Will this be the shortest console generation?

[DaveJB]

The N64 was hamstrung by low texture memory, which the LoZ worked around quite well. In fact, they've pushed a lot out of many Nintendo consoles to make LoZ games look pretty damn good where they need to.

That's something that Nintendo have usually been pretty good at in general, actually. Even now, most Wii U games just look like GameCube games with HD graphics and a smattering of extra effects, but they still have a pretty strong visual appeal.

[bilateralrope]

An article showed up today that talks about just how well current gen consoles are doing. It's looking good.

PS4 and Xbox One install base 60 percent larger than last generation, NPD says

By Charlie Hall on Feb 13, 2015 at 1:30p @Charlie_L_Hall

The NPD Group's latest report states that the current generation (also referred to as the 8th generation) of game consoles are selling remarkably well, and is in fact growing the market when compared to the previous generation of hardware.

"The combined hardware install base of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One," said Liam Callahan, "is close to 60 percent higher than the cumulative hardware totals for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the same point in their lifecycles (after 15 months)."

Those numbers, Callahan told Polygon, do account for the different launch dates of the PS3 and the 360. "It adds up the 15 month total for 360 (starting from Nov. 2005) and the 15 month total for PS3 (starting from Nov. 2006)."

Console gaming is growing faster than it did nearly a decade ago, and that growth may accelerate as the consoles drop in price. Hardware isn't the only area that's seeing growth.

Software sales in total rose roughly 5 percent year over year, while the current generation software sales jumped by 74, versus a 36 percent decrease in software sales for the previous generation.

NPD_January_2015

There was also a 3 percent bump in peripheral sales, largely attributed to the owners of new consoles picking up the odds and ends they need to get playing, items like headphones and extra controllers.

"Increased accessory spending for eighth generation console ... gamepads as well as headphones/headsets," Callahan said, "offset any seventh generation console and portable accessory spending declines."

See the link for the table on how software sales have changed. Take note that it only includes new physical sales. Second hand and digital sales are not included.

[DaveJB]

Not really surprising when you consider that the 360 took a while to really get going (the RRoD fiasco didn't help much), while the PS3's launch was just a trainwreck. This time Sony came out of the gate with all guns blazing, and the Xbox One's also started doing decent enough after a rocky first nine months or so.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Those consoles were also difficult to program for, meaning the visuals on the X360 and PS3 took a couple of years to meaningfully surpass what could be achieved on the mature PS2 with games like Shadow of the Colossus and the relatively powerful Xbox with games like Forza. The $600 and $400 price points also didn't help.

In any case, no one is saying that 4K matters now, just that it will in 2-3 years when these consoles would historically only be halfway through their life cycles but the latest iPhone can match them or come close.

[TheFeniX]

Those consoles were also difficult to program for, meaning the visuals on the X360 and PS3 took a couple of years to meaningfully surpass what could be achieved on the mature PS2 with games like Shadow of the Colossus and the relatively powerful Xbox with games like Forza. The $600 and $400 price points also didn't help.

Visuals weren't really a huge deal as even original titles like Fight Night Round 3 looked incredible. But the game was plagued with frame-rates drops and XBLive wasn't really all that stable around that time. Getting games to look AND run well took a while, such as with games with a larger scope like Gears of War.

Really, the market and the manufacturers just weren't all that ready during the launch. No one remembers the bland launch of the 360 because they were too busy remembering the even worse launch of the PS3, which came at a time the 360 was finally getting some first-rate titles.

But HD TVs also didn't have the saturation they did for enough people to really consider purchasing a $500 HD gaming device. Sony had to rely on two selling points in the early life of the PS3: Sony fanboys and people looking for a cheap blu-ray player because even at $600, the PS3 was the cheapest on the market. So if you hadn't already invested in HD, and those TVs were expensive as Hell back then (I got my 65" Mitsubishi DLP for $3,000), you had no real reason to invest in an HD console.

But now, with essentially no visual or frame-rate creep in this new generation, HD TVs everywhere, and both console manufacturers bringing out the big guns from the start with console selling games like CoD, Titanfall, etc: it's no surprise they hit the ground running.

