Perhaps I'm overly cynical, but I would wager these survey results are completely meaningless. Being angry at Sony for ending physical games is the "correct opinion" right now and all of the social media influencers are getting big views off of the drama. And a significant number of people will just parrot the outrage they hear about even if they don't actually care. But by the time the PS6 comes out, I would bet that a significant portion of those who claim this is too far and they'll never buy from Sony again will be back buying their devices.
It does suck, and you should join the PCMR. But I imagine this will blow over before long.
I don't think it'll blow over as easily because the PS6 is going to be as expensive as a PC[0], at $1,000 or more. The usual things that inhibit consumer action are hassle, expense, and inertia, and Sony is dishing out all of that to its customers already.
Gaming is getting too expensive. This feels like sort of an accident of complex systems. Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing. But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago. From a pure "can we have good entertainment?" standpoint there's no reason for this cost creep. In practice, companies are pushing it, and although it probably does not apply to the HN crowd, but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
The industry and its fans are its own worst enemies. However, if you don't go bonkers over recent AAA games, gaming has never been more accessible or cheaper. I didn't buy a game this steam sale for more than $3, and each game would run on more or less anything.
Current top 5 played games on the Steam Deck are: Slay the Spire 2, The Binding of Isaac, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley, and Baldur's Gate 3. BG3 is the only one you can consider AAA, but Larian is hardly an EA or Blizzard.
The big AAA studios recycle the same formulas and push graphical quality (mostly downstream of Unreal Engine improvements) because they are risk averse. Similar to big comic-book-hero films. It's not what consumers want and it's increasingly starting to show. AAA is struggling badly while indie has been on an absolute tear the past few years.
> but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
Modern games have visually worse graphics than games that came out 10+ years ago. Beyond that, the success of a lot of games recently with non AAA budgets shows that gamers aren’t demanding anything from the industry beyond playable games that don’t treat them as a perpetual revenue stream.
I don't think many consumers (outside of hardcore games) could tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 10 years ago to the graphics from a game of today. Things have hardly moved on at all. As an example to illustrate the point: GTA:V is 13 years old.
But the GTA V that people play today is not the version from 13 years ago for PS3 and Xbox 360.
We are on the third-generation of GTA V with the enhanced edition that only came out on PC last year, and Xbox/PS5 4 years ago. The latest version has 18x the pixels per second (9x resolution, 2x frame rate), and far more detailed models and textures than the Xbox 360/PS3 version.
It has been profitable for Rockstar to keep remaking the game with better and better visuals specifically because consumers are demanding it.
I could be wrong, but my personal impression is that much like on HN, it's the enthusiasts who are quite into niche stuff like indie games and bemoan the graphics race, where as the silent mass of "average" gamers are more like "oh man, the new Call of Duty has even better graphics! I can't imagine playing the old one anymore."
> I don't think many consumers (outside of hardcore games) could tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 10 years ago to the graphics from a game of today
My half blind aunt could probably tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 2016 and 2026 if you put them side by side.
Were video game graphics "good enough" for a while now? I’d say yes, with the exception of vr. But to say there has been no noticeable improvement over the last 10 years is silly.
GTA 6 is coming out soon. I’d invite you to actually compare the visuals of gta 6 vs the original gta 5 from 2014 that was released for ps4 (rather than the 2022 enhanced version for consoles or 2015 version for pc which shouldn’t be compared to non-pc gta 6, since 6 for pc will also get a significant facelift).
It is not really about graphics as it is about the scale of a game. Many studios don't even create their own custom engines like they used to to push the most out of hardware and use Unreal Engine. Games take long now because they are much larger in scope and are typically open world. Even the sequel to Breath of the Wild took 6 years and the graphics aren't exactly staggering but the scope of these games have improved a lot which isn't a bad thing. You can get lost in some for dozens of hours. I would imagine studios like From Software even enjoy the ambition of creating games like Elden Ring.
I feel the opposite way. My time gets more expensive and games are-- adjusted for inflation-- the same price. I know most people don't feel this way.
Lots of PC games have a $100- $200 tier where you get merch or all the DLC. That's probably aimed at people like me. The point is, if your business is games you make games for the people who will buy them. No game is more fun than a compiler, even the free ones.
> Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing
Is unrelated. AAA Gaming companies relied so heavily on technical improvements when things were new and genuine leaps in ability that when we hit the graphics are good enough instead of just making great games that are fun, they had to do stupid graphics tricks.
Did every strand of hair need to be individually rendered to act as real as possible so the one guy who is dissecting ever frame would be happy?
Did that horses scrotum need to be animated at all, let alone react to the environment?
Did that thing that basically no one will ever see need to be created over the course of 9 months?
These stupid, pointless things to try and chase the same technical breakthrough selling points they had 25+ years ago are one of the major things driving the development costs.
Then of course there's the, 'ya whatever, you'll still pay for it, fuck you'[1] that publishers are latching on to.
> Did that thing that basically no one will ever see need to be created over the course of 9 months?
As an engineer, I worry so much about writing perfect code even when I know it is temporary script for one off job. In my home, I painted top of the doors that no one will see. But I know it is painted.
It is nice that people care about these small things.
There's a difference between caring about the small things and caring about things that don't matter at all. Look at city skylines 2. Every tooth in every person is individually rendered. Why? Every house hold budget is tracked and managed. Even though you can't do much about it.
Lots of technically advanced simulations are going on in that game to build the most advanced simulation. But people don't play a game became its simulating a city accurately right down to individual teeth in every citizen. They play a game because it's fun.
Gaming is so much cheaper than when I was growing up that I'm kind of blown away.
SNES games went for $60-70. That's like $130-150 in today's money. And they usually had less content than today's games, even if you never do microtransactions today!
In contrast, major AAA titles today are half the price, and you can find indie games packed with content for a paltry $20. Hell, with Steam sales, you can find them even cheaper than that! Some free to play games like Dota 2 make all of their core gameplay content free!
If you check when games like Quake were released, their minimum requirements were absolutely INSANE compared to today. We're talking about mid to high-end CPUs released within the last two or three years, none of this "oh yeah something lower-middle from 5 years ago is fine". Average prices for computers were much higher too (well, maybe the current RAM/SSD crisis has equalized that a bit, but other than that).
