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Developer Speaks About Lockhart "Holding Back Next Gen." And PS5 VS XSX Dev Kits.

I don't care what anyone says... if the reports are true the lockhart will be a big mistake for MS

Why would anyone with sense buy a 1080p console with 4 TF in 2020 .... if money is an issue just buy a X1X where you can still play cyberpunk and Halo infinite or save to get the Series X

Its not like the series X will get big exclusives out the gate because MS already said they will support the Xbox one for another 2 years and the install base will be very low out the gate for both PS5 and Series X versus the current gen.
 
Scaling compromises game design and artistic vision. Take for example the recent Cyberpunk trailer and compare it to what we saw 2 years ago. NPC count was considerable scaled and the world just looked empty.

This is literally your own opinion as most people who've actually played the latest build say the world is pretty populated and dense with activity, a few repeating character model types (mostly children) notwithstanding.

Scaling can only compromise something negatively if it is poorly implemented. It in and of itself is not inherently bad, we owe much of what gaming we enjoy today due to scalability. Most developers I notice, are pretty smart when it comes to designing their engines and gameplay systems to accommodate for scaling.

Keep in mind that routinely many of the best games ever made have been 3rd-party titles, developed for a multitude of consoles (and arcade systems), and/or PC configurations. So no, scaling doesn't compromise artistic vision or game design whatsoever as long as it's implemented even halfway well into the design spec.

I don't know man. Did we ever see better ai, more enemies on screen on Xbox One X or a pc in ultra settings? If there are graphical upgrades they'll likely be only superficial as the core game experience is designed with parity in mind. I'm sure it will be looker, though, with amazing art style. However, I'm also sure the pc version will require very modest hardware to be visually on par with the Series x version (minus the 120fps and 4k, of course) and that the Xbox version isn't going to look all that much different.

That'll be the big difference between the AAA ps5 exclusives. I mean if Horizon Zero West would get a pc version, the minimum requirements would probably be something like a RTX2070 Super or higher and a NVME SSD.

Again, MS have already said that Inifinite uses the Series X as the base platform of development. Series S and especially One X are downports. Downport != parity, inherently. If gameplay features had to be scaled back or cut out to run on the other platforms, then so be it. That's the cost of going with the cheaper alternatives that clearly are not aiming for the same level of performance as Series X.

Also just remembered, you're the guy saying the Series S is their true next-gen platform and the baseline, right? What actual, clear evidence do you have to state a claim like that? Even as a random idea or opinion, there is virtually nothing to support it.

This just isn't true. Horizon Zero West is running in 4K. A significantly less powerful GPU would be required to run it at 1080P, assuming the CPU and SSD were the same. You know, like we're seeing with Lockhart.

It really is a ridiculous assertion. Why would Sony lock out the 90% + of PC gamers who don't go with the high-tier graphics cards? Even assuming 2070 Super increase in sales, at most they'd only be covering about 15% of the PC gaming market if they went 2070S as minimum spec.

At that point, it defeats their entire purpose of doing PC ports (which, yeah, they're going to be more frequent and with smaller time intervals between PS5 and PC release dates. I'd actually venture 1-year staggered dates between most of the big PS5 exclusives and PC ports happening within the next 2-3 years).
 
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Again, MS have already said that Inifinite uses the Series X as the base platform of development. Series S and especially One X are downports. Downport != parity, inherently. If gameplay features had to be scaled back or cut out to run on the other platforms, then so be it. That's the cost of going with the cheaper alternatives that clearly are not aiming for the same level of performance as Series X.

man if this is true ... what a mess :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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Yams

Member
Well borderlands is a cell shaded game right? We’ll see more of a difference between performance on more detailed games.

As long as you have enough graphics memory, texture quality is a non-issue. I had a GTX 1060 6GB (a bottom end enthusiast card) and my game performance remained the same regardless of whether my textures were set to "medium" or "ultra". This was the case in everything from Battlefield 5 to Farcry. That 6GB would only be a limiting factor if I moved up to 1440p from 1080p.
 

jakinov

Member
What I’m saying is that there is a sweet price spot for every market.. That’s why consoles can’t go higher than 400/500... if they go higher they will take a huge risk and probably they will fail.. but with this said there is no need also to undercut the price.. consumers are willing to pay the price if they find good value in the proposition.. and as I said before I think the gamers that will jump first buying new gen consoles are willing to pay that bit more to have the bast versions.. the sex or PlayStation.. of course there will always be outliers that will be perfectly find with Lockhart and that is fine but they will not be the main profile population that buy consoles at launch..

Besides your premise is that the Lockhart buyer ( presumably for a relevant cheaper price) will have access to all the benefits of next gen and the only constrain will be lower resolution.. and that for me sounds like what MS want people to believe.. the narrative is out there and some are going with it.. I personally don’t believe that for many reasons I post before..

Anyhow that is what I think.. I’m really curious to see if MS with this tactic of trying to appeal to everybody from the get go will pay off.. I think it will only generate more noise and PR sound bits with no real world gains..
The price isn't being undercut it's a different product. People have to both find value and find money. They also have to find enough value to justify over other things in life. Which is why many companies offer cheaper alternatives to their flagship so it's not basically an all or nothing decision. The consumer decides if there's enough value for the given price that they can afford. 400-500 isn't a sweet spot if it's a lot more money than a person is willing to spend on a machine dedicated to playing video games.

