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Is BC to blame for cross gen games and lack of ps5 exclusives?

dEvAnGeL

Member
ps4 wasn't backwards compatible and had a very different architecture compared to ps3, and we had some great looking games when the ps4 released, i wonder if BC has anything to do with this? Develop a game with ps4 as the lead platform and all you do on ps5 is increase a few settings and up the res and call it a day.
 
It's purely a business decision. There is a huge amount of PS4 only buyers in the market and not catering to them is leaving a ton of money in on the table. PS5 penetration is not nearly enough to justify pushing PS5 only games at the moment (and for the foreseeable future too due to semiconductor shortage). I think you will see a much longer period of cross-gen.
 
yes kinda. a bit more like architectural similarities and therefore easily expandable TAM.

crossgen sucks


kinda the reason why i was horrified when i heard about beyond generations TM the first time
 

Certinty

Member
Whilst I partly agree let's not forget that the XO/PS4 had quite a lot of upgraded PS3/360 games in the first year of its life too.
 
It's purely a business decision. There is a huge amount of PS4 only buyers in the market and not catering to them is leaving a ton of money in on the table. PS5 penetration is not nearly enough to justify pushing PS5 only games at the moment (and for the foreseeable future too due to semiconductor shortage). I think you will see a much longer period of cross-gen.
Is it not enough though? It is the fastest selling console ever - if the userbase isn't big enough to support exclusive games, how did every single other console ever made support them?
 

Eimran

Member
I still think it is a great miss when you consider the immense library Playstation has over the years.

I deeply respect Microsoft for their dedication to BC. I never played Xbox since their market entry but I have bought the original and 360 a few years back along with their exclusive games for a cheap price ( halo, gears, crackdown, fable etc) so I can enjoy them. At this time I am seriously considering to buy the current gen because their incredible BC support so I can play these games.

So yeah I am one of those gamers for whom BC is a deal-maker.

I feel that they last two years "arrogant" Sony is back. I think they need a curb stomp again like Microsoft gave them with the 360. It delivered a beautiful PS4 gen with great games. During that gen Xbox kinda failed and look at the PS5 gen now. At the time I don't feel very persuaded to buy a ps5. But that's just my opinion.
 
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ps4 wasn't backwards compatible and had a very different architecture compared to ps3, and we had some great looking games when the ps4 released, i wonder if BC has anything to do with this? Develop a game with ps4 as the lead platform and all you do on ps5 is increase a few settings and up the res and call it a day.

No.... dev costs are to blame.
 
Is it not enough though? It is the fastest selling console ever - if the userbase isn't big enough to support exclusive games, how did every single other console ever made support them?
One key thing to remember: companies don't want some profit. Companies want the maximum possible profit. I'm sure selling PS5 exclusive titles can generate a some profit (with some good cost management), but they could generate a ton more by catering to PS4 market as well. Remember that game development cost structure is heavily fixed. There is very little variable cost involved in selling a digital title (economics are slightly different to physical, but we are anyway largely digital now). So revenues generated from each digital copy sold directly trickles down to the operating profit. That's why they are pushing to sell as many copies of a title as they can.
 
People will tell you that Sony wanted to leverage the PS4 install base, but that's complete nonsense. Console generations never worked like this. PS5 software is thoroughly outselling PS4 software despite the latter having 10x the install base.

The real reason is likely cost related. Making a AAA PS4 game is likely cheaper than making a AAA PS5 game. Expectations are different, people want better and more assets with a PS5 exclusive. So Sony played it safe and went mostly cross-gen until 2023.
 
^i don't think they approach the development of a cross-gen title as two games. They develope it together. It's much more efficient. Let's say a PS5 title takes Usd100m to make. To make it cross gen and support PS4 it would probably cost something relatively minor, say USD25m more. But you can double your revenue potential. Managing costs and profit maximisation go hand in hand.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Did you forget that a global pandemic happened like 9 months before these consoles released?

If it weren't for backwards compatibility, the available software this gen would still be just as sparse and would almost certainly drive down the adoption of the new generation significantly. A PS5 is a really tough sell to most people if the only thing it can play is Miles Morales, Godfall, and Demon's Souls and those were $70 games. The fact that it can play your existing PS4 library is a pretty good stopgap to the trickle of available games. Most companies have adapted to the conditions and are more or less back on track, but I'd say most places were operating at 50% output (or less) for the majority of 2020.
 
We not even a full year in yet...give it time. We've had superb games...the next gen only games will come in year two for Xbox and 3 for PS5 since they have many more PS4's out there.
 
I will never understand people bitching about cross gen games. The only version that suffers is the one for the old hardware, sometimes not even then. People keeping their old machines get a new game to play, platform holder makes more money so we can get more new games. It's a win/win.

Global pandemic is the main cause of the lack of software. Can't make a game with no people working on it.
 

Godot25

Banned
Yes and no.

On one hand you don't have pressure to rush games out of door because players have many games available thanks to BC.

Also, pandemic didn't help.

But on the other hand, main reason for me is prevalence of live service games on top charts. Games like Fortnite, COD Warzone, Rainbow Six Siege are types of games that players wants to play after transition to next gen. So they are playing same game just on different platform.

This transition is best console transition I've been part of. We are not reliant on mediocre games like Ryse or Killzone shadowfall which only exists so they have something.
 
One key thing to remember: companies don't want some profit. Companies want the maximum possible profit. I'm sure selling PS5 exclusive titles can generate a some profit (with some good cost management), but they could generate a ton more by catering to PS4 market as well. Remember that game development cost structure is heavily fixed. There is very little variable cost involved in selling a digital title (economics are slightly different to physical, but we are anyway largely digital now). So revenues generated from each digital copy sold directly trickles down to the operating profit. That's why they are pushing to sell as many copies of a title as they can.
Oh yeah I totally get it. It costs $50 million to sell one copy of a game and $50 million and 1 cent to sell two. I just wonder why now all of a sudden there has been this realization that the first year or two of a console's life isn't conducive to high sales. I mean look back at the Holiday 2001 for the PS2, that was 1 or 1.5 years later and you had an entire lineup of exclusive AAA bangers. They didn't seem to care about the 100 million PSX consoles out there. Why?
 
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