---
title: 'DF Direct Q+A: What If PlayStation 6 Is Actually The New PS Handheld?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=NHTMBTW8lyI'
video_id: 'NHTMBTW8lyI'
date: 2026-08-28
duration_sec: 2826
channel: 'Digital Foundry'
---

# DF Direct Q+A: What If PlayStation 6 Is Actually The New PS Handheld?

> Source: [DF Direct Q+A: What If PlayStation 6 Is Actually The New PS Handheld?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NHTMBTW8lyI)

## Summary

In this Digital Foundry Direct Q&A, the team discusses a fan theory that Sony's upcoming PlayStation handheld could serve as the PS6, analyzes the diminishing returns of graphics and the future of gaming visuals, and explores the merits of plasma displays as a modern alternative to CRTs for retro gaming.

### Key Points

- **Show Introduction and Sponsor** [00:04] — The episode begins with the hosts introducing the Q&A format and a sponsor segment for MSI's Onimusha promotion, highlighting new monitors with advanced OLED technology.
- **Fan Theory: PS6 as a Handheld** [02:45] — A viewer proposes that Sony's portable device could be the PS6, citing gamer indifference to graphical upgrades, cost concerns, and Nintendo's successful Wii U to Switch transition as precedent.
- **John's Take on the Handheld Theory** [04:36] — John argues the handheld is a separate product, noting technical limitations in achieving PS5-level performance in a portable form factor and questioning the cost-saving potential of reduced memory.
- **Oliver's Perspective on Handheld Capabilities** [07:18] — Oliver doubts the handheld can match PS5 performance due to low TDP constraints, and highlights that memory and storage costs remain significant, citing the Steam Deck's price increase as an example.
- **Release Timing and Market Strategy** [10:15] — The team discusses the logistical challenges of launching both devices simultaneously, suggesting a staggered release with the handheld first, and notes Sony's potential to subsidize costs through digital-only sales.
- **Graphics Settings Naming Debate** [14:27] — A question about renaming graphics presets (e.g., 'potato' for low) leads to a discussion on how settings labels often mislead, with examples like Gears of War E-Day's 'ludicrous' mode causing confusion.
- **The Future of Gaming Visuals** [22:26] — The panel explores what comes after photorealism, emphasizing physics, interactivity, and artistic direction over raw fidelity, with John noting that games like Gears E-Day focus on granular interactions over visual leaps.
- **Plasma as the Next CRT** [31:18] — John and Rich discuss the merits of plasma displays for retro gaming, noting their superior motion clarity and unique pixel structure that can enhance low-resolution content, though they acknowledge limitations like PWM noise and black levels.
- **Secret Handheld Signals at Gamescom** [42:54] — The final question humorously asks about secret signals for unrevealed handhelds; the team clarifies they respect NDAs and do not engage in leak culture, emphasizing their commitment to trust with industry partners.

### Conclusion

The episode underscores the industry's shift from raw graphical power to experiential quality, while also validating retro display technologies for their unique benefits, and reaffirms Digital Foundry's ethical stance on embargoes and leaks.

## Transcript

back with the latest edition of the Digital [music] Foundry Direct weekly Q&A show. Um, plenty of interesting topics to get through this week. As always, joining me first of all, Oliver McKenzie. Hello. Yes, a very busy Q&A
and a very busy week for us as I'm sure our audience will soon discover or depending on the publication schedule of this particular video. [laughter] >> Indeed. And uh, of course, John Lynman, hello. You're joining us just before you
set off for Gamescom 2026. >> That's right. Heading out bright and stuff to look forward to. Some cool meetings, cool games to see. Uh, I little bummed out that you couldn't make it this year, but maybe next time.