Those gamers you speak of can pay more. I strongly disagree that most people buying consoles at launch are going to be mostly the hardcore type of gamers you are describing. Especially if there's going to be a cheaper alternative for them. If Sony or Microsoft thought that were the case they wouldn't even bother with the marketing campaigns as it'd be throwing money at showing off consoles that people aren't going to buy because the gamers you describe are the ones that don't need information pushed on them.

Even of the hardcore, not everybody is going to want to get the better console because again, price. To you there's so much more value to getting something more expensive. But to some people they only have so much money and paying $200-300 gives them enough value and keeps their wallet happy.

Kids are always wanting things, parents are always wanting to give things, and these launches happen around Christmas for a reason. It's so that they can align all their launch marketing with their holiday marketing and convince a bunch people to want and buy their new product. I don't believe that the "less-informed" casuals are going to stay from consoles in the first year or so.

I don't know what points you made previously, but from a high level view there's nothing stopping the lockhart from doing what the anaconda can do. In the same way nothing is stopping a pc with a 2070 from doing what a pc with 2080 can do. The one just does it better.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
A few people here trying to make up any negative idea they can. Too bad its not working or close to reality

The prove is in the pudding. The May event was shit as people who watched it were wondering 2 things; 1. Where is the gameplay? and 2. Where are the next gen graphics?

July might very well the most important event in the history of the Xbox brand and they really have to show something might impressive after Sony's event. I just think that's gonna be extremely hard. Not just because of Lockhart, but also because all their exclusives have to run on a ancient jaguar cpu and low-end gaming pc's too. MS has already told us that they don't really care which Xbox you buy, as long as you subscribe to GP. In any case, we'll see soon enough.
 

sendit

Member
This is literally your own opinion as most people who've actually played the latest build say the world is pretty populated and dense with activity, a few repeating character model types (mostly children) notwithstanding.

Scaling can only compromise something negatively if it is poorly implemented. It in and of itself is not inherently bad, we owe much of what gaming we enjoy today due to scalability. Most developers I notice, are pretty smart when it comes to designing their engines and gameplay systems to accommodate for scaling.

Keep in mind that routinely many of the best games ever made have been 3rd-party titles, developed for a multitude of consoles (and arcade systems), and/or PC configurations. So no, scaling doesn't compromise artistic vision or game design whatsoever as long as it's implemented even halfway well into the design spec.



Again, MS have already said that Inifinite uses the Series X as the base platform of development. Series S and especially One X are downports. Downport != parity, inherently. If gameplay features had to be scaled back or cut out to run on the other platforms, then so be it. That's the cost of going with the cheaper alternatives that clearly are not aiming for the same level of performance as Series X.

Also just remembered, you're the guy saying the Series S is their true next-gen platform and the baseline, right? What actual, clear evidence do you have to state a claim like that? Even as a random idea or opinion, there is virtually nothing to support it.

Regarding Cyberpunk. We have literally quite a few different views of the build that press got to play recently. It looks drab and empty (In comparison to the 2018 footage). Unless you have a source that states otherwise. However, I acknowledge it is still work in progress.

Not arguing that gameplay design can't be scaled right. The act of scaling itself is to compromise. To play the game in less than ideal conditions or lesser hardware. This could be the difference of playing the game on a Switch versus PC. This directly affects artistic vision. I'm sure any gameplay design today can be scaled to be played on the PS1.

Do you think a game like TLOU2 would have the same impact if it was released on the PS1? Would you be able to render the expression on a characters face to show any resembles of emotions on lesser hardware? I'm sure they could use CGI over real time graphics.
 

oldergamer

Member
The prove is in the pudding. The May event was shit as people who watched it were wondering 2 things; 1. Where is the gameplay? and 2. Where are the next gen graphics?

July might very well the most important event in the history of the Xbox brand and they really have to show something might impressive after Sony's event. I just think that's gonna be extremely hard. Not just because of Lockhart, but also because all their exclusives have to run on a ancient jaguar cpu and low-end gaming pc's too. MS has already told us that they don't really care which Xbox you buy, as long as you subscribe to GP. In any case, we'll see soon enough.
The may event was not first party and mostly indie. Its not the same as a first party event.

it's not as hard as you think. Code running on different types of CPU's is achieved with thousands of games on PC. Making things scalable is not a problem that has never been solved. Also, just because sony isn't doing it, doesn't mean it's inherently difficult or a problem. MS said they don't care what system you play their games on, as long as you play their games (...and it's not specific to gamepass). It wasn't specifically a hardware statement. They discontinued Xbox one S and X and stopped manufacturing them both last year, so if they didn't care what hardware you play on, they have a funny way of showing it when releasing new devices.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
This is literally your own opinion as most people who've actually played the latest build say the world is pretty populated and dense with activity, a few repeating character model types (mostly children) notwithstanding.

Scaling can only compromise something negatively if it is poorly implemented. It in and of itself is not inherently bad, we owe much of what gaming we enjoy today due to scalability. Most developers I notice, are pretty smart when it comes to designing their engines and gameplay systems to accommodate for scaling.

Keep in mind that routinely many of the best games ever made have been 3rd-party titles, developed for a multitude of consoles (and arcade systems), and/or PC configurations. So no, scaling doesn't compromise artistic vision or game design whatsoever as long as it's implemented even halfway well into the design spec.



Again, MS have already said that Inifinite uses the Series X as the base platform of development. Series S and especially One X are downports. Downport != parity, inherently. If gameplay features had to be scaled back or cut out to run on the other platforms, then so be it. That's the cost of going with the cheaper alternatives that clearly are not aiming for the same level of performance as Series X.

