The PS5 and Xbox 2 thread - it's happening

[911 Jumper]

Some interesting stats from a Japanese survey on Gen Z (15 to 24 years old) gaming habits

Survey Reveals Japanese Gen Z Gamers Still Love Nintendo's DS Handhelds

A 2023 survey held by SHIBUYA109 Entertainment has revealed that Japanese Gen Z players love their portable gaming systems, particulaly Nintendo ones.

The survey looked into the gaming habits of young Japanese players aged between 15 to 24 and showed that portable entertainment is king, with almost all of the respondents (94.7%) saying they choose to game on their smartphones.

Switch was in second place with 38.5%, then PC with 33.2%. Tablet was fourth with 26.5%. Surprisingly, 'DS' (which we assume includes all of Nintendo's dual-screen portables, such as the DS, 3DS and 2DS) got 12.2%, giving it fifth place – ahead of the PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X home consoles.

The top five is as follows:

Mobile 94.7%
Nintendo Switch 38.5%
PC 33.2%
Tablet (26.5%)
DS (12.2%)
According to the survey, 80% of Gen Z individuals in Japan play video games; 44.9% play every day and spend an average of 100 minutes a day gaming.

As has been pointed out, younger players might find it harder to purchase a new console like the PS5 and Series X, hence the fact that older platforms got so many votes.

Source: Time Extension

As I've said in earlier posts, I think Sony will have to significantly change its strategy at some point in order to respond to Gen Z's shift towards PC and mobile. Some sort of Switch-like hybrid has surely got to be on the drawing board somewhere at Sony.

Microsoft can afford to drop its Xbox division (Nadella wanted to drop it back in 2014 irc), but Sony losing PlayStation would be a big blow to the company as PlayStation is Sony's most profitable division.

That said, these changing habits among Gen Z gamers reaffirm my view that this industry won't return to the glory days of the 90s and early 2000s. The best has passed.

 

[Morgoth]

Dunno, the DS and Switch have yielded more innovative games than standard home consoles.

 

[911 Jumper]

Will be keeping an eye on what Nintendo does next. I only recently returned to Nintendo (last Nintendo console I owned was a GameCube) so I've got plenty to catch up on.

But looking at the way things are going I see myself dropping out at the end of this gen. I've got plenty of old stuff to play – enough to last several decades, just have to hope my consoles hold up.

 

[911 Jumper]

Reading Nadella's comments, you'd be forgiven for thinking Xbox is a software-only brand

 

[Morgoth]

https://wccftech.com/activision-boosts-microsot-q3-gaming-revenue-xbox-consoles-sales-collapse/

Xbox gaming business still keeps shrinking, only offset by Activision.

Keep trying, Philly.

 

[abija]

"Overall Microsoft Gaming revenue increased 51 percent compared to Q3 2023, but 55 percent of that increase game from Acti-Blizz. In other words, gaming would actually be down 4 percent without all that delicious Call of Duty revenue now pouring in."

If you discount the largest purchase in gaming history, Microsoft gaming business keep shrinking. Epic mental gymnastics...

 

[911 Jumper]

Looks as if some kind of portable Xbox is being planned

 

[lycanwarrior]

Yikes. Gaming industry in a bad rut this year.

 

[911 Jumper]

Lol, and Sony's about to drop a $600+ PS5 Pro in this climate.

 

[taxalot]

Lol, and Sony's about to drop a $600+ PS5 Pro in this climate.

Nintendo will push a 250$ or 300$ Switch 2, everyone will mock the graphics, huge outcries of "What is Nintendo thinking ?", then the sales number will come in.

MS, Sony, and hardcore gamers still haven't understood that low spec hardware have reached the "good enough graphics for me" stage for the general public for quite a while.

 

[Ravielsk]

hardcore gamers

More like hardcore tourists and marketers. Graphical fidelity in my experience is something only children and man children care about. Your average Joe can barely perceive the difference between 30fps and 60fps and finer details like texture resolution or shader quality are to them essentially alien qualities.
Marketers care about it because they are a chronically lazy bunch and coming up with actual selling points is too much work for both them and the company they market for. So instead they slap the 4k, HDR super graphix sticker on things and call it a day.

Besides since about 2014 further graphical progress is effectively a waste. Not only does it cost exponentially more but about 80% of games these days are not even structured in a way that would allow the player to even notice all the graphical fidelity on display. Hell with all the filters, color correction, chromatic aberration, bloom, sharpening, DLSS and what not you sometimes literary cannot even see the game as it actually is.

 

[911 Jumper]

Lol, and Sony's about to drop a $600+ PS5 Pro in this climate.

Nintendo will push a 250$ or 300$ Switch 2, everyone will mock the graphics, huge outcries of "What is Nintendo thinking ?", then the sales number will come in.

MS, Nintendo, and hardcore gamers still haven't understood that low spec hardware have reached the "good enough graphics for me" stage for the general public for quite a while.

The people clamouring for PS5 Pro are in my view more interested in playing technology than playing games. For such people, it's all about the box and winning the console tech war. They couldn't care less about the fact that almost four years in there's only a handful of games on the PS5 that are truly “Only on PS5”. Even developers themselves have allegedly been questioning the purpose of PS5 Pro:

Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade

This tech obsession has undoubtedly been fueled by the “console tech face off” culture propagated by Digital Foundry.

Such people will never be satisfied. There's something very obnoxiously diva-like about these people and their attitudes to this hobby. When the [half step] PS5 Pro lands, they will criticise the tech stack and say how this and that falls short of what they wanted while occasionally revelling in the Pro's favourable DF tech face offs. They will do this for a while before shifting their attention, along with a new set of tech expectations, to the PS6.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Pro consoles keep a premium sku on shelves when you inevitably have to drop the price of the standard machine when sales stagnate.