>> Same with Alex as well. Like, but usually it's you and Alex and it's three of us get up to no good. And this year it's just me. [laughter] So, and the them is just hanging out in the background. So, if you see somebody back
there, don't mind them. >> Okay, [laughter] fair enough. Yeah, I did enjoy last year where basically I ended up getting a heavy cold and had to uh basically segregate myself from you for the last day. That was that was fun,
>> Oh, right. That Yeah. [laughter] >> Okay. Well, uh before we crack on, let's take a look at this. This video is sponsored by MSI to mark the launch of Onimusha, Way of the Sword. MSI has a new hardware promotion running right now
from August 14th through to October the 4th. Purchasing an eligible MSI MPG gaming monitor lets you redeem an exclusive Onimosha game code. Two standout models are leading this campaign. First is the MPG 341 CQRX36,
the world's first 34in ultrawide 360 Hz QD OLED. It features a fifth generation panel with a new RGB stripe sub pixel layout that massively improves text clarity. Alternatively, the MPG 322 URx24 delivers a pristine 32-in 4K image
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needed for a game like Onimusha. They also utilize dark armor film to enhance black levels alongside uniform luminance to maintain consistent screen brightness during [music] rapid transitions. To participate, share your battle
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well, it's actually two in one. They're basically asking the same question. We're going to kick off with this one from just plain Mike. You keep talking about the portable PlayStation and the PS6 as separate things, but maybe the
portable thing actually is the PlayStation 6. The idea here is that one, most gamers don't care at all about graphical improvements above the PS5, as you've discussed at length. The other two, the only uh way to make a PS6 even
slightly affordable is to make it lowspec. And three, with the Wii U to switch transition, there's already a track record of a company successfully doing a same powered portable successor to a fixed console. Sony could then a
few years later release a more powerful and expensive fixed console. the thing that everyone expects the PS6 to be today as the PS6 Pro where the niche audience that cares about graphics would be okay paying high-end money for the
extra horsepower. Crazy theory or so crazy it might just work. Um, this is followed up with a question from Dan Terismo. I'd love to see his birth certificate. Uh, hey DF crew. You said on a recent DF Direct that console SOC's
are decided years in advance, and so it's hard for companies like Sony to pivot uh in response to rising component costs. Could Sony instead opt to shelf Orion and release Kynis, the rumored PlayStation handheld, as the PlayStation
PlayStation handheld, as the PlayStation 6, effectively following uh Nintendo's cheaper memory could help keep the console affordable while still offering could also help to stop development budgets from ballooning any any further
and maybe even help them explain away the lack of future disc. Curious to hear your thoughts. Uh John, I'm going to go to you first on this one because obviously I think you mentioned in the last direct um we've we've heard some
things about the PlayStation portable handheld thing going back two or three years now. Um, what do you think about this idea? >> I actually like the idea, but I don't think that's what they're doing. Canis
think that's what they're doing. Canis is a separate product. Uh, and I think there's also some problems with that given what we know about its specs and what's even possible right now in that when they made the jump from Wii U to
when they made the jump from Wii U to Switch, the Tegra X1, I guess, could technically produce visuals that outperformed what was possible on Wii U. underpowered. So, that was kind of like a lateral move with some slight upgrade.
I don't think you could make a handheld that could support like PS5 Pro especially, but even necessarily PS5 level performance realistically at the size they want with like a a battery. I think there's too many things that would
make that really really really difficult to pull off. And I don't think it's going to be that. Um, and so I don't think they would sell a PS6 that's a portable that is less powerful than the current console. I think it would be a
tough sale and so I don't think they're going to do it. But I do like the idea of them shifting towards that sort of model and I feel like that could have that could indeed solve some problems. It would explain the lack of discs. It
would explain or it would help them in territories like Japan where there have territories like Japan where there have been faltering. Um so there's definitely potential there. I just don't think that's what they're going to do. And I
also think that on the cost side, uh, when you say cheaper memory, I don't know what that [laughter] memory is because I don't think there's any >> It's less of it. >> Yeah, it's less memory, I guess, but
they're kind of hamstrung on what the minimum is they could get away with. And there is no memory that's fast enough to support games. There is no cheap version of that right now. So, there's really no way to save money on that. Same with the
storage stuff. So like there's really nowhere to go on there to save money. necessarily shorten up or reduce development budgets because at this point the hardware is all kind of similar to what it it all
kind of in this similar class and the bottleneck and and the cost of making this stuff isn't going to change dramatically with more hardware at this point. We've already kind of reached the point where it's just very expensive if
you're aiming for that top quality. And I don't think it gets more or less expensive to a significant degree at this point hardware up. >> Yeah, Oliver. I mean, I guess the theory
here is that um I don't know. Do you think people have been quote unquote glazing the capabilities of the PlayStation uh upcoming PlayStation handheld? uh because there is the sense that you know um people kind of like are
expecting like a portable PS5 or something like that and in that sense it would be a lateral move uh and and a device that's kind of the same but with more modern features machine learning features for example um and yeah it
could be a replacement of sorts. I I don't know. I don't see it. Bearing in >> I think the hope would be that it could achieve a PS5 like experience. So when you combine all the new technologies that are going into it, the much better
machine learning acceleration per teraflop, um the much better ray tracing things would would feed into it and would produce a device that possibly could compete with PS5 in some limited respects. Obviously, the hardware would
be much weaker, but I I kind of even think that vision is maybe not something especially when you consider like the low TDP at which a device like this will have to ship at. In terms of the whole costsaving question, I completely agree