Controllers? 8bitdo and the like make highly competent gamepads for $30, which would've been $15 in the 90's. You couldn't even get terrible third-party shitpads for that little back then! It's disgustingly cheap.
If you want to game these days, you can spend a very reasonable amount of money on a mid-range gaming PC* and have it last at least a good 5-6 years. You can then buy games for a steal on Steam, and get surprisingly decent peripherals like gaming monitors and mechanical keyboards for almost no money. The idea that gaming is "too expensive now" is itself laughable.
* Well, other than the memory crisis fucking things up, but before AI companies ate all the RAM, things were very reasonable
Nobody wants to look at it, but I think this is a lot of it. The original Prince of Persia PC/Amiga version retailed at $39.95, or roughly $100 in today's money. In fact, roughly $100 in 2026 dollars was actually quite a stable price point for a very long time.
A $60 game in 2006 is also roughly $100 in 2026 dollars. I think what happened is that around then, people generally decided that "$60 is the price of a AAA game, and anything more is a sham". If I had to bet, I'd guess that that was around when a lot of the public got into gaming as something that wasn't just "for nerds".
I think that if people were willing to drop $100 up front, base price for a game, you would not find the microtransaction, ultimate edition, day 1 DLC shenanigans that you see. Companies would find it easy to say "But of course all skins are unlockable in game!"
I don’t believe you were intending to paint with a broad brush, but for others I’d like to explain where SNES game pricing was in more detail, as there was quite the range of prices depending on the game and when it was released.
———-
The plain Jane SNES game was $50 at US launch in late 1991. Normal-ish ROM size (4Mbit). This included later released first-party titles like Super Mario Kart (1992).
Prices went up with ROM size, and as there were higher supply costs starting in late 1993 and into 1994. So something like even LOZ: A Link to the Past was $60 (8Mbit ROM used, game a bit smaller). Mega Man X was $60 for the same reason. Final Fantasy II (IV) in the US was $65 at launch (again, 8Mbit ROM). Street Fighter II (16Mbit) was $70 in 1992.
Then there’s larger games still, with ROM prices going down then up. I believe Final Fantasy III (VI) was $75 USD at launch, but that was a 24Mbit ROM. Secret of Mana (16MBit) and Chrono Trigger (32MBit) were $80 at launch. Then you had Ogre Battle which I believe was $90, despite fitting within 12Mbit (8Mbit + 4Mbit).
Another reason for $70 prices were the SuperFX chip. Stunt Race FX was $70 in the US at launch because of that chip, even though it fit into an 8Mbit ROM. Yet Star Fox was $60 was the same hardware, but launched at $60 in 1993 whereas Stunt Race FX came out in 1994 where ROM prices are higher.
—-
So $50 - 90, with it more in the $50-60 range at launch, and then $60 being more common through the rest of the console’s lifecycle. Special and larger games were trending towards $70 later in the console lifecycle. Then you had the few crazy games (excluding games with accessories like Lethal Enforcers) in the $75 - 90 range.
I hear people complaining nonstop about the state of gaming but man, I stopped playing AAA years ago organically and started playing AA and indie and it's been wonderful. Between Steam & GoG sales and using Epic Game Store only for all of their free stuff, my backlog grows and grows.
Obviously this is subjective, but try some of that $5-10 stuff on Steam or GoG and you might be surprised how much there is to play out there. I'm playing Dread Delusion right now and it is amazing (estimate I'm 50% done but playing blind), Wicked Seed before that, Deformed before that, etc.
I’ll pick up a AAA game every few years and only after it’s on steep sale. This method has been working well for me but I’ve also considered myself as having my foot out the door for being a “gaming enthusiast” for 5-8 years now. I got tired of AAA games being so much money and not being very fun. Most recently, finally bought GoW Ragnarok for like $26 USD, ended up really not liking it and putting it down after 8 or so hours. Hurts a lot less when on steep sale.
I play a lot less than I used to thanks to cost, game quality and time - and the PS5 will be my last Sony console, regardless of the newest happenings. It’ll be PC and maybe a Nintendo console here and there unless prices go up even higher next gen, at which point I’d be done with consoles entirely and just use Steam and probably play indie and older games only. The industry just isn’t what it used to be.
>But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago.
This is true for every entertainment medium. Time filters out all the crap made so your left with a few timeless hits. Especially 30 years ago and in gaming?
Though to pick on 1996 , I just looked it up, that was a pretty crazy year of games in hindsight.
Yup and in 30 years from now, people will be saying the same for the last 30 years. For every Ocarina of Time there was hundreds of no names based on movie gimmick games that are forgotten about. For every Super Mario there was a hundred ET games on NES.
The mid to late 90s were incredible for video games. 1998 in particular might be the most impactful year of video game releases ever, tho 1996 is damn near as impactful as 1998. Probably the fact I was a teenager during this time colors my view substantially haha.
1996: Mario 64, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, NiGHTS, Crash Bandicoot, Quake, DOA/Soul Edge, Pokémon Red/Blue, Civ II
1998: Zelda OOT, Marvel vs Capcom, Castlevania SOTN, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Half-Life, DDR, Baldue’s Gate, Mario Party, Grim Fandango
I do wonder if a studio that made a lot of smaller games with less technical specs but spent all the money in fun gameplay design and character design and stories would outcompete major AAA game studios.
I think I'm just describing mobile game studios pre-gachafication
I think you’re also describing the indie/lower-budget scene that does very well on Steam. There’s plenty of games that break out via streaming, for instance.
It's very interesting. I played that new-ish Marvel: Cosmic Invasion game and recently played Fight 'N Rage. I believe both are built in the exact same game engine. Fight 'N Rage, which is undoubtedly the better of the two games (although both are quite fun) had a tiny roster. I think there was a single primary developer, and then one guy did the music and maybe 1-2 other people helped with things. The Marvel game was made by a "real" studio and had tens (hundreds?) of staff to build what was effectively a slightly lower quality game. (although the Marvel game had a much smaller staff than anything like a modern AAA release.) Famously, Doom and Quake were made by quite small teams.
