this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
143 points (95.5% liked)
Games
16745 readers
752 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is the same conversation we had throughout the entire rumorwave about this project: Who is going to buy this and which developers will actually anything worthwhile with the new hardware? Because all signs points to an expensive console (at least $600) with the only upgrades being a slight graphical bump and higher resolution. There are no new gameplay features.
I think people would be much more happy with a smaller, more power efficient version of the PS5 instead.
There's also questions around the game industry as a whole. I think the recent layoffs at major companies aren't just another cycle, but systemic. The market no longer bears production of giant games with crazy graphics that cost $70 and have a bunch of DLC and gambling mechanics attached.
Games won't go away, but they'll play fine on something like the Steam Deck, Switch 2, or modest gaming PC. What would high end console hardware bring to the table anymore?
Graphics are no longer a major selling point in most cases. Most people would be fine with a good game that works and isn't saddle with microtransactions, even if it means it will look somewhat worse.
Consoles themselves are a source of microtransactions. Just look at how much money you have to spend to have online play.
Guess how much it costs on Steam. Come on... guess!
About $3.50?
I wouldn't say graphics have zero bearing for sales but the scales have definitely tipped towards gameplay over the last several years. Minecraft added rtx graphics and the mass majority of people, even with rtx capable cards, just yawned.
Digital game sales, outside of sports titles, are pushed by streaming engagement and riding coat tails of previous games. Look at the recent history and it's pretty obvious.