PlayStation CEO believes in generational divide between PS4 and PS5
Is the only way to get the most from next-gen games
Assuming no other major hurdles are thrown at PlayStation and the world, if we’re honest here (and seeing how 2020 has gone so far, that’s far from a guarantee), PlayStation 5 is on schedule to arrive this holiday, likely November or early December.
While on the face, PS5 and Xbox Series X will be quite comparable in regards to raw power, the teams behind them are going into next-gen with very different philosophies, namely how to treat backwards compatibility. Though in all likelihood, Xbox Series X will offer a vast catalog of older games, all reports indicate that the PS4 games that ‘matter’ will be playable on PS5 on launch, with more titles to come in the future.
But where the split is between how the two different companies are treating backwards compatibility comes down to the development of new titles. As an example, the next Halo game will be made available on both Xbox Series One and Xbox Series X. PlayStation, on the other hand, wants developers to either be creating games for PS4 or PS5. Here is PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan talking with Christopher Dring over at gameindustry.biz:
We have always said that we believe in generations. We believe that when you go to all the trouble of creating a next-gen console, that it should include features and benefits that the previous generation does not include. And that, in our view, people should make games that can make the most of those features.
We do believe in generations, and whether it’s the DualSense controller, whether it’s the 3D audio, whether it’s the multiple ways that the SSD can be used… we are thinking that it is time to give the PlayStation community something new, something different, that can really only be enjoyed on PS5.
This bit of news seemed controversial at first, but Jim is absolutely right here. The only way to push next-gen games is to create that divide. Here’s another way to think of it — if a studio’s next game has a $50 million budget, they’ll either be able to dedicate it all to PS5 and get everything they can from the console in their given production time, or they’ll have to split that budget between development on PS5 and PS4. Even a simpler way to think about it is multi-tasking — on average, you do your best work when you’re singularly focused, rather than giving two different things your attention.
Now you might argue that this has been on PC for years and I’d argue back that it’s one of the reasons why gaming on PC is such a hit or miss experience — a developer has to ensure their game runs on a hundred different builds instead of one single vision, and that’s just talking graphics.
Gaming experiences are often built out of the hardware and its unique abilities. What if the DualSense controller and its haptic feedback engine were a key part of designing a game? The same is true for 3D audio, where the stealth or horror aspect is reliant on how the sound is broadcast. You can’t merely downscale those experiences to PS4; instead you dumb them down. And every minute as a developer that you spend on ‘dumbing down’ the experience is a minute, and dollar, wasted that you could have instead poured into the PS5.
Another example that comes to mind is the custom SSD inside of PS5. Game developers have often designed their games around load times, meaning they’ll incorporate specific corridors and lengthy walkways while in the background, the game loads what’s ahead. PS5 won’t require this as any piece of data can be pulled up within a fraction of a second, giving devs the freedom to make different choices when designing levels and maps. But seeing how PS4 cannot do this — either the dev has to design for the PS4 and, therefore, not deliver that seamless experience that could have been possible on PS5 or introduce egregiously long load times for PS4 users around every bend.
Think of it another way — PS3 was notoriously hard to develop for, but it was also a more powerful console than Xbox 360. When third party developers like EA and Activision made their games, they didn’t design for PS3 and ‘dumb it down’ for Xbox 360. Instead, they made Xbox 360 the base experience so that their development could be easily ported over to PS3 with minimum additional development time. For that same reason, and the same is still true today, first-party PlayStation games look and run the best because the studios behind them can focus on a single piece of hardware at a given time.
So you see, the only way for PS5 to thrive is by having the shackles of PS4 cut off from it. While third-party developers will want to leverage both audiences and develop the same game for PS4 and PS5, what Jim is allowing for is for first-party studios to focus on the future and deliver the best PS5 games possible.
Do you think Sony should mandate future titles to work on PS4 and PS5, or should their efforts going forward be on PS5 alone?
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