with Sean. The issue here is much more fundamental than just scaling up or scaling down a a chip design, which is what we've seen in the past, because probably for a PS6 handheld, you'd probably want at least 16 GB of RAM for
the purposes of playing older titles, right? PS6 titles, PS5 titles, whatever. could get away with 12. I don't know if developers would be scaling down their games to the point where that would be realistic, but 16 gigs plus maybe 512
would be reasonable. And in that universe, you're putting a considerable outlay onto the table in terms of memory and storage from the very beginning. That same memory and storage outlay caused Valve to increase the price of
their Steam Deck to like $800, [laughter] right? So, it's not something that is a trivial cost. It's actually a very large cost. The SOC might be smaller, but the unit itself has to have a display, has to have a battery, has to
necessarily getting that big cost savings. And I think you see that where, you know, the prices of a lot of these PC handhelds are pushing above could, you know, I'm not going to say that's the case for the PS6 handheld,
but I don't think it's going to be a cheap device either. Um, and yeah, to go. I think I think what you want with a PS6 is a device that someone can look at and confidently say, "This is a much better experience than I'm getting
with my PlayStation 5 or or a significantly better experience than I'm getting with my PlayStation 5 Pro." Um, I think you want to be pushing in that direction. And if pushing that direction means $1,000 console, $1,100 console, I
think it's better to bite the bullet and actually achieve something that is is a meaningfully powerful system. um then go down this route of just a lowcost box think that's necessarily what people want. I think an aspirational device is
better than a device that is uh is just not up to snuff is my opinion. >> Yeah. I mean um the thing that I've been thinking about really is release dates because I don't think um they can release both at the same time. I think
I mean, I'm reminded of when they did PSVR and uh PS4 Pro pretty much at the same time. It was logistically extremely difficult for Sony. It also meant that
the dedicated PlayStation users were having to kind of like shell out twice on significant pieces of hardware in the same time frame. And I do think it is probably the case uh that it would make more sense to do the handheld first um
and then push out whatever the release date is for the proper PlayStation 6 um a bit further on maybe even a year down the road. That that might make sense at least 6 months. I'm not sure the extent in the current market as to which that
will able to be make a meaningful impact on stuff like pricing or whatever. But I do think that, you know, when uh just talking about the P PlayStation Portable
and the PS6 as as being one and the same thing, that's definitely not the case. We can rule that out. They are very much two separate devices that are in development with Sony at this time. So yeah, interesting uh sort of situation
facing Sony here in that well, you know, Microsoft have obviously got to contend with the concept of selling one expensive device and the way things are going Sony might have to contend with selling two double jeopardy. How are
they going to do it? I don't know. I guess um they do have more leeway in terms of subsidized pricing. Um, bearing in mind what's happening with uh the end in mind what's happening with uh the end of discs, um, they're probably assuming
that any dent revenues are probably going to be quite minimal by by removing the physical option, which might give them more revenue leeway to subsidize them more revenue leeway to subsidize devices. Um, I don't know. None of us
really knows. Any final thoughts, John? No, I mean obviously there's a lot of themselves said they haven't committed any dates and it seems like the Canis handheld as well is been pushed back quite a bit. Uh it's been around
floating around for a while and it seems like a difficult one to get made. So I don't but whether that it works or not, there's just so much we don't know. It's they position this in the market and what they market it as. if if they tried
think it would work. >> Uh yeah. So, my final thought on this, bothering me about the PlayStation handheld for some time now, I mean, the leaked specifications are talking specifically about a 15 watt TDP, right?
which um uh obviously we are expecting this processor to be on a on a a new process load like 3 nanometer but you know the extent to which there's going to be like um massive efficiency gains via RDNA5 and um and this new process is
it enough to deliver like a PlayStation 5 level experience I'm not sure and um there have been lots of uh discussions about the handheld um configuration kind of like being triled with PlayStation 5. Um, uh, eco mode.
>> Oh, no. Eco mode, right? >> Yeah. And, um, John, can we say this? Our sources are kind of suggesting that they are two very different things and shouldn't be confused with one another. >> Yeah. I mean, the eco mode, as I
understand it, was more of like a it was >> Yeah. Something like that. It was origally like media mode or something. And it was not specifically architected for this. It may have some
utility with it possibly, but I don't think that was the point of it originally. >> Yeah. So, you know, um I think it's potentially, yeah, there is going to be the ability to to port across existing
games to it. And I do think there is probably a very high likelihood that it PlayStation 4 did, which I think it itself is pretty awesome. But um as to whether it's a fullyfledged next generation device, I think the jury's
going to be out on that. Okay, let's move on. Um got this question here from BuzzBoke. Hey dear Fs, with all the discussion their components settings wise, could you imagine a shift in naming helping
with that? Like how avatar hides some settings behind unopt unoptanium? Uh maybe rename high to fidelity, medium to performance, low to potato, and ultra to
performance, low to potato, and ultra to DF benchmark Megatron. Um uh well, I think we've sort of discussed this sort of thing before. And famously, when Crisis 2 came out, it didn't have low settings. Basically, low
became like medium or something like that. It it it was hilarious. Um, but that changed again with Crisis 3 where I think they went back to the sort of expected. I think um, uh, Oliver, the issue is really that al the Ultra on one
game doesn't really correspond to the performance profile of Ultra on another game, even if it's running on the same engine in many cases. So, um, yes, I think there is much to be said about being able to change the naming to be
something more informative to the user, but ultimately it does seem to be sort of expected behavior from many people that, you know, you just load up a game, setting may be, and if it doesn't work, it's unoptimized.
