduction of a new generation of consoles is the transition phase, the smoothing of which is difficult to smooth. When a technical divide separates two machines, it is difficult to provide the owners of the two consoles with an identical experience, even if the architecture of the previous one is largely dominated by the developers, and some studios have already paid the price for previous generations. At the time of the transition from PS3 / PS4 – Xbox 360 / Xbox One, theThings were pretty clear as backward compatibility wasn’t as central as it is today. Now things are a lot more blurry. When you buy a game on PS4 or Xbox One, it’s compatible with next-generation equivalents. The so-called “backward” compatibility of certain titles guarantees that, thanks to the appropriate patches, you can enjoy the purchased game in the best possible conditions after purchasing the new console. The decisions that are made for a studio are then quite delicate. Should we voluntarily restrict technology in order to simply offer a more fluid experience for the next generation, so that the owners – many and the majority – of the current generation have a perfectly playable adventure that fulfills the promise or rather relies on a version through a game decreased to let go of the reins of the next generation? Choosing the first option means delivering a game that is too tied to the previous generation’s performance and therefore partially doomed to perform poorly over time, while the second approach comes at risk, not standards correspond to. Ambitions for a whole fleet of widely used consoles.
There is no need to remember Cyberpunk 2077 which, along with its long-term and obviously very complicated development, should also be considered a textbook case as it is unable to honor the delivery of a game that has its ambitions for everything even meets no less than 10 platforms: PS4 / PS4 Pro / Xbox One / Xbox One S / Xbox One X / PC / Stadiums / PS5 / Xbox Series S / Xbox Series X. CD Projekt isn’t the only one who broke their teeth in a complicated transition
Expect smoothing in 2021?
This transition period is arguably the most painful for studios and consumers alike, however 2021 should begin to gradually smooth it out, and clearer decisions will be made about who will host machines for games under development.. As soon as the machine fleet is installed more widely, it will be more convenient and financially more reassuring to allocate resources exclusively to a single platform in order to utilize all advantages. The excluded should also hurry outside the front door: Horizon: Forbidden West, God of War: Ragnarok, The Medium, Halo Infinite … so many prestigious names that will eventually be put on the list (besides postponement) in front of the stage and will undoubtedly become massive show what the new generation is capable of. Of course, many games will still be cross-gen, and it’s not until 2021 that we have to hope (and fortunately) that only games for the PS5 and Xbox series will be available. We’re confident that most of the long-announced games will suit each of their host platforms.
4K / 60 FPS for everyone?
Then there is this argument that has become an association and is being put to the test: the holy grail until then the prerogative of the PC and called 4K / 60 FPS. Surprisingly, it’s more than the qualities of the games themselves that are almost taken for granted, their performance, that is being tested and verified by gamers around the world. The promise of high definition and frames per second for exemplary stability seems almost stronger than that of epic adventures, and current manufacturers have not failed to communicate more about these points than about the games they contain. themselves. And we have to admit that we could see the charm of the new generation and their performance on certain titles, regardless of whether they are exclusively supported by them or cross-genre. If we take cyberpunk as an example, even if the next generation version is an emulation of the versions of previous consoles, performance and rendering don’t lie. Superior definition, almost stable frame rate, shorter loading times … The components of the machines do their job, while the above versions have not yet been patched in order to develop their full performance.
The new generation of consoles will therefore be well and good introduced in 2021 and should start to show their full potential in the releases and other updates that will determine the year. With the gradual abandonment of cross-gen titles, the PS5 / Xbox series fleet is becoming increasingly important for those who want to stick to the news while enjoying specially designed games. 4K / 60 FPS, that sacro-holy grail that was so fantasized on consoles on the way to reality and the final touch of the pc? The future will show.
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