I don't know what the answer is, but there just seems to be unavoidable bloat all around. Staff, cost, complexity, system requirements, etc.
What do you mean by "outcompete"? There've been some extremely successful small-studio games recently (the one that comes to mind is Silksong, which dropped last September)
I think it's a function of growth at all costs (or to put more bluntly, capitalism). TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling, as do video game systems, etc. And graphics are the easiest benchmark to advertise progress, but also some of the most taxing systems to build because they're so complex that there are huge markets of commercial game engines to address this.
Good gameplay requires taste, nuance, experience. Things that are hard to quantify if you're an MBA.
TVs dont need to continuously improve. They just need to fall apart continuously. Which they now do. Ever own a 4k tv without problems for 5-10 years? Me neither. If you did please list the make and model as I would like to have one that is just as good as my old workhouse 1080p panel. Sony bravia I tried shit the bed and from the forum crawling I did this is not an unexpected issue. Most people seem to expect their TV to fail in about 5 years now it seems.
I have a 4K 43" TCL (model number 43S423) which has been working for 7 years. Unfortunately that doesn't disprove your claim because that would require over 10 years of service.
All while getting worse; advertisements, terrible interfaces, privacy invasions, frame gen, weird color options, etc. I don't hate capitalism or anything, but new TVs are dumb as heck.
That's annoying, but it's not why scaled manufacturing is lowering unit costs of panel production. Look at bare panel prices, they've followed the same cost curve down.
The same problem exists in the airline market. Airline ticket prices are historically very low, but people complain about seats, fees, and so on. But then they keep buying the absolute cheapest ticket.
What consumers say they care about, and what they actually care about, are not the same. Otherwise they'd pay more for the less irritating product.
I would only buy consoles after they had been out a few years, mid to late lifetime of the console, the primary benefit was it's nice to have in the living room instead of on a desk. Most of the games I bought were used or on sale. All of my purchases have been long tail distribution of a system. If a console goes digital only I won't buy the console. Most of my games are on pc now anyway, none of the modern games are way better than older ones, the only reason to keep up with the times is for community and discussion around the current events of the game, but I prefered single player games in the first place. But even now I have a backlog I can never finish in my lifetime, most of which are considered good.
So long story short, if Sony goes digital only, I will go back to retro and pc and I won't feel like I'm missing out that much if at all.
Consoles have been on their last gap as the difference between what consoles and PCs offer have converged. PS2 had significant sales because it was many customers first DVD player. With everything digital and console prices coming close to mid-tier Gaming PCs, where's the benefit of buying a console? Nintendo was smart for making the Switch a hybrid console.
I think it's driven more about piracy than anything else. Steam is not an alternative if you hate digital only games. PC as a platform (and that can mean anything from Windows to Linux to Mac) is an alternative as cheaper gaming becasue 1, you can pirate games easier 2, you can emulate older games.
It really comes down to the next PS6 exclusive, would people buy a console just to play Dark Souls 4? That's the billion dollar question
That entirely depends on the games you want to play. Check the most played games on Steam and how many of them are available on GOG. 1 out of 10 or even less.
Why? It makes no sense really... you buy into a console and stay with it until the next release...
Last time I checked, the ps6 hasn't been announced, there probably won't be a Xbox one X/S/pro/whatever successor any time soon, and PC hardware is expensive or hard to get right now.
Just stay the road for 6 months and see how the market shakes out.
You can not-quite-trivially download all versions of a game that have been uploaded to steam, as long as you own the game. And that's a download like as an installers you can run, not just overwriting your current active steam install.
I actually rely on this quite a lot, indirectly. Beat Saber is a fun game, but it doesn't support a lot of fun features, like walls with boundaries that aren't aligned to the coordinate system. There are mods to add those features, but they haven't all been ported over to the new line of the game since it upgraded the version of unity it's using. So I use one of the mod managers that supports, among other things, maintaining multiple versions of the game in parallel so you can choose what you want to do when you start a game. This feature very explicitly relies on downloading older versions from Steam. Because that's a thing you can do with Steam.
In the same week that Sony announced they'd be ending production of optical media, they also removed hundreds of movies from user libraries that they'd lost the right to sell. I don't really care if they have yet to do the same with games - they've demonstrated they're willing to remove access from paying customers for their own reasons. And there's nothing the owner of a locked-down console can do about it.
Steam exists in a different universe than digital-only games from PSN. Conflating the two because they use the same method of delivery is ridiculous.
Steam, at least in theory, has Gabe's long ago pledge that they'd un-DRM purchased games if Valve ever went out of business. Whether Gabe or his successor actually would honor that pledge today if it happened or even could contractually is a different question.
They tried dropping discs when they launched the ps5, but I don't think many people bought the online only version because North American internet still sucks.
Don't really have the room for a gaming PC anymore after moving, I've got my old one but it needs some fixing up (RTX 3080). 1TB Xbox One Series X I got second hand for about $400 (also added a storage expansion for about $130) is doing me sound for any gaming needs (currency converted from GBP). All the games optimised, usually 60fps, no messing about with settings other than the quality/performance switches. Looks great on the TV with 4K/HDR. Laptop for the day to day workstation stuff. Lovely controller. Been enjoying Forza Horizon 6 and just started playing Star Wars Outlaws.
Used to be pretty 'PC Master Race' but then life got in the way.
I do miss stuff like modded Valve games and keyboard & mouse, but can run them somewhat on my laptop.
I've only ever owned a Steam Deck so can't really comment. I used it a couple times intending to use it when travelling by train then sold it because it was too wide/big to really carry around with the carry case. Didn't really see the advantage over just playing mobile games (or doomscrolling social media etc) or playing more indie/basic games on the laptop.
Xbox is fine, it updates itself (firmware/OS updates only take about 5 mins) and the servers are fast enough. There's basically no maintenance. Can be annoying if it's a game you wanted to play at the moment updating but then Steam is the same.
I've been using Steam for 15 years and in that time they have never done me wrong. I trust Valve to do the right thing.
On the other hand, I know for a fact that sony will do the worst possible thing over and over again every time they have the chance to.
Remember that time Sony took away features from the PS3 that were advertised selling points? Remember when modders added the features back and Sony sent them to prison?