It's going to be telling in a few years if people get fed up with the only great looking and running (hopefully) games being those FPS that are decidedly narrow in scope. The hardware can do that much easier. But when you get a game like AssCreed with loads of NPCs and scripts running at the same time, you need more number crunching than just having a dozen or so NPCs with fancy guns. So, we're already bottle-necking.

This was one of the reasons Skyrim was limited in it's scope WRT graphics and also towns not only being instanced (existing in their own map space) but comparatively tiny. They had limited hardware to work with. Having a civil-war battle consist of 12 NPCs hacking each other was dumb and as much as Beth likes to say stupid shit like "the engine won't support more," anyone with a half-decent rig can spawn 40+ NPCs and have them hack each other to pieces with little issue, or just get the mod that does it for them. The decision was made solely based on limited specs of the console ports. And this is an issue that's already prevalent in Xbone and PS4 games this early in their life.

Honestly hoping when the next ES game is a re-skinned Skyrim, people get pissed because they just bought a whole other console and got no real upgrade out of it. But I don't give people any credit these days and any review site will definitely avoid knocking it.

[Darth Nostril]

This was one of the reasons Skyrim was limited in it's scope WRT graphics and also towns not only being instanced (existing in their own map space) but comparatively tiny. They had limited hardware to work with. Having a civil-war battle consist of 12 NPCs hacking each other was dumb and as much as Beth likes to say stupid shit like "the engine won't support more," anyone with a half-decent rig can spawn 40+ NPCs and have them hack each other to pieces with little issue, or just get the mod that does it for them. The decision was made solely based on limited specs of the console ports. And this is an issue that's already prevalent in Xbone and PS4 games this early in their life.

Honestly hoping when the next ES game is a re-skinned Skyrim, people get pissed because they just bought a whole other console and got no real upgrade out of it. But I don't give people any credit these days and any review site will definitely avoid knocking it.

This.
On my first playthrough a couple of months ago (yeah I know, I'm late to the party) I was initially impressed then increasingly disappointed by how small the cities were, how few people lived in them, how abbreviated the College felt and as for that playground scrap that was supposed to be a civil war .....
This time round got all the unofficial patches, some HD retextures, HD Dragons, Cutting Room Floor, Immersive College, Immersive Creatures, Immersive Patrols, Expanded Towns & Cities and Civil War Overhaul mods to name a few.
It's like a whole other game, about 30 NPCs in the attack on Riften plus a couple of dragons who decided to gatecrash. And that's before we even got to the main gates.
All this on a 1st gen i7 920 and a GT 630. When are publishers going to stop deliberately crippling the PC versions just so some delicate flower console weenies epeen doesn't shrivel up?

[TheFeniX]

All this on a 1st gen i7 920 and a GT 630. When are publishers going to stop deliberately crippling the PC versions just so some delicate flower console weenies epeen doesn't shrivel up?

I wonder if this is more laziness than anything. Why not code for the lowest common denominator? Saves a lot of money. The other option is that Microsoft and Sony offer incentives for parity as part of their development contracts. This is weird for me as I recall more than a few games across Genesis and Super Nintendo where parity was just out the window. Shadowrun, Jurassic Park, and Mortal Kombat (the least of the three) just off the top of my head. Shadowrun and Jurrasic Park were completely different, yet enjoyable, games on either platform and (IIRC) developed by completely different teams. Some of this may have been pushed by the better hardware of the SNES and the insanity of Mode7. Which makes the terrible Mortal Kombat port pretty much unforgivable.

[Starglider]

I wonder if this is more laziness than anything. Why not code for the lowest common denominator? Saves a lot of money.

It is definitely 'saving money'. Higher res textures and better shading on the PC version are not too expensive, and at least you get some nuce screenshots for marketing purposes. Different gameplay (including NPC counts and level geometry) is very expensive, largely due to the increased QA time, and generally has no marketing benefit.

Game production decisions like this (a separate realm from game design) are generally quite rational and straightforward given the commercial environment that developers and publishers operate in. I always find it funny when gamers pretend they are arbitrary, emotion-driven or somehow trying to spite their customers.