Also just remembered, you're the guy saying the Series S is their true next-gen platform and the baseline, right? What actual, clear evidence do you have to state a claim like that? Even as a random idea or opinion, there is virtually nothing to support it.



It really is a ridiculous assertion. Why would Sony lock out the 90% + of PC gamers who don't go with the high-tier graphics cards? Even assuming 2070 Super increase in sales, at most they'd only be covering about 15% of the PC gaming market if they went 2070S as minimum spec.

At that point, it defeats their entire purpose of doing PC ports (which, yeah, they're going to be more frequent and with smaller time intervals between PS5 and PC release dates. I'd actually venture 1-year staggered dates between most of the big PS5 exclusives and PC ports happening within the next 2-3 years).
If Halo Infinite has entire features missing on the Xone and will turn out looking like a different game, you're right. But if it's going to be in 120fps and 4k on Series X, like what's rumored, it's obviously not designed with Series X as the base platform.

It would be stupid for Sony to release Horizon Zero West on pc if only 15% of the pc gamers has a gpu capable of running it. That's why they are not doing that. They are releasing a couple of ps4 titles on pc in the hope of getting them to buy a ps5 and play the sequels. One thing is for sure, though, they can potentially push the ps5 to its limits without having to ask themselves "will this run on ps4 and low-end pc's too?"
 
The price isn't being undercut it's a different product. People have to both find value and find money. They also have to find enough value to justify over other things in life. Which is why many companies offer cheaper alternatives to their flagship so it's not basically an all or nothing decision. The consumer decides if there's enough value for the given price that they can afford. 400-500 isn't a sweet spot if it's a lot more money than a person is willing to spend on a machine dedicated to playing video games.

Those gamers you speak of can pay more. I strongly disagree that most people buying consoles at launch are going to be mostly the hardcore type of gamers you are describing. Especially if there's going to be a cheaper alternative for them. If Sony or Microsoft thought that were the case they wouldn't even bother with the marketing campaigns as it'd be throwing money at showing off consoles that people aren't going to buy because the gamers you describe are the ones that don't need information pushed on them.

Even of the hardcore, not everybody is going to want to get the better console because again, price. To you there's so much more value to getting something more expensive. But to some people they only have so much money and paying $200-300 gives them enough value and keeps their wallet happy.

Kids are always wanting things, parents are always wanting to give things, and these launches happen around Christmas for a reason. It's so that they can align all their launch marketing with their holiday marketing and convince a bunch people to want and buy their new product. I don't believe that the "less-informed" casuals are going to stay from consoles in the first year or so.

I don't know what points you made previously, but from a high level view there's nothing stopping the lockhart from doing what the anaconda can do. In the same way nothing is stopping a pc with a 2070 from doing what a pc with 2080 can do. The one just does it better.

I think you made your points clear and so am I.. I will not repeat myself as we have very different understandings regarding this matter..

It was a good chat, maybe we can revisit it in 12 months from now and see how things are paying out for MS and Sony..
 

Rikkori

Member
Regarding Cyberpunk. We have literally quite a few different views of the build that press got to play recently. It looks drab and empty (In comparison to the 2018 footage). Unless you have a source that states otherwise. However, I acknowledge it is still work in progress.

That's a meme promoted by haters and that just spreads ignorantly across games forums. If you look at the skillup video he says he was in the starting area first shown in the 48 minute video of CDRP and the population density was 90% of what we saw in the demo. Yes, that's less, but depopulated? Hardly.

6:57

 
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CrustyBritches

Gold Member
This just isn't true. Horizon Zero West is running in 4K. A significantly less powerful GPU would be required to run it at 1080P, assuming the CPU and SSD were the same. You know, like we're seeing with Lockhart.
I used TPU 23 game benchmark suite to see what GPU you'd need to match 2080(XSX) 4K frame rate at, but at 1080p. RX 580(XSS) had a 75fps average @ 1080p, and 2080(XSX) had a 67fps average @ 4K. PS5 is ~15% weaker than XSX, so that would land it around, let's say, 60fps average across all benchmarks. Excluding any possible RT features, the GTX 1060 6GB and RX 470/480 8GB are easily powerful enough to run a PS5 game at 1080p without RT. That's at equivalent settings. With some adjustments to avoid VRAM bottlenecks, even something like a RX 470 4GB would be just fine as it's well above the compute/performance threshold for the job.

Even with a lower VRAM total, most games scale just fine.

Example: Rise of the Tomb Raider
memory.png

PS5 is between 2070 and 2070 Super, around or slightly below GTX 1080ti stock in the overall GPU hierarchy excluding RT...
2070 @ 4K = 43fps avg | 1080ti @ 4K = 51.4fps avg
1060 3GB @ 1080p = 54.5fps avg

Rise of Tomb Raider, 1080p/Very High, GTX 1060 3GB, 8GB RAM:


There are of course frame drops just as there would be at 4K for the aforementioned 2070/1080ti, but notice it doesn't suffer from overt VRAM bottleneck stuttering, despite only having half the apparent VRAM capacity that the above chart shows for 1080p on Titan X. This is using a i5-4460 4-core/4-thread CPU and 8GB RAM, not even something like 6c/12t Ryzen 1600 let alone 8c/16t Zen 2!

