---
title: '8 Years Isn''t Enough: Why This Console Generation Needs to Be Longer - Next-Gen Console Watch'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=UBfqubyjkyI'
video_id: 'UBfqubyjkyI'
date: 2026-10-02
duration_sec: 986
---

# 8 Years Isn't Enough: Why This Console Generation Needs to Be Longer - Next-Gen Console Watch

> Source: [8 Years Isn't Enough: Why This Console Generation Needs to Be Longer - Next-Gen Console Watch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=UBfqubyjkyI)

## Summary

The panel discusses whether Sony and Nintendo should delay next-gen consoles due to high costs and diminishing returns. They analyze the current console generation's slow start, rising prices, and the lack of killer apps, concluding that extending the current generation makes sense. The conversation also covers Xbox's uncertain future and the possibility of selling its gaming business.

### Key Points

- **Yoshida's Call to Extend Generation** [00:24] — Shuhei Yoshida, former PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss, told The Verge that Sony and Nintendo should keep the current generation going as long as possible because people are happy with PS5 and Switch 2, and hardware costs have risen more than other entertainment.
- **PS5 Age and Typical Generation Length** [01:50] — The PS5 is six years old, and previous Sony generations lasted seven years, so normally we'd be nearing the end. However, the affordability crisis may push back the PS6 launch.
- **First Generation with Rising Prices** [02:15] — This is the first time consoles have gotten more expensive as the generation has gone on, making it harder to sell a more expensive PS6.
- **Alternative to Raw Power** [02:42] — Max suggests a cheaper, different form factor (like a portable PS5) might be more exciting than raw power, noting diminishing returns and the PS5 Pro's lackluster reception.
- **QSSR Announcement** [03:11] — Sony announced QSSR (Quick Spectral Super Resolution) for PS5 Pro, a new feature with a streamlined neural network architecture, but the hosts find it confusing and unimpressive.
- **Current Games Look Great on Base Hardware** [03:52] — Games like Resident Evil Requiem, 007 First Light, and Onimusha look and play great on base PS5, and many are also on Switch 2, reducing the incentive to upgrade.
- **Cross-Gen Training Reduces Upgrade Urgency** [05:23] — Publishers have trained players to wait for cross-gen releases, so spending $1,000+ on a new console for barely noticeable improvements is unappealing.
- **Lack of Killer Apps** [08:19] — The last killer app that forced a console purchase was Breath of the Wild in 2017; without such a title, there's little reason to buy new hardware.
- **First to Announce Price Faces Backlash** [09:31] — Whoever announces the price first will face backlash, giving the second mover an advantage to tailor their announcement.
- **PS5 Install Base Advantage** [11:31] — The PS5 install base is around 100 million units, giving Sony leverage to delay next-gen without losing market share.
- **Xbox Not for Sale** [11:43] — Xbox CEO Asha Sharma denied reports of selling the gaming business, saying 'Xbox is not for sale,' but the panel doubts any buyer would step in now.
- **Studio Sell-Offs and Closures** [13:45] — Microsoft has spun out some studios and tried to sell Ninja Theory, but two buyers fell through, leading to likely closure. Larger sell-offs like Activision are unlikely.
- **Poll Results: Favorite Halo Game** [15:21] — Halo Infinite won the favorite non-Bungie Halo game poll with 50%, followed by Halo 4 with 40%, and Halo 5 with less than 10%.

### Conclusion

The panel agrees that the current console generation should be extended due to high costs, diminishing returns, and a lack of killer apps, with Xbox potentially launching sooner but facing significant challenges.