[Gandalf]

All this on a 1st gen i7 920 and a GT 630. When are publishers going to stop deliberately crippling the PC versions just so some delicate flower console weenies epeen doesn't shrivel up?

I wonder if this is more laziness than anything. Why not code for the lowest common denominator? Saves a lot of money.

Also, a PC consumer base which wants a different experience can apparently mod for it. So why spend money making super HD games* when you can make a product that people can modify to their own tastes later?

*For epic rigs only.

[TheFeniX]

Game production decisions like this (a separate realm from game design) are generally quite rational and straightforward given the commercial environment that developers and publishers operate in. I always find it funny when gamers pretend they are arbitrary, emotion-driven or somehow trying to spite their customers.

What gets me about this, is I was pretty skeptical about AssCreed having all their thousands of NPCs running at once with all their fancy AI.. on console, since this has been an issue with console sandbox games since ever, mostly with GTA. Persistence of NPCs has always been an issue there due to low RAM and processing usually driving your framerate into the single-digits.

But I do have to wonder about the kind of asshole who would look at a running copy of Unity, or just hear the nerds over in development saying "all that shit we've been bragging about does. not. work." and instead of holding off, instead says "ship it." It takes a special kind of asshole to be that guy. Honestly, with how well Unity ended up doing, that guy is likely getting a few promotions after he wakes up from his extended cocaine binge.

Also, a PC consumer base which wants a different experience can apparently mod for it. So why spend money making super HD games* when you can make a product that people can modify to their own tastes later?

Provided the game is even moderately easy to mod for. But really, the ability to mod is usually secondary to praying the port doesn't require 4 times the hardware the console version does. On that note: I'm running 4K on a $1300 retail rig. Sans monitor cost obviously. At what point in the next few years is that type of rig going to be $500-$600? At what point will a 4K TV or monitor be at the same, or only slightly higher, price point than a 1080p TV/Monitor?

[Darth Nostril]

Going with Skyrim because it's the only game I've got currently installed, plus I can't stop playing it.

Console hardware limits - the Civil War questline was originally envisaged to be this huge campaign with multiple radiant quests for each strategic objective. Also lots more objectives plus success/fail criteria like how many troops had been lost in previous objectives.
But the consoles just couldn't handle that so it was cut back to the anemic, all too short and easy quest line that we got.

Money - most of the above is actually in the game code, the Civil War Overhaul mod is the endeavour of a single person who has taken it on to restore the full campaign. It's taken the best part of two years to get it fully up and running, he estimates it would have taken a full team about two months to do it. But that's two months of paying the full team for something only PC players would benefit from.
Likewise the Cutting Room Floor mod restores a bunch of side and miscellaneous quests that were never implemented but are in the game code.

Laziness - run the official update & all three DLC through BOSS or LOOT and you'll see they are rife with errors. Why for fucks sake? Using Tes5edit it took me about thirty minutes to clean them all.
The fucking teaboy at Bethesda could have done this with a cheap shitty laptop on his lunch break.
There is no excuse for shipping a product in that state.
Un-optimised textures, looks like they just used the default save settings instead of the setting that would minimise memory overhead (running out of memory is one of the principal cause of CTDs & infinite loading screens).


PC users at least can fix most of this with unofficial patches, replacement optimised texture packs and free utilities to strip out all the dirty edits, but the console users are just stuck with it.

[Vendetta]

Going with Skyrim because it's the only game I've got currently installed, plus I can't stop playing it.

Console hardware limits - the Civil War questline was originally envisaged to be this huge campaign with multiple radiant quests for each strategic objective. Also lots more objectives plus success/fail criteria like how many troops had been lost in previous objectives.
But the consoles just couldn't handle that so it was cut back to the anemic, all too short and easy quest line that we got.

What Bethesda might have intended and what they actually have the skill or will to deliver are two different things, console or no. I suspect it much more likely that they simply couldn't make it work in a satisfying manner at all (because the Radiant system is far simpler than they initially talked about, and there are numerous ways to break it if it can't find a valid quest target)

Laziness - run the official update & all three DLC through BOSS or LOOT and you'll see they are rife with errors. Why for fucks sake? Using Tes5edit it took me about thirty minutes to clean them all.
The fucking teaboy at Bethesda could have done this with a cheap shitty laptop on his lunch break.
There is no excuse for shipping a product in that state.