>> Yeah. I don't really think it comes down to what the naming structure is because like you said to whatever the highest end setting is regardless of the name. I think it's a matter of the character of what those settings actually are. So
going to your like ultra or cinematic preset or whatever if it means using presets that are really intended like in in UE5 titles the cinematic preset for offline rendering mostly you know or or at least they're not really intended for
playable real-time performance on modern graphics hardware contemporary graphics graphics hardware. I think that's a bit of a miss because if you look at the trajectory of PC hardware advancement, we're not going to see in the next few
realistically deliver those games at high frame rates with those very very appropriate for real-time usage on current hardware. I don't think we're going to see realistically for a long time hardware that's able to
actually deliver high-end settings in many games that are being released today at, you know, frame rates that gamers are expecting at 60 fps, at 120 fps, quality, things like this. So, I would just say that in general, I I I kind of
think developers should just calibrate their settings to what gamers realistically on current hardware, maybe not just current like low mid-range expect to actually get a good experience out of those games. Um, I also think
there's maybe some utility to going the Kingdom Come deliverance route and just that aren't that impressive that might have shadow resolution or um, you know, any number of settings that might be equivalent in other games to medium
don't think that's like a totally uh unjustified way to go either because I think that definitely definitely people get so much attached to the names when positioning compared to other names but you don't know the underlying settings
cauldron that mix of uh presets the developers are supplying to you under some preset label. So, I think it's just a matter of, you know, calibrating do think there is a bit of a problem at the moment with games maybe shipping
shipping. And maybe that avatar route is the right way to go. I'm not quite sure, the utility to gamers that I think they're expecting. >> Yeah. So John, we got a recent example of this where um uh Gears of War Eday
has ludicrous settings, which the name suggests it's kind of like you really shouldn't be using this, but it's there because we want to, you know, scale the game into the future, but people are still wrapping it up to to to Ludicrous
and saying an RTX 5090 can't cope with this. It's kind of like, you know, is there a way to make this work? Gosh, that's such an interesting thing because if you go back to classic PC gaming, this was this was a thing and people
enjoyed it, but it seems like it's causing people's brains to melt in the modern era. And I'm not sure why. Like it shouldn't be weird that they said I guess the difference here though is that you don't necessarily get a gigantic
you don't necessarily get a gigantic tangible benefit for the settings and the same way as it was in the past. But right, psychological problem. >> And that's what the developers have to
solve is how do you >> how do you offer settings without making people feel bad about their computer? >> Because that's what it comes down to. up their settings. >> Uh especially these days where again
like the settings usually don't have nearly the same impact on visuals that they used to. Like when you go to Crisis, the re there was talk about the conventions, but there were actual like genuine tangible differences to going up
in the settings significantly that really altered the visuals. Uh, and if you played Crisis on the lowest settings or even just like medium settings, it looked significantly different than the higher settings, especially with the
DX10 render. It was uh so it was an interesting time. people wanted those those settings, but you're right, like there is a subset of people that just [clears throat] settings, especially if they're on an expensive card, but
they're on an expensive card, but sometimes those settings aren't really hardware, and they're more like exposed for future stuff. And I think Ubisoft did this really well. I think it was Avatar where they had uh beyond normal
settings, but you had to sort of unlock it in a way. Yeah, they didn't. like that where you could do it if you wanted, but the anybody that would go to those lengths to do it is somebody that would probably understand the
limitations of it. And I think that's kind of key is maybe if you want to expose those ultra high-end settings that it makes sense to kind of put them in a slightly different way, at least early on. Uh because yeah, it's just
language. And I'm I'm always surprised today when you drop games down to like medium or something as as they would often call it and it doesn't really look appreciably worse. >> Yep. Mhm. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned
Avatar because Busby spoke talked about it in his question and I actually sort of autocorrected um uh his his his point there. He was saying like have like how Avatar hides some settings behind unoptimum.