## Transcript

Welcome back to Next Gen Console Watch, our show following the latest gaming hardware.
I'm Damon Hadfield, and this episode is joined by Raymond Caffrey and Max Scoville. So this week we've got former PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida saying Sony and Nintendo should keep this console generation going as long as possible.
Not sure why he's putting PlayStation and Nintendo together. One of them has a six-year-old console. One of them has a one-year-old console. But whatever. He told The Verge, Sony and Nintendo have sold enough numbers of their current generation hardware, so because of the cost of goods, they might be looking, pushing back the launch of Next Gen.
I think they should try to keep the current generation as long as possible, because people are very happy using PS5 and Switch 2. People have finite budget, and it feels like PC and consoles, the components very specific to these devices, have increased their price way more than all other forms of entertainment.
People who have systems like PS5, Switch 2, or PC use, you know, good enough PCs, probably will be happy to play games on them and not necessarily consider replacing. So, yes, one of the main narratives of this console generation is that it was slow to start.
Publishers kept one foot in the last generation consoles for a very long time, resulting in few games that really felt like they were taking full advantage of current-gen hardware. When I think of this year's best games, Resident Evil Requiem, 007 First Light, Onimusha,
they all look and play great on my launch PS5. They don't leave me yearning for a PlayStation 6. And then there's the cost of new hardware, which has gone in the wrong direction this generation. Instead of going down in price, the costs of all consoles have gone up.
If an Xbox Series X costs $800 and a PS5 Pro is $900, it's hard to imagine next-gen consoles costing less than $1,000. So, Max, let's hear from you first. The PS5 is six years old now. The previous two Sony console generations lasted seven years, so we would normally be rounding the home stretch for this generation.
Do you think the current affordability crisis will cause Sony to push the launch of the PS6 back, and should they push it back? I would think so. Again, all the stuff you just mentioned, a lot going on there.
I think Sony is beholden to shareholders, and they've got to meet quarterly quotas, and they've got to do all that stuff to make number go up and all that. But I don't think there's a reason for a PlayStation 6 right now. It's everything you just mentioned.
The other thing, the other narrative of this generation is that this is the first time ever that consoles have gotten more expensive as the generation has gone on. So they are in a weird spot right now where not only do they have to sell people on the idea of a PS6,
they have to sell people on the idea of a PlayStation 6 that is more expensive than a thing they bought six, seven years ago, which is, again, I feel like a more exciting thing to people right now would be less a, you know,
souped-up, high-end, more powerful console, and more just like a cheaper, different, maybe a different form factor, maybe a PlayStation 5 that has some kind of portable Switch-like component to it. I feel like it's less a matter of, like, making things more powerful and really just, and
chasing that, you know, next-gen high. Again, we're seeing diminishing returns here. They put out a PS5 Pro, and I don't, it just doesn't feel like anyone cares. We've seen so few games take advantage of that in a meaningful way.
Just today they announced QSSR, which is Quick Spectral Super Resolution, which is going to be a new feature they're rolling out for PS5 Pro. They're going to give it to developers. A couple of games are taking advantage of it. And break the cells, everybody. It features
a streamlined neural network architecture and a hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on PS5. We cover this stuff for a living, and I don't understand what that means. So if they come out and they're like, hey, for $1,000, we can give you a thing that does stuff
like that even more, I'm not impressed. I'm not interested. And I feel like a lot of people are going to be in the same boat. And again, we have seen so few games take full advantage of the PS5. And also, those games you mentioned that are taking full advantage of base PS5 and they look
great and play great, those games all came to Switch 2 as well or are coming to Switch 2. So when you got a massive install base of the base PS5 that is still a perfectly powerful machine and you got the added bonus of the massive install base of the Switch 2 which is a less powerful machine that can still play great games what is the motivation what is the incentive to try to make games for a more powerful thing that few people
can afford? It just doesn't make sense right now. I feel like there are so many good cases for delaying it, just, you know, backburnering it for the time being, and really taking full advantage of what we currently have, or finding
some way to kind of reconfigure it and sell us on that. I mean, I think a more exciting thing than quick spectral super resolution or whatever is like a $400 console in 2026.
Yeah. Well, Ryan, Shuhei didn't mention Xbox alongside Sony and Nintendo. Do you think it's, I mean, obviously of the three, Xbox is in a distant third place in terms of hardware sales. Do they not have the luxury of pushing back the next-gen Xbox?
well it might just be that he's in Japan and Xbox is a complete non-factor there it might just be that but yeah I mean I certainly am with Max all the way here
because it's like the price problem would be and is a massive problem just on its own but something that you guys already hit on is also a problem that the price situation only compounds
which is that game publishers have now trained us from this generation to know that we don't need to buy the new thing for a while because all the games that come out are going to be cross-gen for years to come.
So you combine that with the idea of a four-figure price tag next-gen Xbox Helix or a PlayStation 6 and you're going to get a lot of people going, well, nope.