Some people like disc cases and the actual disk itself, but the main gripes I've seen with digital only games on consoles were: 1) without a disc you can't give/trade/sell the game, 2) without a disc the game can be taken away from you, 3) if you can't make an offline backup copy of the game and transfer it from console to console, most/every copy of a game will eventually disappear.
Steam has issues, and you certainly can't (legally) trade or sell your library, but nearly no single player games on the platform have DRM. Thus, you can have as many off-Steam backups as you want (which can't be remotely deleted/disabled), and you could certainly "give" the game to a friend (but don't copy that floppy), or otherwise preserve it for posterity.
I was waiting for GTA 6… but if it’s not released in disk, then I will simply pass. If new games start to be non-physical, then I will simply stop playing new games
As soon as you put a physical disc into a console, it immediately ignores its contents and downloads all new code. In this way, the physical disc is simply a physical DRM. At some point, the game has to be saved in some state well in advance of release date to manufacture/ship said physical disc with enough time to have it be available for release date. Back when I was involved with physical shiny round discs back in 2007, it was minimum 6-8 weeks. That's forever in game dev for changes to be made so that the content on the disc is probably just heavy assets used by whatever is downloaded.
After the success of the portable devices like the Switch with a dock, building a non-portable device only seems like continuing to build farming equipment for oxen.
Not sure why. looking at the polls it would seem the primary points are
1) Sony ending physical disks
2) potential high price of next gen.
1 is hilarious, even games that come on physical disks are already mostly useless without internet. I had a ps4 and bought "Last of Us" and the game is literally unbeatable without an internet connection. It has a game breaking bug that isn't patched on disk. Many other games are crap or broken without patches. Also jumping to PC where there hasn't been physical media in ages and 99% of games have DRM is just out of the frying pan into the fire. based on the market share for GOG I can assure you only a small fraction of gamers actually care about "owning" their games.
2 is kinda stupid, they mentioned a price point of $1,000, not sure you can build a next-gen-console comparable PC for that price. My current computer's GPU cost more than that by itself and anything but a pittance of RAM will too.
I mean go for it, more PC gamers the better (it's my chosen platform) but if you weren't already on board years ago not sure anything has really changed.
Physical disks were one of the last differentiators that consoles had. 20 years ago, you could buy a game, take it home, put it into the console, and begin playing straightaway. Now it has to be installed first to storage, which of course the console has a finite amount of and will cost you more money to expand it. There's also been a complete shift from local multiplayer and dedicated servers/server browsers to gating online play behind subscriptions and forcing everyone through matchmaking in order to serve up cannon fodder for more experienced players.
If I were Sony, I would worry just as much about the people who bow out of playing games altogether, or just retreat into retro games especially with all the new Android handhelds targeting them.
All forms of entertainment are entering crisis, because there is so much of it competing for attention, and so many years of back catalog that are still entertaining and available for free-or-nearly-free. Premium gaming and premium content of any kind seems unsustainable.
> Premium gaming and premium content of any kind seems unsustainable.
That's one of the main problems of current gaming. Games have become just "content". And as such they are disposable. Why replay (and appreciate) something you liked? Just play something else.
I for one recommend building an i7 box and really anything from that generation are still really good CPUs if youre making a gaming box. Otherwise you may run into RAM costs or some other high hardware costs.
>an i7 box and really anything from that generation
That doesn't mean anything at all. The i7 is a family of CPUs which can be anything from a 2009 i7-860 (with DDR3 support only) to a 2023 i7-14700k (with DDR5 support). Insane performance difference.
I think the point is that an i7, even from ~15 years ago, is probably sufficient for most gaming needs, especially if the game is primarily GPU-bound.
As long as you give the older CPU enough RAM, an SSD, and a good GPU, it probably is sufficient unless your doing sim-heavy games where you want the simulation speed to be maxed out (e.g. HoI4 later years max speed simulation)
Sorry my comment is about finding hardware that affordably allows you to build a good gaming rig if that’s the sole purpose. There are plenty of previous gen cpus that will give most gamers 90% of what they want to play no need for the LATEST hardware. That dream is dying.
“…and Tom, we’re hearing reports that those numbers are approaching 80% in groups of consumers who have been informed they can simply use a controller with a PC.”
Perhaps I'm overly cynical, but I would wager these survey results are completely meaningless. Being angry at Sony for ending physical games is the "correct opinion" right now and all of the social media influencers are getting big views off of the drama. And a significant number of people will just parrot the outrage they hear about even if they don't actually care. But by the time the PS6 comes out, I would bet that a significant portion of those who claim this is too far and they'll never buy from Sony again will be back buying their devices.
It does suck, and you should join the PCMR. But I imagine this will blow over before long.
I don't think it'll blow over as easily because the PS6 is going to be as expensive as a PC[0], at $1,000 or more. The usual things that inhibit consumer action are hassle, expense, and inertia, and Sony is dishing out all of that to its customers already.
[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/PS6-price-estimate-now-1000-an...
Gaming is getting too expensive. This feels like sort of an accident of complex systems. Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing. But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago. From a pure "can we have good entertainment?" standpoint there's no reason for this cost creep. In practice, companies are pushing it, and although it probably does not apply to the HN crowd, but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
The industry and its fans are its own worst enemies. However, if you don't go bonkers over recent AAA games, gaming has never been more accessible or cheaper. I didn't buy a game this steam sale for more than $3, and each game would run on more or less anything.
Current top 5 played games on the Steam Deck are: Slay the Spire 2, The Binding of Isaac, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley, and Baldur's Gate 3. BG3 is the only one you can consider AAA, but Larian is hardly an EA or Blizzard.
The big AAA studios recycle the same formulas and push graphical quality (mostly downstream of Unreal Engine improvements) because they are risk averse. Similar to big comic-book-hero films. It's not what consumers want and it's increasingly starting to show. AAA is struggling badly while indie has been on an absolute tear the past few years.
> but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
Modern games have visually worse graphics than games that came out 10+ years ago. Beyond that, the success of a lot of games recently with non AAA budgets shows that gamers aren’t demanding anything from the industry beyond playable games that don’t treat them as a perpetual revenue stream.