>> It's actually unoptanium. So I kind of swapped in unoptanium there. But it's >> so sorry in the question it's written in lowercase like I was thinking of like an lowercase like I was thinking of like an avatar not the game avatar. I
[laughter] >> and now it's unoptimum. So yeah, the whole the whole text here is messed up. >> It makes sense though. Uh I'm quite keen hilarious. But it does actually have to be potato stuff. Like I remember back in
the day there's like some Final Fantasy 15 mods where you know it looked like a [laughter] That's that's kind of like how I consider potato settings. But you're quite right that [laughter]
>> you're quite right Johnny that it is the case that um hey guess what medium then when you look at something like Alan Wake 2 and the performance mode um equivalent settings, the console equivalent settings there, it's actually
respects. >> And guess what? It still looks good. I settings, of course, but it's acceptable. How do you tell the user that, though? Are they even interested? I don't know. We're doing our best with
optimized settings, though. Um, let's move on. Question here from Drain Cell. Um, as graphics approach diminishing returns, what becomes the new frontier for gaming? If photorealism stops being a meaningful benchmark, where does the
boundaries go creatively and experimentally when people stop caring about anecdotal changes in visuals? What happens to digital foundry? That's an because we've kind of almost reached it from a certain angle in that
>> um obviously back in the day we did a lot of platform comparisons between PlayStation and Xbox and we've reached the point now when certainly when dealing with Series X and PlayStation 5 nine times out of 10 like nine and a
half times out of 10 doesn't really matter which one you play it on they both look pretty good right >> yeah like the kind of bread and butter of DF comparisons I mean when I started paying attention to Digital Foundry
probably in like you know, 2008, 2009 was these kind of console comparisons differences between PS3 and 360. Oftentimes the point of analysis was looking at, you know, relative performance. Certainly, uh, pixel count
was very, very important because often times there was a very large difference in pixel count and often times it meant a very large difference in the actual would appear on screen. Right? Nowadays, that's much less true. I think we tend
much more kind of like big picture discussion of overall rendering systems in games and things like that instead of some of these more u minute details. Um because that actually informs coverage and informs how games look much more
than, you know, 600p versus 608p versus 720p, whatever, right? That certainly matters much more. So, I think we'd probably just do that kind of stuff more into that direction. I think there are obviously areas in games that you could
where you're generating photorealistic visuals. And I would argue we're kind of there today in some respects. I mean, within UE5, you can depict some scenes at extremely high fidelity. You know, show me a rocky Craig, show me a
photorealistic rock. You can do that in UE5. A lot of UE5 games look incredible in static environments. Absolutely amazing in static environments, but you start to add simulation to them. uh what about depicting a realistic flowing
river or realistic flowing hair? Much much harder kinds of challenges. So I think we'd start looking at uh those kinds of of challenges and also um how know, destructible environments, physics based destructible environments. Could
you do that at a realistic uh highfidelity experience? I think that'd be really exciting. But I'd also kind of challenge this assumption here that realism because that's often not the target, right? a kind of heightened
pleasing reality with lighting that enhances depth and and contrast and produces interesting cues. And that's why you see so many games linger on like sunrises and sunsets and twilight evenings and interesting lighting
conditions. So, it's much more about trying to produce interesting, trying to produce interesting, evocative, exciting game visuals than even in games that might otherwise be trying to achieve realistic visuals. Um,
like look at Gears Eday for instance, you know, in the material that's been photorealistic, but it's also not trying to be photorealistic, right? It's trying to be visually pleasing. And a game like Halo Campaign Evolved, I would argue, is
achieve very pleasing visuals as opposed to necessarily photorealistic visuals. >> Right. Okay. Um, here's my point to you there, John. Um, basically
a good game experience and a graphically pleasing experience goes far beyond, you stuff. It's about actually what's happening. And I do think that um generations, uh, the concept of great physics is kind of been left by the
wayside. And so there's there's there's ways to push boundaries in ways that aren't really necessarily related to uh poly count, um past face lighting, that
>> Yeah. Oh, there's so much room to grow here and so many ways to explore that haven't been I think interactions in general and physics and all that sort of stuff is still something I love. And that's a tricky one, both from a
gameplay design standpoint and also just from a technical standpoint. But when you play a game that really focuses on that and has a lot of those things, even if the visuals are somewhat simple, like you look at something like Tear Down,
it's still very pleasing to experience that and see how it all plays out, uh, just for the tech alone, even if you're not even playing the game. And that really got me thinking about just the look of a game in motion is often more
look of a game in motion is often more important than what the the core visuals important than what the the core visuals are doing up close. Um, like I was so I be going up after embargo I think which is tomorrow as of recording. But I
played through the Gears Eday campaign preview and it is gloriously impressive. The level of detail is off the charts, but it's also like I kept going. I was like, "This is amazing." But then I compared
to my time playing Gears 5 and it's still it feels much closer than I expected compared to like going from like Xbox 360 Gears to something like Gears 5. This feels very much like a small iterative jump even though
technically speaking the level of detail on display is significantly higher and it's not a knock on that. It looks awesome, but they they focused in on more granular interactive stuff and more physics stuff and like breakables, which
physics stuff and like breakables, which does bring the the game to life more. that kind of stood out to me a little bit more than just the raw visuals, cuz your brain just kind of filters and gets used to the visuals, but every time you
see like a cool little interaction or some kind of breakable stuff, those are the things that stick out more. And I think games that embrace that and try to do more with that is something I want to see more of in the future for sure. And
like you said, like visuals aren't just about photo realism at all. It's and the stories that we tell. I've done this for years. Like uh it's true. We used to focus on platform comparisons, but I've moved away from that. I'd say for the
most part, I don't really find it interesting anymore for old for new games because they are so similar. It's just like the same game running with different machines and it's not that it's not exciting to look at anymore.