Bethesda have basically never released a game that wasn't bugged to shit. They've been doing it for twenty years now.

Seriously, the explanation that Bethesda are just a bit shit at making solid products is more compelling than the limitations of console development.

[TheFeniX]

The Creation Kit has support for random assortments of NPCs, essentially picking from a set-piece of stats and facial builds. Theoretically, you could tell the CK to "spawn a random leveled bandit" and it would generate one from a list with it's own leveled equipment, skills, perks, etc. Except, from what I read: they couldn't get it to work right. No modder I've seen can make the option in the CK do anything. You have to create each leveled bandit individually. Leveled equipment works ok from what I know, because it just pulls from a list of eligible gear.

The CK also has support for random and selected texture, models, and enchantments for armor. What this means, is that you could theoretically create a "Awesome Armor of Awesomeness" with a pool of textures, models, and enchants without creating separate entries in the system for each one, which would mean if 5 different NPCs were spawned wearing it, you'd have (possibly) 5 different variations of the armor to give them variety. Once again, it doesn't work. You'd have to create a "Awesome Armor version 1, 2, 3" as different entities.

Now, this could be due to memory limitations, since RAM isn't infinite and Skyrim uses it terribly. Or it could be that Beth is just really good at releasing the most duct-taped POS games that still manage to work and be fun enough to play for 1000 hours.

Vendetta, you brought up Radiant AI. We don't do that... unless.... did someone have some work for you? Maybe the Jarl's men dropped something off?

On another note: does anyone else miss the days where console parity wasn't a thing? Idiots might have debated what version of Jurassic Park or Shadowrun was better: the SNES or Genesis version. But all I could think was how awesome it was I got two totally different games based on an IP I liked. This parity shit means I'm just getting one watered down game across 3 different platforms.

[Darth Nostril]

Aaaah the Creation Kit, that wonderful piece of software that throws up a shit ton of errors as soon as you start it. And this is normal!

Vendetta, you brought up Radiant AI. We don't do that... unless.... did someone have some work for you? Maybe the Jarl's men dropped something off?

At 1:52

What Bethesda might have intended and what they actually have the skill or will to deliver are two different things, console or no. I suspect it much more likely that they simply couldn't make it work in a satisfying manner at all (because the Radiant system is far simpler than they initially talked about, and there are numerous ways to break it if it can't find a valid quest target)

Except that one guy, working on his own, has made it work. All the extra quests, all the missing battles and sieges, Stormcloak war giants, Imperial battle mages, oh and you can actually lose the war (I can see why that particular bit was left out, no one likes losing). Plus for shits and giggles 20% chance of dragons.

[TheFeniX]

Aaaah the Creation Kit, that wonderful piece of software that throws up a shit ton of errors as soon as you start it. And this is normal!

To be fair, there is a "Yes to all" option to ignore the errors. I mean, it's probably only there because it was easier to add that option rather than fixing the errors, but cmon man: FUS RO DAH!

At 1:52

INFINITE QUESTING!

Except that one guy, working on his own, has made it work. All the extra quests, all the missing battles and sieges, Stormcloak war giants, Imperial battle mages, oh and you can actually lose the war (I can see why that particular bit was left out, no one likes losing). Plus for shits and giggles 20% chance of dragons.

I have to agree, a lot of what Skyrim became is due to lack of 360/PS3 resources. At least the game isn't framerate locked. But there's also just a lot of shit Beth can't get out no matter what.

Not only was Radiant AI heavy on resources, it's just so hard to do right and lead to hilarious shit like NPCs sleeping in other houses or stealing food and getting murdered by guards, even though they have food on hand or money to purchase it. But Beth's "wants and needs" system would generally have NPCs take the path of least resistance or just do crazy shit.

But just scripting out a daily routine for an NPC means there's like no real processing being done and doing so in the CK is a stupidly easy process. Telling an NPC to go to X and sandbox around based on markers in the CK, rather than having the NPC decide they want to find a place to relax, determine the best location to do so, then decide on what particular activity they want to perform is not only resource intensive, but also a lot harder to get to work right.