> Modern games have visually worse graphics than games that came out 10+ years ago
My knee jerk reaction was to disagree with this, but I thought about it a bit
The Witcher 3 came out 10 years ago. So did Red Dead Redemption 2 (edit: not quite, actually 8 years. Still!)
A lot of games still fall short of those in the graphics department
consumers are also demanding better graphics
I don't think many consumers (outside of hardcore games) could tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 10 years ago to the graphics from a game of today. Things have hardly moved on at all. As an example to illustrate the point: GTA:V is 13 years old.
But the GTA V that people play today is not the version from 13 years ago for PS3 and Xbox 360.
We are on the third-generation of GTA V with the enhanced edition that only came out on PC last year, and Xbox/PS5 4 years ago. The latest version has 18x the pixels per second (9x resolution, 2x frame rate), and far more detailed models and textures than the Xbox 360/PS3 version.
It has been profitable for Rockstar to keep remaking the game with better and better visuals specifically because consumers are demanding it.
I could be wrong, but my personal impression is that much like on HN, it's the enthusiasts who are quite into niche stuff like indie games and bemoan the graphics race, where as the silent mass of "average" gamers are more like "oh man, the new Call of Duty has even better graphics! I can't imagine playing the old one anymore."
> I don't think many consumers (outside of hardcore games) could tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 10 years ago to the graphics from a game of today
My half blind aunt could probably tell the difference between the graphics of a game from 2016 and 2026 if you put them side by side.
Were video game graphics "good enough" for a while now? I’d say yes, with the exception of vr. But to say there has been no noticeable improvement over the last 10 years is silly.
GTA 6 is coming out soon. I’d invite you to actually compare the visuals of gta 6 vs the original gta 5 from 2014 that was released for ps4 (rather than the 2022 enhanced version for consoles or 2015 version for pc which shouldn’t be compared to non-pc gta 6, since 6 for pc will also get a significant facelift).
It is not really about graphics as it is about the scale of a game. Many studios don't even create their own custom engines like they used to to push the most out of hardware and use Unreal Engine. Games take long now because they are much larger in scope and are typically open world. Even the sequel to Breath of the Wild took 6 years and the graphics aren't exactly staggering but the scope of these games have improved a lot which isn't a bad thing. You can get lost in some for dozens of hours. I would imagine studios like From Software even enjoy the ambition of creating games like Elden Ring.
I feel the opposite way. My time gets more expensive and games are-- adjusted for inflation-- the same price. I know most people don't feel this way.
Lots of PC games have a $100- $200 tier where you get merch or all the DLC. That's probably aimed at people like me. The point is, if your business is games you make games for the people who will buy them. No game is more fun than a compiler, even the free ones.
Gaming was always an expensive hobby. But this -
> Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing
Is unrelated. AAA Gaming companies relied so heavily on technical improvements when things were new and genuine leaps in ability that when we hit the graphics are good enough instead of just making great games that are fun, they had to do stupid graphics tricks.
Did every strand of hair need to be individually rendered to act as real as possible so the one guy who is dissecting ever frame would be happy? Did that horses scrotum need to be animated at all, let alone react to the environment? Did that thing that basically no one will ever see need to be created over the course of 9 months?
These stupid, pointless things to try and chase the same technical breakthrough selling points they had 25+ years ago are one of the major things driving the development costs.
Then of course there's the, 'ya whatever, you'll still pay for it, fuck you'[1] that publishers are latching on to.
[1]https://youtu.be/vBG3OYSa3YQ?t=50
> Did that thing that basically no one will ever see need to be created over the course of 9 months?
As an engineer, I worry so much about writing perfect code even when I know it is temporary script for one off job. In my home, I painted top of the doors that no one will see. But I know it is painted.
It is nice that people care about these small things.
There's a difference between caring about the small things and caring about things that don't matter at all. Look at city skylines 2. Every tooth in every person is individually rendered. Why? Every house hold budget is tracked and managed. Even though you can't do much about it.
Lots of technically advanced simulations are going on in that game to build the most advanced simulation. But people don't play a game became its simulating a city accurately right down to individual teeth in every citizen. They play a game because it's fun.
> Gaming is getting too expensive.
Gaming is so much cheaper than when I was growing up that I'm kind of blown away.
SNES games went for $60-70. That's like $130-150 in today's money. And they usually had less content than today's games, even if you never do microtransactions today!
In contrast, major AAA titles today are half the price, and you can find indie games packed with content for a paltry $20. Hell, with Steam sales, you can find them even cheaper than that! Some free to play games like Dota 2 make all of their core gameplay content free!
If you check when games like Quake were released, their minimum requirements were absolutely INSANE compared to today. We're talking about mid to high-end CPUs released within the last two or three years, none of this "oh yeah something lower-middle from 5 years ago is fine". Average prices for computers were much higher too (well, maybe the current RAM/SSD crisis has equalized that a bit, but other than that).
Controllers? 8bitdo and the like make highly competent gamepads for $30, which would've been $15 in the 90's. You couldn't even get terrible third-party shitpads for that little back then! It's disgustingly cheap.
If you want to game these days, you can spend a very reasonable amount of money on a mid-range gaming PC* and have it last at least a good 5-6 years. You can then buy games for a steal on Steam, and get surprisingly decent peripherals like gaming monitors and mechanical keyboards for almost no money. The idea that gaming is "too expensive now" is itself laughable.
* Well, other than the memory crisis fucking things up, but before AI companies ate all the RAM, things were very reasonable
Nobody wants to look at it, but I think this is a lot of it. The original Prince of Persia PC/Amiga version retailed at $39.95, or roughly $100 in today's money. In fact, roughly $100 in 2026 dollars was actually quite a stable price point for a very long time.
A $60 game in 2006 is also roughly $100 in 2026 dollars. I think what happened is that around then, people generally decided that "$60 is the price of a AAA game, and anything more is a sham". If I had to bet, I'd guess that that was around when a lot of the public got into gaming as something that wasn't just "for nerds".
I think that if people were willing to drop $100 up front, base price for a game, you would not find the microtransaction, ultimate edition, day 1 DLC shenanigans that you see. Companies would find it easy to say "But of course all skins are unlockable in game!"