I'm still expecting/hoping for Lockhart to have 12GB RAM as mentioned in the original January 2019 leak, but even with 10GB it should be fine in light of it's more modern RDNA 2/DX12U feature set, NvME, and 8c/16t Zen 2 CPU.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
The may event was not first party and mostly indie. Its not the same as a first party event.

it's not as hard as you think. Code running on different types of CPU's is achieved with thousands of games on PC. Making things scalable is not a problem that has never been solved. Also, just because sony isn't doing it, doesn't mean it's inherently difficult or a problem. MS said they don't care what system you play their games on, as long as you play their games (...and it's not specific to gamepass). It wasn't specifically a hardware statement. They discontinued Xbox one S and X and stopped manufacturing them both last year, so if they didn't care what hardware you play on, they have a funny way of showing it when releasing new devices.

Why do people keep saying that? Name me one pc game where toggling graphics settings turns a multiplatform game into completely different experience? Gears 5 is probably the best example of scalable graphics, but whether you play it on a 13 Tflops RTX2080 Ti or a 1 Tflops Xbox, you're still getting the exact same game with the same levels, geometry, ai, physics and core game design.

Personally I don't think MS cares about keeping their Xbox install base. They are just taking a much more cross platform approach where pc gamers are obviously their main focus. It's just that not many pc gamers have anything near the kind of specs that's in Series X. That is why they will probably be targeting specs like a GTX1060 for a long time, until RTX like cards become mainstream on pc.
 

pawel86ck

Banned
Personally I'm not willing to buy Series S but it's a very good idea in upcoming recession. Many parents will want to buy something cheap for their kids, and with gamepass on top of that I'm sure Series S will be a huge success for MS. This console will run next gen games with good results because all RDNA2 architecture features and CPU and SSD will be there, and many people just dont care about resolution as long it doesn't look as 480p.
 

sendit

Member
That's a meme promoted by haters and that just spreads ignorantly across games forums. If you look at the skillup video he says he was in the starting area first shown in the 48 minute video of CDRP and the population density was 90% of what we saw in the demo. Yes, that's less, but depopulated? Hardly.

6:57



That’s good to hear. However, I’ll reserve my judgement until we get the final product. We have no visual evidence of what he is saying is true. And he pulled the 90% percent figure from his butthole.
 
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Personally I'm not willing to buy Series S but it's a very good idea in upcoming recession. Many parents will want to buy something cheap for their kids, and with gamepass on top of that I'm sure Series S will be a huge success for MS. This console will run next gen games with good results because all RDNA2 architecture features and CPU and SSD will be there, and many people just dont care about resolution as long it doesn't look as 480p.

Everyone keeps saying this and it makes zero sense.

People that are struggling financially isn't thinking about buying a new Xbox.

If price was the end all to everything then both sony and MS could just cut the price of the pro ps4 and X1X and push that to the low end consumers and parents would eat these consoles up in the holiday season if they were priced at $200-$250.

As for next gen, price is not a good enough reason for MS to release the lockhart day one because most of the people buying these consoles day one are not excited about playing a low end next gen console.

In the video below Michael Pachter even talks about the type of consumer that buys consoles day one and its not parents or price concise consumers....
 

pawel86ck

Banned
Everyone keeps saying this and it makes zero sense.

People that are struggling financially isn't thinking about buying a new Xbox.

If price was the end all to everything then both sony and MS could just cut the price of the pro ps4 and X1X and push that to the low end consumers and parents would eat these consoles up in the holiday season if they were priced at $200-$250.

As for next gen, price is not a good enough reason for MS to release the lockhart day one because most of the people buying these consoles day one are not excited about playing a low end next gen console.

In the video below Michael Pachter even talks about the type of consumer that buys consoles day one and its not parents or price concise consumers....

I remember when my friends bought cheaper consoles for their kids (standard xbox one s and ps4) because they wanted to make their kids happy but at the same time they were still looking to make some savings. In my country many people have to spend half of their salary just to afford 250$, and I'm sure 500$ will be a tough call even for gaming enthusiasts because of current situation.
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Moving on from disk drives (Xbox Series X (lockhart), PS5 Digital Edition) is KILLING collectors.
 

oldergamer

Member
Why do people keep saying that? Name me one pc game where toggling graphics settings turns a multiplatform game into completely different experience? Gears 5 is probably the best example of scalable graphics, but whether you play it on a 13 Tflops RTX2080 Ti or a 1 Tflops Xbox, you're still getting the exact same game with the same levels, geometry, ai, physics and core game design.

I see you are trying to add a qualifier to that statement by adding "completely different experience". I'm going to ignore that, unless you can show me a game on the market where a "completely different experience" is applicable. I don't see how that statement makes sense within the context of a single game.

Personally I don't think MS cares about keeping their Xbox install base. They are just taking a much more cross platform approach where pc gamers are obviously their main focus. It's just that not many pc gamers have anything near the kind of specs that's in Series X. That is why they will probably be targeting specs like a GTX1060 for a long time, until RTX like cards become mainstream on pc.
That's your opinion, but MS is the only company releasing two consoles that plays the same games and targets two drastically different price points. MS is making money off the xbox install base. Of course they care about it. if they didn't we wouldn't see new consoles from them.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
I see you are trying to add a qualifier to that statement by adding "completely different experience". I'm going to ignore that, unless you can show me a game on the market where a "completely different experience" is applicable. I don't see how that statement makes sense within the context of a single game.


That's your opinion, but MS is the only company releasing two consoles that plays the same games and targets two drastically different price points. MS is making money off the xbox install base. Of course they care about it. if they didn't we wouldn't see new consoles from them.