 

[Morgoth]

Lol, and Sony's about to drop a $600+ PS5 Pro in this climate.

Nintendo will push a 250$ or 300$ Switch 2, everyone will mock the graphics, huge outcries of "What is Nintendo thinking ?", then the sales number will come in.

MS, Nintendo, and hardcore gamers still haven't understood that low spec hardware have reached the "good enough graphics for me" stage for the general public for quite a while.

Agree with the second statement, but the times of $250 Nintendo hardware are long over. I will be surprised if the Switch 2 will cost less than $400.

 

[Ravielsk]

The whole concept of a "pro console" is defective. The only reason why the PS4 and Xbox one had that mid gen upgrade was because the base models were from the start somewhat underspecked and struggled to maintain framerates on even graphically not so impressive games(like Sakura Wars). They were made to be cheap and to make money from console sales alone first and as capable hardware second.
The PS5 or series X have no such problem. Well they do in the sense that modern day devs are fuckups and cannot optimize for shit but if they are going to make Pro versions of anything for that reason then they may as well switch to a 2 year console cycle while they are at it.

If anything PS5 having a pro version is going to be a direct detriment to whatever will come after it because people will simply observe that no only are they not getting as early adopters no exclusive games(and the few that they maybe do quickly land on PC) on top of paying a premium for an inferior version of the hardware that will get a refresh few years down the road. It simply undermines the trust in the brand too much to be worth it.

 

[ultimanecat]

Problem is they can’t drop the price of the standard PS5 much because fabrication costs haven’t really fallen. At this point (roughly 4 years) in the PS2’s life the price had come down to $150, half of its launch price, and PS3 was $270, again nearly half of the launch price of $500. PS4 was down to $299 from the original $399. The trend is these things are getting less and less price cutting as time goes on.

Recent inflation has led many companies, not just tech ones, away from lowering prices to appeal to wider markets to instead adding more and more expensive top-end options to appeal to customers who aren’t as sensitive to price but want to spend more for perceived “quality”. If they’re extra mean-spirited, they will fuck with the value/quality of the base product to try and push the less price sensitive customers to the more expensive option as well.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I just replaced the base model with the slim model last year. Why would I want to go back to a bulky POS that barely fits in my entertainment center? Hard fuck no to a PS5 Pro. Kiss my ass Songay.

 

[911 Jumper]

Rumour flying around at the moment:

 

[911 Jumper]

Rumour flying around at the moment:

 

[lycanwarrior]

Problem is they can’t drop the price of the standard PS5 much because fabrication costs haven’t really fallen. At this point (roughly 4 years) in the PS2’s life the price had come down to $150, half of its launch price, and PS3 was $270, again nearly half of the launch price of $500. PS4 was down to $299 from the original $399. The trend is these things are getting less and less price cutting as time goes on.

Recent inflation has led many companies, not just tech ones, away from lowering prices to appeal to wider markets to instead adding more and more expensive top-end options to appeal to customers who aren’t as sensitive to price but want to spend more for perceived “quality”. If they’re extra mean-spirited, they will fuck with the value/quality of the base product to try and push the less price sensitive customers to the more expensive option as well.

The trend is called "premiumization" I think:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/business/economy/premium-prices-inflation.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...es-to-premiumize-your-brand-and-keep-growing/

Its more about prioritizing high profit margins by targeting higher-income consumers with more disposable income.

The mass-market volume seller may become a thing of the past with the middle-class dying out...

 

[Konjad]

 

[Konjad]

Lol, and Sony's about to drop a $600+ PS5 Pro in this climate.

Nintendo will push a 250$ or 300$ Switch 2, everyone will mock the graphics, huge outcries of "What is Nintendo thinking ?", then the sales number will come in.

MS, Sony, and hardcore gamers still haven't understood that low spec hardware have reached the "good enough graphics for me" stage for the general public for quite a while.

That's not a good description of 'gaming journalists'.

 

[ferratilis]

Oh shit, the Smiley Marketing Man has lost the favor of trannies over at Kotaku. He's done for.

 

[taxalot]

People who never had a real job and who are losing money and sometimes require on donations, and whoses companies are utter failures, sure like to pile on Microsoft.

 

[911 Jumper]

EA CEO says there’s a “real hunger” among developers to use AI to speed up development

Electronic Arts CEO and chairman Andrew Wilson says its developers have “a real hunger” to use generative AI to speed up development.

Speaking during a Q&A session following its latest financial results briefing, Wilson was asked how EA was planning to implement AI in development going forwards.

Wilson replied that the company was already starting to use AI in some aspects of development, citing the EA Sports FC series as an example. According to Wilson, AI lets developers make football stadiums much quicker and add a wider variety of animations.

“As a company, we’ve been deeply tied to AI since our inception,” Wilson explained. “It has been the very center of all of the games that we create, replicating human intelligence in the context of a game play experience. But certainly, as we think about the wave of generative AI today and as it merges into artificial general intelligence, broadly, we’re still very early.

“But the things I talked about in the conference were really both two-fold. One, how do we get more efficient? The stat I used was we’ve moved from being able to create stadiums from 6 months to 6 weeks. And my expectation is that will continue to shrink over time.

“Maybe even more profound than that – when we build a game we have animation and run cycles. In FIFA 23, we had 36 run cycles, which gave you a kind of believability of human performance inside of that game. When we launched EA Sports FC 24, we had 1,200 run cycles.

More at the link
Source: VGC