This kills me since characters like Elisif never leave the keep. They just go sit on a throne all day, then go to sleep, maybe they sit at a table and pretend to eat. It's likely done because gamers don't understand the concept of hunting down NPCs in an RPG, but come on.

Even in a PC only game, stuff is going to get cut. That's just Beth being lazy. The poor replacement for the Fighter's guild, and stupid shit like "you want to be a mage? Cast this spell? Oh, you don't have it? Here. SUCH TALENT, come on in. You're a 6'5" Amazon Nord rocking a 2-hander and heavy armor. You'll be Archmage in a week" would still be there.

I'm betting on a combination of "make in run on consoles" and "it runs well enough, ship it." Sure, we may have seen more NPCs running around at once with a PC version, but they'd still be part of the same boring quests.

[Xisiqomelir]

Most PC gamers don't game at 4K.

I have a 970 and I don't see value in picking up a 2160p monitor because of the absolute dearth of content native to the res.

[TheFeniX]

Most gamers don't even game at native 1080p. They're merely upscaling from 720p or 900P. Even 1080p wouldn't be worth the money for most gamers if it wasn't the standard resolution 99% of monitors and TVs were being sold at.

I didn't see value in 4K up until I price compared 2K to 4K and realized it was only another 100 bucks. Quality 4K monitors are now in the $600USD range. There are 4K TVs in the $1,000USD range, but you still need a converter box and those aren't cheap. At some point, they are going to drop to be cost-comparable to 1080p. The market seems to be skipping over 2K completely. It's likely in the near future, 1080p monitors and TVs are no longer going to be the emphasis of manufacturing, they will probably end up being more expensive than 4K equivalents.

Of course, signal quality is going to be an issue. Most US cable providers are barely HD. In fact, some providers are so bad with their signal, you're better off watching in 1080i or 720p for fast-paced games like football. There's a reason TV in general looks like shit compared to a Blu-ray or even a 720p 360/PS3 game, although signal compression is a large part of that. I can't think of a single US cable provider that actually broadcasts in 1080p, though I could be wrong. This is why they hate Netflix: it eats up all their bandwidth and makes their programming look like the garbage it is.

I would say, at the most, in two years: 4K is going to be the resolution new TV purchasers will be looking at and 1080p is going to hit the bargain bin. Or, more realistically, just stopped being produced in the numbers that they can afford to sell them cheaper, so they'll end up being more expensive. For computer monitors, as discussed in another thread: native desktop support for 4K is going to be the main thing holding it back. Until Windows and application support improves for 2K+ resolutions, it will be harder for it to break into the home market.

4K gaming support is going to be rough. Current games are being designed for systems that can't do 1080p at 60fps. 4K needs a LOT more than that to run. FFXIV at 1080p was clocking in at 144FPS on my 970. At 2K, 75FPS. At 4K, 25FPS. I had to overclock my GPU by 200Mhz, and cut down on some rendering and shadows to maintain a constant 60FPS. The Xbone and PS4 would explode trying anything like 4K. This article also discusses the oncoming 4K storm, although they predict things moving much faster than I do.

Microsoft, Sony, and the current AAA development scene have spent so much time pushing graphics, I'm really interested to see the shitstorm that is coming.

[TheFeniX]

This weekend, my buddy and I were talking about the oncoming 4K explosion. He's an AGM at Walmart and informed me about the new 50" 4K Smart TV they have for $700. For the record, a 1080p 50" smart TV from the same manufacturer is $630. Really, I think what the determining factor here is going to be is Netflix's support for 4K, if you upgrade to that package and have the Internet speed for it. But really it's that you can get "more numbers" for not a lot more money. People love numbers, even if they don't know what those numbers are. They like to brag about those numbers. 4K Blu-rays are a thing and the price on players is dropping quickly as well. Youtube doesn't seem to be much of a factor due to compression.

As of right now, the quality difference between Comcast HD and Netflix or a Blu-Ray is pretty significant, even at 1080p. As 4K adoption starts to take over for streaming and discs, games and television are going to start looking archaic at a level even the most uninformed user will notice.