>SNES games went for $60-70.
I don’t believe you were intending to paint with a broad brush, but for others I’d like to explain where SNES game pricing was in more detail, as there was quite the range of prices depending on the game and when it was released.
———-
The plain Jane SNES game was $50 at US launch in late 1991. Normal-ish ROM size (4Mbit). This included later released first-party titles like Super Mario Kart (1992).
Prices went up with ROM size, and as there were higher supply costs starting in late 1993 and into 1994. So something like even LOZ: A Link to the Past was $60 (8Mbit ROM used, game a bit smaller). Mega Man X was $60 for the same reason. Final Fantasy II (IV) in the US was $65 at launch (again, 8Mbit ROM). Street Fighter II (16Mbit) was $70 in 1992.
Then there’s larger games still, with ROM prices going down then up. I believe Final Fantasy III (VI) was $75 USD at launch, but that was a 24Mbit ROM. Secret of Mana (16MBit) and Chrono Trigger (32MBit) were $80 at launch. Then you had Ogre Battle which I believe was $90, despite fitting within 12Mbit (8Mbit + 4Mbit).
Another reason for $70 prices were the SuperFX chip. Stunt Race FX was $70 in the US at launch because of that chip, even though it fit into an 8Mbit ROM. Yet Star Fox was $60 was the same hardware, but launched at $60 in 1993 whereas Stunt Race FX came out in 1994 where ROM prices are higher.
—-
So $50 - 90, with it more in the $50-60 range at launch, and then $60 being more common through the rest of the console’s lifecycle. Special and larger games were trending towards $70 later in the console lifecycle. Then you had the few crazy games (excluding games with accessories like Lethal Enforcers) in the $75 - 90 range.
Even more recently, some of my favorite games are not that graphically intense. Hades and Hades II are phenomenal, for example.
I hear people complaining nonstop about the state of gaming but man, I stopped playing AAA years ago organically and started playing AA and indie and it's been wonderful. Between Steam & GoG sales and using Epic Game Store only for all of their free stuff, my backlog grows and grows.
Obviously this is subjective, but try some of that $5-10 stuff on Steam or GoG and you might be surprised how much there is to play out there. I'm playing Dread Delusion right now and it is amazing (estimate I'm 50% done but playing blind), Wicked Seed before that, Deformed before that, etc.
I’ll pick up a AAA game every few years and only after it’s on steep sale. This method has been working well for me but I’ve also considered myself as having my foot out the door for being a “gaming enthusiast” for 5-8 years now. I got tired of AAA games being so much money and not being very fun. Most recently, finally bought GoW Ragnarok for like $26 USD, ended up really not liking it and putting it down after 8 or so hours. Hurts a lot less when on steep sale.
I play a lot less than I used to thanks to cost, game quality and time - and the PS5 will be my last Sony console, regardless of the newest happenings. It’ll be PC and maybe a Nintendo console here and there unless prices go up even higher next gen, at which point I’d be done with consoles entirely and just use Steam and probably play indie and older games only. The industry just isn’t what it used to be.
>But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago.
This is true for every entertainment medium. Time filters out all the crap made so your left with a few timeless hits. Especially 30 years ago and in gaming?
Though to pick on 1996 , I just looked it up, that was a pretty crazy year of games in hindsight.
Yup and in 30 years from now, people will be saying the same for the last 30 years. For every Ocarina of Time there was hundreds of no names based on movie gimmick games that are forgotten about. For every Super Mario there was a hundred ET games on NES.
The mid to late 90s were incredible for video games. 1998 in particular might be the most impactful year of video game releases ever, tho 1996 is damn near as impactful as 1998. Probably the fact I was a teenager during this time colors my view substantially haha.
1996: Mario 64, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, NiGHTS, Crash Bandicoot, Quake, DOA/Soul Edge, Pokémon Red/Blue, Civ II
1998: Zelda OOT, Marvel vs Capcom, Castlevania SOTN, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Half-Life, DDR, Baldue’s Gate, Mario Party, Grim Fandango
I do wonder if a studio that made a lot of smaller games with less technical specs but spent all the money in fun gameplay design and character design and stories would outcompete major AAA game studios.
I think I'm just describing mobile game studios pre-gachafication
I think you’re also describing the indie/lower-budget scene that does very well on Steam. There’s plenty of games that break out via streaming, for instance.
It's very interesting. I played that new-ish Marvel: Cosmic Invasion game and recently played Fight 'N Rage. I believe both are built in the exact same game engine. Fight 'N Rage, which is undoubtedly the better of the two games (although both are quite fun) had a tiny roster. I think there was a single primary developer, and then one guy did the music and maybe 1-2 other people helped with things. The Marvel game was made by a "real" studio and had tens (hundreds?) of staff to build what was effectively a slightly lower quality game. (although the Marvel game had a much smaller staff than anything like a modern AAA release.) Famously, Doom and Quake were made by quite small teams.
I don't know what the answer is, but there just seems to be unavoidable bloat all around. Staff, cost, complexity, system requirements, etc.
> Doom and Quake were made by quite small teams
Doom came out in 1993, all teams were "small" by 2026 standards.
What do you mean by "outcompete"? There've been some extremely successful small-studio games recently (the one that comes to mind is Silksong, which dropped last September)
Isn’t this Nintendo? Pretty sure they’ve proven that you don’t need the latest in graphics (always a generation behind) to make engaging games.
this is sorta the Blumhouse model
I think it's a function of growth at all costs (or to put more bluntly, capitalism). TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling, as do video game systems, etc. And graphics are the easiest benchmark to advertise progress, but also some of the most taxing systems to build because they're so complex that there are huge markets of commercial game engines to address this.
Good gameplay requires taste, nuance, experience. Things that are hard to quantify if you're an MBA.
TVs dont need to continuously improve. They just need to fall apart continuously. Which they now do. Ever own a 4k tv without problems for 5-10 years? Me neither. If you did please list the make and model as I would like to have one that is just as good as my old workhouse 1080p panel. Sony bravia I tried shit the bed and from the forum crawling I did this is not an unexpected issue. Most people seem to expect their TV to fail in about 5 years now it seems.