There's a big difference between a generational leap in overall graphics and scalable graphics settings like we see on pc. A generational leap has more to do with the overall package that affects the entire game design, think RDR1 vs RDR2. Scalable graphics has more to do with cosmetic graphics settings that often have very little visual impact, let alone affect how the whole game plays. Like I said, Gears 5 on ultra settings is still the same game/experience and bound by the same constrictions as the Xone version.

We'll see but I find it very hard to believe that Halo Infinite will have completely different levels and will play noticeable different on Series X compared to the Xone version. Maybe if MS said they were outsourcing the Xone version and it would be running on older tech like they did with Forza, but I haven't heard anything like that. My guess is that it will be comparable to playing Gears 5 on Xone vs the pc version on ultra settings. It'll obviously look better with higher framerates/ resolution and some Ray Tracing, but at its core it will be exactly the same.


1-3-1024x576.png
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I don't care what anyone says... if the reports are true the lockhart will be a big mistake for MS

Why would anyone with sense buy a 1080p console with 4 TF in 2020 .... if money is an issue just buy a X1X where you can still play cyberpunk and Halo infinite or save to get the Series X

Its not like the series X will get big exclusives out the gate because MS already said they will support the Xbox one for another 2 years and the install base will be very low out the gate for both PS5 and Series X versus the current gen.

If lockheart comes out at $299 or less, has more power, ssd, ai upscalong, backwards compatibility and better future compatibility, many would pick it over the x. Those very concerned with top 4k graphics will likely be buying the series x anyhow. And there are potential customers who can't afford ps5 or series x that may readily buy this machine.

I am not really concerned about it overall, but ms will have some confused consumers if they are not carefull with the marketing.
But I think they can overcome this with the value proposition - especially if it has ai upscaling that delivers.

At one point I was wondering if ms might be afraid to over deliver with lockheart (too good lets say if ai upscalling looked 80% as good as true 4k) as it would cannibalize series x sales. But after some thought, should they really care if it keeps them more living rooms for the next 5-7 years.
Even better if it sells at a much higher rate due to the mass market price.
 
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Skyrxzaur

Neo Member
“There is nothing the Lockhart can't do that the Anaconda can.”

So whats the point of Anaconda if thats the case? How can you Hype up Anaconda while at the same time not talk shit about lockhart? And if all above is true. Basically saying flops dont matter. Wouldnt that make the PS5 the sweet spot.

Saying that “There is nothing the Lockhart can't do that the Anaconda can" doesn't mean that there isn't things that the Anaconda/Lockhart can do that the PS5 can't.
 
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FacelessSamurai

..but cry so much I wish I had some
I don't care what anyone says... if the reports are true the lockhart will be a big mistake for MS

Why would anyone with sense buy a 1080p console with 4 TF in 2020 .... if money is an issue just buy a X1X where you can still play cyberpunk and Halo infinite or save to get the Series X

Its not like the series X will get big exclusives out the gate because MS already said they will support the Xbox one for another 2 years and the install base will be very low out the gate for both PS5 and Series X versus the current gen.
This doesn’t make any sense. Why buy a last gen console that won’t last you more than a year too when you can get an Series S and be good for the next 6-7 years?

Also most people don’t own 4K TVs, don’t care and won’t upgrade until their 1080p sets die. From my whole entourage I only know of 2 who own 4K TVs. Even the PC master race people game at 1440p or ultra wide without HDR.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
Saying that “There is nothing the Lockhart can't do that the Anaconda can" doesn't mean that there isn't things that the Anaconda/Lockhart can do that the PS5 can't.
The developers is basically saying a 3 times more powerful gpu can't do anything noteworthy besides bumping resolution and framerates...
I am no tech expert but if we take resolution and framerate out of the equation, surely developers can do a ton of other new and exciting things with all those Tflops? If not, then that's kinda depressing. I mean what would be the point of buying a RTX3080 or any other gpu that will come after that?
 

ZywyPL

Banned
I don't get the part about Series X devkit mimicking Lockhart specs and driving so much difficulties vs an actual Lockhart devkit, I mean, at the end of the day you end up with two machines with the exact same specs, running the exact same engines, right?
 
I can't wait til they either deny or confirm what Lockhart is so we can finally settle this. I'm getting a SeX, but probably not until next year.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Your friend makes perfect sense. I don't work on development projects nearly as complicated as games on multiple custom consoles, but any project manager in IT or development can tell you it almost always comes down to how many resources a company is willing to throw at building a solution / app / whatever.
Agreed. I've been a product manager for a few years now, and our development cycle is constantly in flux. Feature set is dictated by both value to the user, as well as available developer resources. Some ambitious features gets shelved or rejected, simply because the cost/benefit analysis doesn't make it viable. This can come even late in the development cycle, as new ideas come up all the time.

I just don't know how much information about any particular project would be known even to individuals working on the project. Our devs don't fully understand how our products work, outside of the features they work on. Myself, my CEO, and my QA are the only people who have an understanding of how the pieces fit together. I wouldn't expect people outside of management, and dev kit developers to be able to piece together what's happening with either console, on the hardware side. Benchmarks probably get announced at team meetings, but those shouldn't be provided too far ahead of public release anyway. You'd have to be working at a fairly high-level on a particular project to have proper insight into what's going on. That's just my opinion having worked on both large-scale microprocessor teams, as well as medium-scale software applications.