So, I like to look at more how things how something else was achieved or just muse at the at the beauty of a game that's artistically and technically attractive and satisfying cuz I find that stuff very appealing as well. Uh,
making things, I still like, you know, that's one of the reasons I like doing the retro stuff because they really had to come up with very creative solutions to big problems and a lot of those problems have been somewhat solved now.
problems have been somewhat solved now. So it feels a lot more it's just we it's basically about refocusing on the things that we find interesting and I still think there's a lot of stuff growing in that area where there's just new stuff
>> that's really cool to look at and I want to see more of that. So yeah, and it's it's also got me I I've also thought a lot about games in
trying new things. And I realized I think it's cool to see ambition and like new ideas, but I actually don't think that's the most important because when you really look at the at the number of games out there, there's not actually
that many that I would say truly nail every aspect of what they set out to do. And by that I mean just when you pick up a controller in a something truly great like I go back to something like Super Mario World still like it's an old game
now but compared to nearly every other game on Super NES it's still like it just feels so good just to move that character and jump and perform those actions. And I like this idea of developers focusing on making sure that
the core actions feel perfect. If you can nail that, you can make something pick up the controller and you start running and you don't feel anything about that movement, even if you do nothing else, you just run forward.
The really best games make even the simplest things feel great where you want to do that action and then you layer in everything else and it becomes a classic. And not that many games actually pull this off. So, I still
room to grow there. And I would like to see more focus on just nailing existing ideas but at at the highest level which of course it's very difficult but it's a
it's an area that I find interesting. >> Mhm. Okay. Good stuff. Question here from Scali. Hello independent exclamation point. This is perhaps a John joint. So is there merit to the quote unquote plasma is the next CRT
movement? There's a growing number of people online expounding upon the benefits of plasma, particularly for PS3 games. The argument being that their games. The argument being that their funky rectangular pixels at 720p,
uh, have a sort of native anti-aliasing that makes the low res games look good, motion handling is phenomenal, which supposedly helps out those low frame rate generations. Uh, I figure who better than the
pioneers of the new CRT Renaissance to weigh in. Cheers. Exclamation point. Um, John, well, I had a lot of uh great experiences with my Pioneer Plasma back in the day during the PlayStation uh 3 and 360 era. Not sure I'm a massive fan
of some of the arguments I'm seeing here. However, >> I have mixed feelings on this as well. Uh, I was a heavy plasma user as well and I still have a Pioneer Plasma here in fact. And when they say it's the next
CRT, uh, I can see some purpose behind this. Now, things like motion clarity and a plasma, it's not as good as a CRT, but it's actually much closer than a normal sample and hold panel without some sort
of uh, black frame insertion or strobing. That obviously is a different thing, but just the native sample sample and hold displays like OLED and LCD, they're so much blurriier in motion than a plasma. But a plasma also still has
some slight trailing compared to an L to uh compared to a CRT. [sighs] Um, but this idea of using the lower resolution pixel grid actually does have some
merit, I found. And one example is actually more recent um where I was it was a cut two or three years ago now when Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth came out. If you remember the initial PS5 version
had a very ugly performance mode. It just looked very blurry and soft. I I fired it up on a 1080p plasma and Mark was actually visiting the time and we were both stunned by how much better it looked on that versus a 4K OLED. like
there was just this this like very clean pixel delineation that made everything seem like oh now the difference between this and this is now very very sharp instead of that blurry smeary look. It completely changed the characteristics
of the image and it looked awesome. And so it's true like sometimes content can count and not just the lower pixel count but the way sub pixels on a plasma look is very different compared to an LCD. They actually use a phosphorbased screen
They actually use a phosphorbased screen as well. Uh, so it's it's it has a unique look. And there's sub 720p. There's Rich remembers this. There's 1024 by 768 plasmas. Anything that was like 42 in and below. For a while, they
were doing lower resolution. And they're actually not wrong about this. You do the way that the filtering or however they do it, the scaling, the result is kind of like free anti-aliasing in a way. It gives it this
like slightly smoother look, but it's still sharp. I remember some of Panasonic's plasmas from 2006. Uh even the the 1024 768 ones, those Uh even the the 1024 768 ones, those supported 1080p input. So you could