I have a 4K 43" TCL (model number 43S423) which has been working for 7 years. Unfortunately that doesn't disprove your claim because that would require over 10 years of service.
> TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling
All while getting cheaper in the process. Thanks capitalism!
>All while getting cheaper in the process.
All while getting worse; advertisements, terrible interfaces, privacy invasions, frame gen, weird color options, etc. I don't hate capitalism or anything, but new TVs are dumb as heck.
Getting cheaper due to mandatory spyware that requires networking knowledge to properly isolate and disable. Thanks capitalism!
That's annoying, but it's not why scaled manufacturing is lowering unit costs of panel production. Look at bare panel prices, they've followed the same cost curve down.
The same problem exists in the airline market. Airline ticket prices are historically very low, but people complain about seats, fees, and so on. But then they keep buying the absolute cheapest ticket.
What consumers say they care about, and what they actually care about, are not the same. Otherwise they'd pay more for the less irritating product.
I would only buy consoles after they had been out a few years, mid to late lifetime of the console, the primary benefit was it's nice to have in the living room instead of on a desk. Most of the games I bought were used or on sale. All of my purchases have been long tail distribution of a system. If a console goes digital only I won't buy the console. Most of my games are on pc now anyway, none of the modern games are way better than older ones, the only reason to keep up with the times is for community and discussion around the current events of the game, but I prefered single player games in the first place. But even now I have a backlog I can never finish in my lifetime, most of which are considered good.
So long story short, if Sony goes digital only, I will go back to retro and pc and I won't feel like I'm missing out that much if at all.
I just have a desktop computer plugged into the TV in the living room.
I use sunshine/moonlight for local streaming
The primary benefit of consoles is a mix of price (at least in theory) and exclusives, which Sony still does.
Consoles have been on their last gap as the difference between what consoles and PCs offer have converged. PS2 had significant sales because it was many customers first DVD player. With everything digital and console prices coming close to mid-tier Gaming PCs, where's the benefit of buying a console? Nintendo was smart for making the Switch a hybrid console.
I think it's driven more about piracy than anything else. Steam is not an alternative if you hate digital only games. PC as a platform (and that can mean anything from Windows to Linux to Mac) is an alternative as cheaper gaming becasue 1, you can pirate games easier 2, you can emulate older games.
It really comes down to the next PS6 exclusive, would people buy a console just to play Dark Souls 4? That's the billion dollar question
> Steam is not an alternative if you hate digital only games.
GOG is the alternative. It sells DRM-free games
That entirely depends on the games you want to play. Check the most played games on Steam and how many of them are available on GOG. 1 out of 10 or even less.
There is also the fact that games on steam get (much) cheaper (much) faster than console games.
Discounts are more common, also.
Why? It makes no sense really... you buy into a console and stay with it until the next release...
Last time I checked, the ps6 hasn't been announced, there probably won't be a Xbox one X/S/pro/whatever successor any time soon, and PC hardware is expensive or hard to get right now.
Just stay the road for 6 months and see how the market shakes out.
You missed the part where Sony is going download only, which means any attempt to collect playstation games in the long run becomes impossible.
So they switch to Steam, a digital-only platform? In what world does that make sense?
You can not-quite-trivially download all versions of a game that have been uploaded to steam, as long as you own the game. And that's a download like as an installers you can run, not just overwriting your current active steam install.
I actually rely on this quite a lot, indirectly. Beat Saber is a fun game, but it doesn't support a lot of fun features, like walls with boundaries that aren't aligned to the coordinate system. There are mods to add those features, but they haven't all been ported over to the new line of the game since it upgraded the version of unity it's using. So I use one of the mod managers that supports, among other things, maintaining multiple versions of the game in parallel so you can choose what you want to do when you start a game. This feature very explicitly relies on downloading older versions from Steam. Because that's a thing you can do with Steam.
In the same week that Sony announced they'd be ending production of optical media, they also removed hundreds of movies from user libraries that they'd lost the right to sell. I don't really care if they have yet to do the same with games - they've demonstrated they're willing to remove access from paying customers for their own reasons. And there's nothing the owner of a locked-down console can do about it.
Steam exists in a different universe than digital-only games from PSN. Conflating the two because they use the same method of delivery is ridiculous.
Steam, at least in theory, has Gabe's long ago pledge that they'd un-DRM purchased games if Valve ever went out of business. Whether Gabe or his successor actually would honor that pledge today if it happened or even could contractually is a different question.
A little catch with consoles is that they are often lacking forward and backward compatibility. That isn't really a problem with PC.
I'm aware of that announcement, but its just words until they have a console to back it up with.
They will drop discs for the ps5 too starting 2028. They don't need a new console.
They tried dropping discs when they launched the ps5, but I don't think many people bought the online only version because North American internet still sucks.
The factory that makes ps5 disks is already being retooled.
Don't really have the room for a gaming PC anymore after moving, I've got my old one but it needs some fixing up (RTX 3080). 1TB Xbox One Series X I got second hand for about $400 (also added a storage expansion for about $130) is doing me sound for any gaming needs (currency converted from GBP). All the games optimised, usually 60fps, no messing about with settings other than the quality/performance switches. Looks great on the TV with 4K/HDR. Laptop for the day to day workstation stuff. Lovely controller. Been enjoying Forza Horizon 6 and just started playing Star Wars Outlaws.
Used to be pretty 'PC Master Race' but then life got in the way.
I do miss stuff like modded Valve games and keyboard & mouse, but can run them somewhat on my laptop.
Is keeping an Xbox and its software updated easier than a Steam Machine?
Serious question.
I've only ever owned a Steam Deck so can't really comment. I used it a couple times intending to use it when travelling by train then sold it because it was too wide/big to really carry around with the carry case. Didn't really see the advantage over just playing mobile games (or doomscrolling social media etc) or playing more indie/basic games on the laptop.
Xbox is fine, it updates itself (firmware/OS updates only take about 5 mins) and the servers are fast enough. There's basically no maintenance. Can be annoying if it's a game you wanted to play at the moment updating but then Steam is the same.
Thanks - I believe Steam Deck is what I meant!