I had root access to the entire microprocessor database as an intern tasked with managing the internal project team website, and even that was really hard to wrap my head around. It's just too much data to digest. Each team managed their own section of the portal, but understanding how it all worked together would have taken significant distillation from each component team, before piecing it together. And those component teams only reported to a few people.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Agreed. I've been a product manager for a few years now, and our development cycle is constantly in flux. Feature set is dictated by both value to the user, as well as available developer resources. Some ambitious features gets shelved or rejected, simply because the cost/benefit analysis doesn't make it viable. This can come even late in the development cycle, as new ideas come up all the time.

I just don't know how much information about any particular project would be known even to individuals working on the project. Our devs don't fully understand how our products work, outside of the features they work on. Myself, my CEO, and my QA are the only people who have an understanding of how the pieces fit together. I wouldn't expect people outside of management, and dev kit developers to be able to piece together what's happening with either console, on the hardware side. Benchmarks probably get announced at team meetings, but those shouldn't be provided too far ahead of public release anyway. You'd have to be working at a fairly high-level on a particular project to have proper insight into what's going on. That's just my opinion having worked on both large-scale microprocessor teams, as well as medium-scale software applications.

I had root access to the entire microprocessor database as an intern tasked with managing the internal project team website, and even that was really hard to wrap my head around. It's just too much data to digest. Each team managed their own section of the portal, but understanding how it all worked together would have taken significant distillation from each component team, before piecing it together. And those component teams only reported to a few people.

I feel your pain. My last major project (wrapped up in mid July Edit: I meant June) was restructuring a solution that included in house software developed by my own IT team, all the way through new additions to code for an existing app by contractors used by something like 45k users, as well as a complete database overhaul handled by yet another team (thankfully internal). I remember having a conversation with the project manager and she lamented how brutal it all was, especially as she herself was not an IT pro in the specializations we were dealing with, nor a programmer, nor even knew much about about SQL top to bottom. And in this age of the pandemic we were doing it all from home in separate countries.

It must be crazy trying to optimize games right now across consoles with the same predicaments.
 
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MrMiyagi

Banned
Agreed. I've been a product manager for a few years now, and our development cycle is constantly in flux. Feature set is dictated by both value to the user, as well as available developer resources. Some ambitious features gets shelved or rejected, simply because the cost/benefit analysis doesn't make it viable. This can come even late in the development cycle, as new ideas come up all the time.

I just don't know how much information about any particular project would be known even to individuals working on the project. Our devs don't fully understand how our products work, outside of the features they work on. Myself, my CEO, and my QA are the only people who have an understanding of how the pieces fit together. I wouldn't expect people outside of management, and dev kit developers to be able to piece together what's happening with either console, on the hardware side. Benchmarks probably get announced at team meetings, but those shouldn't be provided too far ahead of public release anyway. You'd have to be working at a fairly high-level on a particular project to have proper insight into what's going on. That's just my opinion having worked on both large-scale microprocessor teams, as well as medium-scale software applications.

I had root access to the entire microprocessor database as an intern tasked with managing the internal project team website, and even that was really hard to wrap my head around. It's just too much data to digest. Each team managed their own section of the portal, but understanding how it all worked together would have taken significant distillation from each component team, before piecing it together. And those component teams only reported to a few people.
No offense but what does working as a product manager have anything to do with game development? I'm no expert on the exact process either but from what I know game development typically goes as follows.

1. They pick a platform, which automatically determines the ambitions of the game
2. Games typically start with a gameplay mechanic and thinking about how to fit it in a game
3. Then they'll start with the whole creative process like level design, story board, the tone and setting etc
4. They try to get everything in the game while hitting a performance target
5. At the very end they'll optimize and resolution is typically the last things that is determined.

I never heard of any developer that would say we're doing a 60fps and native 4k game, and then determine what kind of game their making and what they want to put in it. It would ruin the whole creative process lol.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Of course keeping in mind developing for a single locked in set platform vs a million variations of computers or phones is always going to be much easier.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
No offense but what does working as a product manager have anything to do with game development? I'm no expert on the exact process either but from what I know game development typically goes as follows.

1. They pick a platform, which automatically determines the ambitions of the game
2. Games typically start with a gameplay mechanic and thinking about how to fit it in a game
3. Then they'll start with the whole creative process like level design, story board, the tone and setting etc
4. They try to get everything in the game while hitting a performance target
5. At the very end they'll optimize and resolution is typically the last things that is determined.

I never heard of any developer that would say we're doing a 60fps and native 4k game, and then determine what kind of game their making and what they want to put in it. It would ruin the whole creative process lol.
My post was only in response to BadBurger's post. Not any other conversations that were happening.

Your description of the design process workflow seems like it makes sense, but I can't verify its accuracy. I kinda disagree with your assessment of performance targets not being viable to the design process. If you're making a fighting game, or an FPS that's intended to be a competitive game that features in tournaments, then you'd definitely want to keep 60fps as your minimum framerate. That means your time budget for processing a frame would have to fit within 1/60 of a second, and you run cost/benefit on any graphical or computational features that you want to include. If you can't get a specific effect to process in that time frame, you'd shelve it for a later patch, or just jettison it altogether.