Honestly, I see console gaming getting hit harder than PC gaming here (PC gamers who output to TVs aside) because 4k isn't mind-blowing on a 28" screen, even though it is objectively crisper. But as 60"+ 4K TV start getting saturation, the difference is going to be much more noticeable. This is going to be an interesting year for gaming as publishers scramble to get a hold on the tech that's coming. 2K was a bust, so they got a reprieve, but 4K is looking to be a standard selling-point for lots of consumers this year.

[Starglider]

T As 4K adoption starts to take over for streaming and discs, games and television are going to start looking archaic at a level even the most uninformed user will notice.

No they are not. 4K is barely noticeable for typical TV screen sizes, viewing distances and human vision. It just doesn't take up enough of your field of view. This is the layman view;

Me, playing Far Cry 4 on a PS4 using a 1080p front projector on a 2m screen at 2m distance (twice the FoV coverage of a typical TV) : "Well, the vegitation is pretty good, although clearly still strip based. The texture splatting needs work, repetition is obvious on open areas from the helicopter. Draw distance on terrain is consistently good but there is major annoying pop-in on building geometry and (especially) textures, again most noticeable when using the helicopter. Detail objects good, but the caves really suck, they look like simple holes painted streaky grey, not like the realustic caves in DA Inquisition or even Skyrim."

My wife, wandering through the room : "Wow, that game looks like a photograph."

The majority of the public will not care much about 4K gaming, as long as it's on their TV and not a VR HMD.

[DaveJB]

Even if we were to accept that the lack of 4K is going to kill the popularity of the PS4 and Xbone in the next few years - something that seems unlikely when you consider the last two console generation winners; the Wii didn't support HD resolutions, and the PS2's graphics chip absolutely sucked in comparison to those of the GameCube and Xbox - it hardly seems fair to blame Sony or Microsoft for not making their consoles able to easily handle that resolution. The only way they could have done that with the technology available in 2013 would have been to make dual-GPU monsters that would dwarf the power consumption of most PCs, and either be insanely expensive or sold at a crippling loss.

[TheFeniX]

My wife, wandering through the room : "Wow, that game looks like a photograph."

It's not surprising someone who spends more time gaming notices details someone who spends much less time doing doesn't. My wife only notices the blatant texture/npc pop-in and tearing when it's right next to her character, whereas I can notice it when it happens anywhere on the screen when I'm just walking by. She also barely noticed/cared about the HD quality increases when we first went 1080p and when I started running Netflix through our Smart TV rather than the old Google TV.

What she does notice is when she goes from watching Supernatural on Netflix to Dr. Who on BBC HD. These types do not notice the progression because they don't know what to look for. But you have them watch something at a higher quality for long enough, then make them take a step-back: that's when they notice. My wife claimed she couldn't tell the quality difference between an upscaled DVD and a Blu-ray. Now, try and get her to watch a DVD.

At what point are we going to be watching TV and movies at a resolution so far and above what consoles offer, the difference becomes immediately noticeable? Will it become noticeable to the average user or will the upscaling work fine considering the pixel ratio not creating horrific images like trying to run 480i PS2 games on a 1080p TV? I don't know, all I can find on consoles and 4K is information about native 4K support in the future.

What I do know is that neither console can support 4K without a hardware update and 4K Smart TVs are only going to get cheaper. On the gaming front: hardware to game at 4k is coming and it's coming soon. A $300 video card can do 4K on a $600 monitor. At what point will people be gaming at 4K "just because" when 4K monitors are the same price as 1080p and even the cheapest video cards can do so at acceptable detail? That's happening like... very soon. And these people will be able to game natively at 4K vs consoles who will still be upscaling.

Even if we were to accept that the lack of 4K is going to kill the popularity of the PS4 and Xbone in the next few years - something that seems unlikely when you consider the last two console generation winners; the Wii didn't support HD resolutions, and the PS2's graphics chip absolutely sucked in comparison to those of the GameCube and Xbox - it hardly seems fair to blame Sony or Microsoft for not making their consoles able to easily handle that resolution. The only way they could have done that with the technology available in 2013 would have been to make dual-GPU monsters that would dwarf the power consumption of most PCs, and either be insanely expensive or sold at a crippling loss.