input a 1080p signal and it would essentially downscale it to the screen's uh native resolution. So if you played a native 1080p game like Ridgeraer 7 on there, you basically did indeed get like free anti-aliasing and it looked very
sharp and it really helped mitigate problems with those sub 720p games that were very common during that era and it made them look a lot sharper I would >> isn't that double scaling? Because the console would be scaling out and then
the display would be >> down. It w it was double scaling, but it it actually looks okay. >> The screen is just it just has a way the sub pixels are presented and the way the plasma like grid looks. I don't
know why, but despite being a fixed pixel pixel display, it does tend to handle this stuff in a way that's very different and yet still somewhat pleasing. The only downside to plasmas though,
The only downside to plasmas though, well, there's a couple. One, the on some models you there's like a visible PWM noise where it's almost like a grainy effect. It's like it's sparkling in the dark shadows. CRTs absolutely don't have
this. And plasma black handling, like low light, very dim stuff. Nowhere near CRT quality either. like they kind of clip at a certain point or cut I guess certain level. Like they were better than LCDs in that regard, but it was
than LCDs in that regard, but it was still nowhere near uh CRT. And then if you really wanted good black levels, it was only the last 2 years or so of like Pioneer's final generation Kuro plasma and some of the later ones. They had
amazingly good contrast that's still competitive today. But older plasmas absolutely did not. So, they were very bright and glowy. Uh, and it's a shame out there. There's this one, a friend of mine has a Pioneer from like early 2000s
that is a 640x480 pixel 4x3 plasma and it's huge. It's a giant 4x3 screen and you just don't really see that. [laughter] And it was
uh it looks so cool. If you can pixel map a game with like 480p to that, you image. But because it's early plasma, the black levels are not good and it has
more issues with burnin. So yeah, >> I don't know. So plasma is interesting. It's just that they tend to be big and heavy. Like CRTs are big and heavy, but because plasma screens were like they took up more area in terms of like the
screen size, it requires surprisingly more than a CRT would in terms of the space it occupies in your setup just because of the size of the screen.
>> Is it not the case that recent OLEDs and um you know some of the technologies we have like RetroTink kind of like make this discussion >> I would say. Yeah. Uh it the I guess the
thing is to consider rich if you if you have a good OLED and a retro tank even with like the new one they just sent out like the 6x uh pro or whatever to check on that which is only 250 bucks which is an insane deal. You're still spending a
lot more than if if you were to like go find a plasma. Plasmas are easy to get now. They're very very cheap. If somebody was looking for a display that was well suited to that older generation of consoles and like lower res content,
you could get a PL for like 50 bucks or less easily. Now, if you already had a really nice OLED screen and you didn't mind pwning up for a scaler, then that would be this. That's actually what I do for I mean I use the retroinking 4K for
stuff like PS3 and Wii U and all that whenever I play that because it does whenever I play that because it does >> you can actually create a subpixel LCD like grid uh using the using that thing
crazy customization with like the way it outputs. you can actually rebuild like a a pixel grid screen uh with individual sub pixels that emulates the look of like a 720p screen or like a 1080p screen quite
easily and it looks amazing on there. So, that is still probably the best. But interesting. They're definitely interesting to look at, I will say. and they do have their uses, but it's not I don't think it's ever going to be like
CRT cuz CRT just has some inherent advantages with motion clarity and its ability to handle just about any resolution. Like as long as the CRT can support the input, it kind of functionally doesn't have a native res
because it's not fixed pixel >> and that's what makes it look so awesome with old content because you just pipe that stuff directly to it. You just get it looking correct. It looks awesome. Mhm. So Oliver, any thoughts on joining
the plasma is the next CRT movement? >> No. No. I I don't really have too many thoughts. All I want to say here is that, you know, I had a classic 768P that, you know, I had a classic 768P Bravia LCD 2006 model. Horrible
contrast, horrible uh blur on it, uh terrible brightness, which is kind of I don't know. To me, that is kind of the canonical Xbox 360 and PS3 experience because that's how those games really were defined to me. And the later models
of LCDs obviously alleviated those concerns. And if you had an HD CRT or a plasma, certainly those concerns were much uh much less present. But I would generations, those had a much better match between the display technology of
the time and that the consoles were trying to output. Not just in terms of the overall panel level quality features, but just in terms of actually aiming with the console output for 1080p or 4K or whatever, which are the actual
televisions at that time. It was actually very rare to have a native 720p not common at all. I don't think they were really present in consumer televisions at all. Other kinds of display formats, I think like a DLP, you