Sure. Until the first FromSoftware PS6 exclusive is released.
Child, six, seriously considering running away from home after parents refuse to serve dinner on dinosaur plate.
People realize that Steam doesn't use physical media, right? The real issue is the lack of consumer friendly regulation, not the medium.
I've been using Steam for 15 years and in that time they have never done me wrong. I trust Valve to do the right thing.
On the other hand, I know for a fact that sony will do the worst possible thing over and over again every time they have the chance to.
Remember that time Sony took away features from the PS3 that were advertised selling points? Remember when modders added the features back and Sony sent them to prison?
Some people like disc cases and the actual disk itself, but the main gripes I've seen with digital only games on consoles were: 1) without a disc you can't give/trade/sell the game, 2) without a disc the game can be taken away from you, 3) if you can't make an offline backup copy of the game and transfer it from console to console, most/every copy of a game will eventually disappear.
Steam has issues, and you certainly can't (legally) trade or sell your library, but nearly no single player games on the platform have DRM. Thus, you can have as many off-Steam backups as you want (which can't be remotely deleted/disabled), and you could certainly "give" the game to a friend (but don't copy that floppy), or otherwise preserve it for posterity.
You could buy, sell, trade, loan, and backup games with the right regulation. Discs are irrelevant.
Steam provides awesome services tho. PSN is utter shit.
I was waiting for GTA 6… but if it’s not released in disk, then I will simply pass. If new games start to be non-physical, then I will simply stop playing new games
As soon as you put a physical disc into a console, it immediately ignores its contents and downloads all new code. In this way, the physical disc is simply a physical DRM. At some point, the game has to be saved in some state well in advance of release date to manufacture/ship said physical disc with enough time to have it be available for release date. Back when I was involved with physical shiny round discs back in 2007, it was minimum 6-8 weeks. That's forever in game dev for changes to be made so that the content on the disc is probably just heavy assets used by whatever is downloaded.
I don’t think I’ll jump back to PC but I look forward seeing SteamOS getting more traction. Windows really needs to get their act together.
After the success of the portable devices like the Switch with a dock, building a non-portable device only seems like continuing to build farming equipment for oxen.
I won't make the mistake to buy any other sony product.
Not sure why. looking at the polls it would seem the primary points are
1) Sony ending physical disks
2) potential high price of next gen.
1 is hilarious, even games that come on physical disks are already mostly useless without internet. I had a ps4 and bought "Last of Us" and the game is literally unbeatable without an internet connection. It has a game breaking bug that isn't patched on disk. Many other games are crap or broken without patches. Also jumping to PC where there hasn't been physical media in ages and 99% of games have DRM is just out of the frying pan into the fire. based on the market share for GOG I can assure you only a small fraction of gamers actually care about "owning" their games.
2 is kinda stupid, they mentioned a price point of $1,000, not sure you can build a next-gen-console comparable PC for that price. My current computer's GPU cost more than that by itself and anything but a pittance of RAM will too.
I mean go for it, more PC gamers the better (it's my chosen platform) but if you weren't already on board years ago not sure anything has really changed.
I am fine with not having physical media for games on Steam because I trust Steam to do the right thing.
I already know for a fact that Sony won't do the right thing because they have always done the worst possible thing at every chance.
Physical disks were one of the last differentiators that consoles had. 20 years ago, you could buy a game, take it home, put it into the console, and begin playing straightaway. Now it has to be installed first to storage, which of course the console has a finite amount of and will cost you more money to expand it. There's also been a complete shift from local multiplayer and dedicated servers/server browsers to gating online play behind subscriptions and forcing everyone through matchmaking in order to serve up cannon fodder for more experienced players.
Only problem with PC gaming is gpu & ram prices.
It's not exclusive to PC:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/another-xbox-price-increase-is-co...
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps5-is-getti...
If I were Sony, I would worry just as much about the people who bow out of playing games altogether, or just retreat into retro games especially with all the new Android handhelds targeting them.
All forms of entertainment are entering crisis, because there is so much of it competing for attention, and so many years of back catalog that are still entertaining and available for free-or-nearly-free. Premium gaming and premium content of any kind seems unsustainable.
> Premium gaming and premium content of any kind seems unsustainable.
That's one of the main problems of current gaming. Games have become just "content". And as such they are disposable. Why replay (and appreciate) something you liked? Just play something else.
It's an open poll on a website with no sampling and no detection for bad actors.
For goodness sake, this is literally useless. It tells us nothing.
Even a games website should be embarrassed of it's journalism trying to run this as a story.
I'm more surprised that one of the top Playstation-related sites only got 6k votes on a poll. Times sure have changed.
I haven't bought a Sony product since 2005 when they put a rootkit on music CDs. Apparently their customer-hostile attitude hasn't changed much.
Sorry but gamers are the most docile customer base, this won’t translate to anything.
Literally no point to specific hardware
I for one recommend building an i7 box and really anything from that generation are still really good CPUs if youre making a gaming box. Otherwise you may run into RAM costs or some other high hardware costs.
>an i7 box and really anything from that generation
That doesn't mean anything at all. The i7 is a family of CPUs which can be anything from a 2009 i7-860 (with DDR3 support only) to a 2023 i7-14700k (with DDR5 support). Insane performance difference.
I think the point is that an i7, even from ~15 years ago, is probably sufficient for most gaming needs, especially if the game is primarily GPU-bound.
As long as you give the older CPU enough RAM, an SSD, and a good GPU, it probably is sufficient unless your doing sim-heavy games where you want the simulation speed to be maxed out (e.g. HoI4 later years max speed simulation)
The CPU will be a bottleneck even if you use ~7 years old RTX 2060. Anything newer just wouldn't work.
Honestly buying a 15 years old CPU is just an own goal when it will be outperformed by any modern budget i3
Sorry my comment is about finding hardware that affordably allows you to build a good gaming rig if that’s the sole purpose. There are plenty of previous gen cpus that will give most gamers 90% of what they want to play no need for the LATEST hardware. That dream is dying.
“…and Tom, we’re hearing reports that those numbers are approaching 80% in groups of consumers who have been informed they can simply use a controller with a PC.”