Similarly, if you have a target resolution of 4k, then you either allow compromises like framerate, or you take the axe to non-critical effects. Again, on a cost/benefit basis. As these are graphical products, I think you have to include graphics baselines in your original design plans. There are some games that have fewer restrictions on creative, because they're not expected to have certain framerates or resolutions. However, there are some games that have certain graphical specifications, and those will certainly have to be factored into design. Creative things like storyboard, and graphical effects don't necessarily steer the game development process. The game designer starts off with a vision, and then compromises must always be made to make it fit into the engine that's being designed. Otherwise, you run the risk of project bloat, as you don't budget your resources based on efficiency when you try to make everything you want fit into a finished product.

So that's actually an aspect of my job (and sounds like BadBurger's too) that carries over to both hardware and software. Project management is a balancing act between ambition and resources. You try to fit in all the extra stuff you can as efficiently as possible, while ensuring that the cornerstone features are not compromised. It wasn't actually my intention to reference any other conversations though.
 
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Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I don't get the part about Series X devkit mimicking Lockhart specs and driving so much difficulties vs an actual Lockhart devkit, I mean, at the end of the day you end up with two machines with the exact same specs, running the exact same engines, right?

My speculation to what he meant is that the dev kit they were working with wasn't giving promising results or tools were not finalized or in a state that was working as well as it should.

Simply down clocking and limiting things on a chip set to try and match a different spec will never give you the same results unless they are able to psychically turn off CU's and match Lockhart's CU count.
 

Xenon

Member
I don't get people trying to sell the Lockhart as a bad move by MS.

1. Most previous gen consoles are sold years after the new gen's release.
2. By stopping Xbox One now and switching to Lock they have access to that base for new releases as well as old titles.
3. MS wants people on Gamepass, people starting on current gen have a much greater chance of being retained than if they buy a past gen console.
 
man if this is true ... what a mess :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Hey it's sometimes the price you gotta pay playing on outdated hardware. Something's better than nothing though.

That said, not expecting lack of feature parity from these launch-year Series X/Series S/One X games. Usually there are no radical shifts in game design during that time, even with 1st-party content. That stuff tends to come later and by then One X support will be dropped.

Series S owners, if they can upgrade at reduced price to Series X, I don't think they'll feel miffed too much if and when gimped Series S versions of games start arriving. In fact having that upgrade path would be a necessity and retains customer trust in the brand.
 
The price isn't being undercut it's a different product. People have to both find value and find money. They also have to find enough value to justify over other things in life. Which is why many companies offer cheaper alternatives to their flagship so it's not basically an all or nothing decision. The consumer decides if there's enough value for the given price that they can afford. 400-500 isn't a sweet spot if it's a lot more money than a person is willing to spend on a machine dedicated to playing video games.

Those gamers you speak of can pay more. I strongly disagree that most people buying consoles at launch are going to be mostly the hardcore type of gamers you are describing. Especially if there's going to be a cheaper alternative for them. If Sony or Microsoft thought that were the case they wouldn't even bother with the marketing campaigns as it'd be throwing money at showing off consoles that people aren't going to buy because the gamers you describe are the ones that don't need information pushed on them.

Even of the hardcore, not everybody is going to want to get the better console because again, price. To you there's so much more value to getting something more expensive. But to some people they only have so much money and paying $200-300 gives them enough value and keeps their wallet happy.

Kids are always wanting things, parents are always wanting to give things, and these launches happen around Christmas for a reason. It's so that they can align all their launch marketing with their holiday marketing and convince a bunch people to want and buy their new product. I don't believe that the "less-informed" casuals are going to stay from consoles in the first year or so.

I don't know what points you made previously, but from a high level view there's nothing stopping the lockhart from doing what the anaconda can do. In the same way nothing is stopping a pc with a 2070 from doing what a pc with 2080 can do. The one just does it better.

Only thing here I might disagree with is the makeup of hardcore gamers who buy in at generation launch. Usually when I talk hardcore I also include core gamers, who outnumber them, and those would be part of the ones the advertising you mention target.

IMO I think hardcore/core gamers are the primary customers for new system within the first year, maybe first two years, but you also get a healthy amount of less core, mainstream gamers and then the casuals who usually just follow what's trendy, when the prices are low enough. The casuals usually are the ones who buy these systems when they're on sale during Black Friday and Christmas, for example, but generally don't start showing up en masse until maybe a bit past the midpoint of a generation.

At least, this is me going off older console generations. Maybe the trends shifted more with the PS4 and XBO, maybe many more mainstream and casual types bought in at the start of that generation. I'd like to know the percentages on that. Of course there are also outliers to this like the Wii, which hooked in mainstream and casuals immediately as well as hardcore and core gamers.

This is probably what both Sony and especially Microsoft want to try replicating with their lower-end SKUs, but sans the "gimmick". Just providing next-gen gaming at a friendly price. I'm guessing MS's sales of XBO SAD were very strong because that seems to have influenced both them (Series S) and Sony (PS5 Digital), and similarly, didn't really have a "gimmick" outside of being a cheaper digital-only system. So maybe I've been wrong in thinking Series S needs some gameplay/controller "hook" similar to the Wii, or really any hook that's completely divergent from the Series X. Maybe it just needs to provide a comparable experience at a low price with some backend incentive for the platform holder (digital sales and subscriptions).

Maybe, then, it's bound to happen that the trend for buy-in during the early years of systems evens out across those aforementioned demographics. Maybe having more mainstream and casuals buying in at the start will become the norm. It certainly is healthier for the platform holder. Will that affect growth forecasts in unit sales during the later years, though? As in, will the curve be more flat and linear in terms of sales trajectories with this generation and future generations if the demographic buy-in ratios more or less even out between hardcore/core/mainstream/casual from the onset?