Neither the Wii nor the WiiU have tried to install themselves at the center of my entertainment system. Nintendo does not constantly push graphics in my face either.

Adopting 4K at the time would have been insane as no one predicted the price-points would drop like they have so soon. Decent 4K TVs at the time were in the $4,000 price range, not including the converter boxes. Monitors were in the $2-3,000 range.

That was like... a year and a half ago? And now you can adopt 4K for less than $1,000. And that's continuing to drop. Pretty sure everyone thought 4K was going to take about as long to adopt as HD. Not happening. It's now predicted by the end of the year, 10-20% of America households will be 4K. China had already jumped in with both feet.

4K gaming is pretty much out, but neither the Xbone nor the PS4 can support 4K content at all and they are multimedia devices designed to sit at the center of your home entertainment system. How's that going to pan when you instead have to run it all through your Smart TV? What are cable provider plans for their compressed 1080i (if you're lucky) signals? Probably nothing: American providers are terrible anyways.

[Starglider]

My wife claimed she couldn't tell the quality difference between an upscaled DVD and a Blu-ray. Now, try and get her to watch a DVD.

The difference from 480p to 1080p is perceptually much more significant than the difference between 1080p and 4K. I admitt I have not done any 3D gaming at 4K yet, but for 2D games it definitely isn't a big deal vs 1600p for platformers or anything with constant movement. The difference is only strongly noticable in Wesnoth (a turn-based strategy game), mostly because the fided scaling means you can see more of the map. I know 2560x1600 (my previous main monitor) is already better than 1080p, but my point is that back in the day VGA (640x480) to SVGA (800x600) was a hyge perceptual jump. A similar ratio now is 'that's nice I guess' - although as I've said, it's great for productivity (software dev).

I am not saying that 4K games aren't nice to have or that the next console generation won't support them, I'm saying that lack of 4K will not be any more significant in the duration of this generation than lack of 1080p was in the last generation, regardless of the proliferation rate of 4K TVs.

At what point are we going to be watching TV and movies at a resolution so far and above what consoles offer, the difference becomes immediately noticeable?

Never, at typical TV FoV, because the resolution of the eye is finite and we are well into dimminishing returns with 4K TVs. 8K will barely be visible even if you have good vision and are trying to notice it. The situation will be different if giant (2m+) screens become normal for small rooms, or HMDs become popular, but for any given FoV tve resolution of tge eye is an upper bound on useful resolution.

And that's a good thing, because we're overdue for improvements in frame rate, colour depth and colour gamut.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

In my mind, the real threat to this console generation in 2017-2018 isn't unfavorable comparison with PC's, but rather smartphones. If you can stream the iPhone 7S to your TV and connect it to a controller and have it look just as good and play as well as the dedicated consoles, Sony and MS will be in serious trouble, especially if you can buy a Samsung Gear VR-style device while the consoles are basically incapable of delivering a VR experience of any competence. I'll admit that wireless HDMI tech isn't there yet and that it takes time and effort to build an integrated gaming platform on a device that's capable of it, but I can't imagine that I've thought of this and Apple hasn't been working on it for years already.

[Starglider]

If you can stream the iPhone 7S to your TV and connect it to a controller and have it look just as good and play as well as the dedicated consoles, Sony and MS will be in serious trouble, especially if you can buy a Samsung Gear VR-style device while the consoles are basically incapable of delivering a VR experience of any competence.

The key problem is exactly the same as for PCs; platform fragmentation. Even Apple phones have quicker refresh cycles and Android phones come in hundreds of flavours. There is also major publisher inertia, slow progress in making wireless displays 'just work' and further fragmentation if you're expecting people to buy assorted third party controllers. I think it would take a significant push from Apple to make a standard 'gaming dock' including standard controller, and throwing money at devs/publishers to get some good exclusives. I'm not sure they really want to go after the AAA $60-per-game market when they have a huge existing market selling $1 and FTP casual games.