basically it. some 720p projectors I believe maybe later in the generation. Um but yeah, not LCDs at all. >> Of course, John was sitting there pretty
with his uh Sony headset with 720p panels in it. >> Oh, dude. Like that generation. I have this distinct memory of visiting a friend when he got some new 360 game. I think it was Fable 2. We loaded it up
and it's just like this horrendous black levels of that LCD, the smeary motion, the huge input lag, the low frame rate. It was a moment that sticks out because it really made me realize like we took a step back from like the PS2 era. Like
when you play a PS2 game or Dreamcast or any 60 fps game from that era on a CRT, it just feels so responsive. It's so crisp. The motion's so clean, colors so good. We took such a downgrade like that pursuit of HD uh was not good. Like the
first few years especially with the technology of the time we were we traded so much games became heavier and less responsive than ever and like the display characteristics were so much worse. And it wasn't even just the
display. It's like the games themselves, those new engines they were developing, input latency just went through the roof. So everything felt like garbage compared to the previous generation for the most part. It's really wild how bad
still some responsive games on those systems, but by and large, like everything was shifting towards very heavy, sluggish, laggy games that didn't look great on horrible displays of that era.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Almost like a dark ages of sorts despite more advanced advanced silicon. Okay. Uh, let's move on. Final question here from Darako in brackets. Dan, what series of secret nods and winks should
we look out for if either Sony or Microsoft show off a top secret future handheld to digital foundry behind closed doors at Gamescom? Does it does it actually remain secret if we're telling you about the nods and winks?
[laughter] Maybe a whistle here or there. Uh, John, um, you're heading to stuff that we won't be able to talk about for some time. Is there any kind
>> No, this this is the most ridiculous question we've done in quite some time. question we've done in quite some time. >> Uh yes, any kind of uh secret messaging that could be employed here? >> I don't think so. Cuz uh one, we're not
really we're not here to break leaks and report news in that way. Like that's not do that and that's cool. That's just not what I don't like to do that. That's not what we do anyway. But also, if there's something like when we saw Series S, for
instance, to see it, we had to sign an NDA, right? And like we're not going to break an NDA with a company like Microsoft. That that would be the end of us [laughter] in more ways than one. It is not worth
it. It's not interesting. It's not worth it and it's not going to happen. >> Okay. So, if there are any sort of winks or facial ticks or anything like that, you're just like tired or something. >> It's just being tired or a facial tick.
[laughter] >> Uh Oliver, I hesitate to ask thoughts on this question. >> Uh yeah, I mean, personally, I don't certainly not intentionally I don't try to communicate anything to the audience
that's outside of what I'm allowed to say in my purview when it comes to these kinds of topics. But it's my experience also that sometimes when you discuss things that maybe are a little bit more sensitive or or concern certain aspects
publicly disclosed, people will try to read into every possible expression in your face trying to divine your actual thoughts or feelings. Um but you know I I don't put much thought into that stuff. So I don't think you should
I do remember when I went on holiday but did record a particular direct uh that seeing switch two which I thought was hilarious. I wasn't. I was just on holiday. Uh just just did this did the direct as normal.
There's nothing to it. It's kind of uh interesting though that people do read in all of that sort of stuff. I mean, basically, um, Okam's razor basically of stuff, which is, you know, the most plausible explanation. Couched in
plausible explanation. Couched in reality is is likely the the proper one. hoodwinking the audience either. It's it's a bit weird. That's that's for sure. Yeah, the um the Xbox uh embargo from back in the day was certainly
from back in the day was certainly interesting. The Series S1 was basically an embargo that never expired until Microsoft said it expired. So yeah, we had to wait about 6 months on that. [laughter] That was kind of crazy, but
hopefully it sends a signal to the games industry that we can be trusted with stuff, right? But you know, [clears throat] um that's the way it is. Uh that was the final uh the final question, not the final episode, that
was the final question there for the end of the show. Uh like, subscribe, share patreon.com/digitalfoundry. [music] Uh, join us, support the team, get early access uh, to the direct, the chance to
pose your questions, lots of great stuff. Store.digitalfoundry.net for our merchandising wares. But that's all from us on this one. Looking forward to the postgamescom uh, uh, direct that's going to be coming
up. But I think first of all, there's the small matter of Grand Theft Auto 6 uh, [clears throat] to discuss. There we've got the Netflix uh reveal coming later this week. Looking forward to that. Hope you are too. But for now,
thanks for watching and supporting Digital Foundry.