That'll be interesting to observe.
 

yurinka

Member
Context is key and we must understand all this information (if true) is centered around porting a current-gen game to next-gen. So comments of Lockhart can do anything Anaconda can is housed within that parameter.

I’d wait for more info.
True, I'd prefer to know what someone working on a next gen only game thinks about it.
 

MrMiyagi

Banned
My post was only in response to BadBurger's post. Not any other conversations that were happening.

Your description of the design process workflow seems like it makes sense, but I can't verify its accuracy. I kinda disagree with your assessment of performance targets not being viable to the design process. If you're making a fighting game, or an FPS that's intended to be a competitive game that features in tournaments, then you'd definitely want to keep 60fps as your minimum framerate. That means your time budget for processing a frame would have to fit within 1/60 of a second, and you run cost/benefit on any graphical or computational features that you want to include. If you can't get a specific effect to process in that time frame, you'd shelve it for a later patch, or just jettison it altogether.

Similarly, if you have a target resolution of 4k, then you either allow compromises like framerate, or you take the axe to non-critical effects. Again, on a cost/benefit basis. As these are graphical products, I think you have to include graphics baselines in your original design plans. There are some games that have fewer restrictions on creative, because they're not expected to have certain framerates or resolutions. However, there are some games that have certain graphical specifications, and those will certainly have to be factored into design. Creative things like storyboard, and graphical effects don't necessarily steer the game development process. The game designer starts off with a vision, and then compromises must always be made to make it fit into the engine that's being designed. Otherwise, you run the risk of project bloat, as you don't budget your resources based on efficiency when you try to make everything you want fit into a finished product.

So that's actually an aspect of my job (and sounds like BadBurger's too) that carries over to both hardware and software. Project management is a balancing act between ambition and resources. You try to fit in all the extra stuff you can as efficiently as possible, while ensuring that the cornerstone features are not compromised. It wasn't actually my intention to reference any other conversations though.

It's true that 60Fps has been a golden standard for online shooters and fighting games, but other than that not many genres really benefit from 60fps. There were a ton of 60fps games on the ps2, but most developers stopped aiming for it as they said people just don't care. For example the Ratchet & Clank games on ps2 were always 60fps but on ps5 its 30fps. It has nothing to do with power, its a design choice and it just makes more sense for developers to focus on visual fidelity and getting all their ambitions in the game. It's the same thing with resolution. Some people are saying native 4k is a must but the truth is that most people can't tell the difference between a DVD and a Bluray. Personally I think 1440p or checkerboard rendering is the sweet-spot as it looks noticeably sharper than 1080p but at a fraction of the cost of native 4k.

Personally I think there's just no way in hell that developers like ND, Rockstar etc. who are known to push consoles to its absolute limits, will focus on 4k/60fps. Their games will be 30fps, probably 1440p and the whole point of Lockhart being a great option for people who don't care about 4k/60fps will be mute. Hell, AC Valhalla is a cross gen title and its already running on 30fps on Series X. The whole problem with Lockhart is that a 30fps/ 1440p Series X/ ps5 game would have to be scaled all the way down to 540p to run on it.
 

Journey

Banned
That could definitely happen but the PS5 will have some advantages as well so for some people it might be tricky for them to make that decision.


We'll have to wait for those head to heads 🤷‍♂️

The only real advantage the PS5 has is the SSD, and although the speed of the SSD is what sets them apart, the true difference between last gen and this gen is the IOPS, that's what most developers are super excited about and both Xbox Series X and PS5 have SSD that will smoke HDD in this regard.

iops_mean_comparison_en.gif
 
We'll have to wait for those head to heads 🤷‍♂️

The only real advantage the PS5 has is the SSD, and although the speed of the SSD is what sets them apart, the true difference between last gen and this gen is the IOPS, that's what most developers are super excited about and both Xbox Series X and PS5 have SSD that will smoke HDD in this regard.

iops_mean_comparison_en.gif

It is the biggest difference between the two. I guess we have to wait and see what the actual difference will be.
 

MadAnon

Member
So we’re not getting a generational leap in AI... how exciting.
Why would we? AI limitations are not because of hardware. We just don't have any good, efficient way to create great AI in videogames. The traditional behavioral trees can get you only so far. Nobody has come up with anything better for several console generations despite significant hardware improvements.

There are some amazing things being done with deep learning when it comes to AI but video game industry isn't the place which attracts the talent.
 
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Dontero

Banned
Anyone saying Lockhart console will not limit next gen is a fool.
On other hand console about twice as fast for 300$ seems to be winning strategy for MS.

The only difference between games games for lockhart and PS5/SEX will be that PS5/SEX will be running Lockhart games with extra resolution, some extra effects and maybe maybe better framerate. Games will not look like 10TF games but like 4-5TF ones.

Basically what is now with games having XboxOne base. Like in case of PS4 exclusives only PS5 exclusives will show 10tf games.
 
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Kumomeme

Member
Why would we? AI limitations are not because of hardware. We just don't have any good, efficient way to create great AI in videogames. The traditional behavioral trees can get you only so far. Nobody has come up with anything better for several console generations despite significant hardware improvements.

There are some amazing things being done with machine learning when it comes to AI but video game industry isn't the place which attracts the talent.
as i know hardware (cpu) indeed one of reason for lacking in AI and other cpu related field..current gen we only has jaguar cpu as main processor..that thing is just mobile cpu, intel atom level of cpu..for next gen..we get different beast..Ryzen cpu to handle the task
 
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