[TheFeniX]

The difference from 480p to 1080p is perceptually much more significant than the difference between 1080p and 4K. I admitt I have not done any 3D gaming at 4K yet, but for 2D games it definitely isn't a big deal vs 1600p for platformers or anything with constant movement. The difference is only strongly noticable in Wesnoth (a turn-based strategy game), mostly because the fided scaling means you can see more of the map. I know 2560x1600 (my previous main monitor) is already better than 1080p, but my point is that back in the day VGA (640x480) to SVGA (800x600) was a hyge perceptual jump. A similar ratio now is 'that's nice I guess' - although as I've said, it's great for productivity (software dev).

Aside from the HUD changes, the jump to 4K was very subtle. As opposed to the jump I made to 1024x768 in UT when I got my VooDoo being as subtle as a boulder down the freeway. That said, going back to 1080p can be annoying as the loss of subtle fidelity makes everything just blurry enough to piss me off. And I don't have a cheap 1080p monitor.

I am not saying that 4K games aren't nice to have or that the next console generation won't support them, I'm saying that lack of 4K will not be any more significant in the duration of this generation than lack of 1080p was in the last generation, regardless of the proliferation rate of 4K TVs.

I don't think 4K console games matter that much because people will have nothing to compare them to. With no 4K console games even on the horizon, they'll never notice even the subtle differences between 1080p and 4K. The problem is Sony and MS have backed themselves into a corner by being providers of high-fidelity content. Nintendo is just going to continue making money hand-over-fist on their first-party stuff. But 4K content is coming and if your new 4K Smart TV will display said content on it's own and your fancy Xbone/PS4 won't: they've basically pulled their console out of the center of the room by nature of the technology.

If you haven't already, go to an electronics store and check out some 4K TVs running uncompressed content. It's not a shocker like Blu-Ray was, but it is an immediately noticeable improvement.

Never, at typical TV FoV, because the resolution of the eye is finite and we are well into dimminishing returns with 4K TVs. 8K will barely be visible even if you have good vision and are trying to notice it. The situation will be different if giant (2m+) screens become normal for small rooms, or HMDs become popular, but for any given FoV tve resolution of tge eye is an upper bound on useful resolution.

I notice going back to 1080p on my PC more than I noticed going up to 4k. This is kind of my point: I've talked to more than a few people, been there for their first time viewing of things like 1080p and HD-DVDs: they really don't notice the difference. Joke analogy: like people smoking pot for the first time generally don't know they're high. What they do notice is having to go back. Like I said earlier: try and get my wife to watch a DVD, she'll cut you.

What 4K gaming offers is those little things you can't point to in a screen-shot or take in a vacuum and say "This is why you 4K." It's little thing like the extra clarity making all the spins of my Dragoons lance look crisper then they did at 1080p. At 1080p, I could have said the same thing, but after a few months, 1080p looks downright muddy and I didn't even increase my screen-size. Are the improvement central to my gaming experience? No, but they are improvements and it sucks when they aren't there even though I can't point out every little thing that just looks better. Then again, the 1ms response time of my 4K monitor may play into this as well.

And I'm interested to see where this goes for PC vs console gaming because even though even I have a hard time explaining why it's better without just posting 4K screenshot: it just is. And it's not hard to run at 4K even now: move the resolution slider up and pray your GPU doesn't explode. And it's only going to get easier when 4K monitors are the same price as 1080p and the hardware to run it bottoms out since very few modern games are graphical powerhouses due to console port limitations. You're going to hit a spot where even the most assholish of PC gamer can post 4K screenshots on his mom's Dell and posts shit like "enjoying your 900p?"

The illusion of console/PC parity has been mostly maintained by 1080p and the insistence that 30FPS is "fine." When 4K becomes the resolution of choice for PC purchasers (provided OS support gets moving) and even the shittiest of cards can output 4K with only a modest loss in graphical settings, there's not going to be a lot for developers to point at in their "PC gaming is dead" mantra.

And that's a good thing, because we're overdue for improvements in frame rate, colour depth and colour gamut.

I'm not holding my breath. Developers have put frame-rates out to pasture. I've even read some second-hand accounts that "PC First" Witcher 3 is going to be locked at 30FPS for the PC version. Though, I'm betting it's bullshit perpetuated by people with an axe to grind because it hasn't been picked up by any of the mainstream news sites.