In an interview with Rolling Stone, the head of Microsoft’s gaming division, Phil Spencer, said some very interesting things about the next generation of consoles, i.e. PS5 and Xbox Series X-Series S successors.

On the one hand, Spencer made that clear They do not plan to leave the Xbox brandmeaning they will continue to launch consoles. However, he also clarified that they might change their strategy and that they will continue to strengthen their commitment to cloud gaming.

The manager is clear that his strategy includes expanding the Xbox brand as well as cloud gaming. To achieve this, Microsoft’s Gaming division will focus on creating new devices, among which the portable console stands out. This portable Xbox was confirmed by Phil Spencer, although he admitted that it could take some time to come to market. several years to produce.

Next-gen consoles and declining profits

While talking about the PS5 Pro, he made a comment that was without a doubt the most interesting of the entire interview. He said that these types of systems are not necessaryand they recognized that it is increasingly difficult to demonstrate the improvements that are achieved with each new generation of consoles. There is an explanation for this and it is based on the concept of diminishing returns.

As an example, he cited the jump that took place between the Xbox and the Xbox 360, which was quite large and it makes sense because not only significantly improved graphic quality games thanks to the use of more complex geometry and advanced effects, but also switched from SD (480p) to HD (720p) resolution.

However, with the transition from Xbox One to Xbox Series It wasn’t that big. Xbox One

This is a problem because users they find it increasingly difficult to appreciate technical improvements that next-gen consoles offer in games, and it also complicates things for Sony and Microsoft when it comes to advertising and marketing their new products as “far better” models than the previous ones.

Why does this problem occur?

It is very simple. You mean the first 3D games They used very few polygons and their worlds were not completely generated due to the technical limitations of consoles, but were created incrementally based on the player’s journey. Others used fog and other effects to hide these limitations (such as Silent Hill).

The generational leaps compared to those first 3D games were huge because these They were too basic and limited. With the Dreamcast, PS2, Game Cube, and Xbox generation, the complexity of the geometry improved greatly, 3D modeling and texturing evolved to an impressive level, and 3D worlds became much richer and more complex, and yes, fully generated.

In the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation It was where the last of the great peaks of improvement occurred graphics in games, with another enormous increase in geometry and graphic quality in general, which was very easy to appreciate. The PS4 and Xbox One have already started to show signs of this “diminishing profit” as the graphical differences compared to the previous generation were not as great, and this peaks with the PS5 and Xbox Series X-Series S.

Many PS5 games are available on PS4 and technically they are so similar that a basic user would have a hard time distinguishing them. The same is happening with some Xbox Series X-Series S games and with remastered versions of previous generation games that made it to those consoles.

The games of the previous generation reached such a high graphic quality that technical improvements brought It’s getting harder to appreciate them, and they also show up every time more expensive at the resource level as they are applied to very complex geometries.

It’s no longer about going from a scenario with four misplaced boxes and blocky characters with bad textures to higher quality models with more detailed scenarios, now the improvements focus on increasing the level of detail that already has a high level of realism. improvements which They can easily go unnoticed. And yes, it will get worse with each new generation.

AI generated cover image.