There's definitely, why would I do that? Why would I spend that money when everything that comes out for the next few years is just going to be available on the thing that I already have? Why should I spend $1,000 plus just for a barely noticeable, better-looking version?
Because really, we've really seen it the last couple generations, is diminishing returns on the obvious upgrades. Like, sure, games look better than ever, but it's not a night-and-day thing
from one console generation to the next like it used to be. Yeah. You just reviewed Gears of War E-Day, Ryan, at least the single-player portion. Give it a 9 out of 10. Yeah, obviously liked it a lot. At any time during your playthrough,
were you wishing there was a next-gen Xbox you could have played it on? No. No, it's an amazing-looking game. Unreal Engine 5, still looking real nice. The Coalition, the developer of that game, has always been kind of at the forefront of Unreal Engine development tech
other than Epic themselves. Yeah, Gears of E-Day looks spectacular, and it's certainly no complaints from me in the visual department. Between PlayStation and Xbox,
we've heard the most about Xbox's next-gen plans. First, there was a leak from the FTC several years ago now with the adorably all-digital next-gen Xbox, Project Helix, and then, you know, I think it was last year,
they just came out right and said their next-gen console is going to be a very premium device, and that it will be, you know, apparently be this hybrid with PC games. So my point is just that we've heard the most about Xbox and are the one that needs to get their hardware sales
turned around the most. So what do you, do you think there's a chance that they're still like, we have to get a new gen console out sooner than PlayStation, who may be taking a little bit more of a slower approach now?
I mean, that strategy certainly worked for them with the Xbox 360 coming out a year ahead of the PS3, but these are wildly different times, and I'm not sure that it's an advantage anymore,
when again it going to be a high thousand device I don know unless they can bring killer like actual killer apps The last killer app that I can think
of where you just had to buy the game, you had to buy the system for that game, would have been Breath of the Wild, right? 2017 was probably the last time that that happened. It's happened once in Xbox history, which is of course Halo
as an original launch title for the original Xbox, but But, I mean, short of Elder Scrolls VI being a complete next-gen Xbox Helix exclusive,
not available on PS6 or the Series X or Series S, which is probably not going to happen. At least part of that's not going to happen. I just, yeah, I can't see Microsoft being in any rush when they know as well as anyone
on the hardware component pricing situation that we're still in the middle of. Well, Max, with the launch of a new Xbox in the next couple of years, would that force PlayStation's hand? Could they afford to fall years behind Xbox?
Yes, I think they can afford to. I feel like Xbox is in sort of just such a shaky situation that anything they do is going to be, you know, the head start that they have is also going to have function as kind of walking ahead in the minefield
in front of Sony and showing what rigs they shouldn't be stepping on. Whoever announces the price first is going to piss everyone off, no matter what that price is, no matter when they announce it. And whoever still hasn't announced the price gets to, you know,
tailor their announcement around that. So, you know, this is going to be an expensive machine no matter what. Both of these things are going to be – they're going to be pricey. And we're at a time where I think people are – again, they're thinking a lot more carefully about their spending.
when the 360 came along and the PS3 came along I think there's that feeling of like yeah, my old console is getting a little bit old it's getting a little bit long in the tooth and this thing comes along
and it does new stuff and has new tricks and there's that thrill of like yeah, I'll spend a bit of money to have fun and get a new thing that's a shiny new toy again, we don't know what these shiny new toys actually will do and so like, there's just
so much working against these new devices that I feel like, you know, Xbox has already sort of shown their hand with the idea of Project Helix, and we've heard a lot of rumors about it.
They've also framed it as being like a niche device, as being like, this is targeting a smaller, more specific type of audience. And I feel like they're going to lean on that pretty hard. And I think just the fact that they have given this thing a codename
and they have sort of talked about what it's going to do, I feel like we're going to see it sooner than Sony. I could be completely wrong here. I'm totally just speculating. But, yeah, it seems to me that Sony is, for better or for worse, kind of falling back on their old, you know, the PS3 days.
I feel like they're going to cart something out and be like, great news, everybody. Here's Mark Cerny to tell you about all the new spectral resolutions we have on the PlayStation 6. And then they're going to tell us the price point. We're going to get mad about it. But if Hewitt has already been announced and shown off with a completely ludicrous price point, regardless of what it is,
Sony can maybe say, well, ours is $100 cheaper. Or it's about the same, but it does more, whatever it is. So, yeah, so I think they can afford, especially with the install base of the PS5 right now,
which is just around 100 million units. Ryan, the other Xbox news this week is that CEO Asha Sharma is now denying reports that have suggested Microsoft was considering selling its gaming business. In an interview with the New York Times, she declared,
Xbox is not for sale, that we'll do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we'll look at the right partnerships, the right operating model, and everything needed to achieve that. Whatever it takes. A lot of the comments just don't believe her.
Ryan, what's your take? I think if they were thinking about trying to spin the business off and sell it, now isn't the time. So I do believe her in that sense, because they're in the middle of such insane change right now,
which Mads was talking about a minute ago. They are like it is it a very like storm in a teacup situation with Xbox where there this like now like if I a buyer if I a I don know a Tencent
or a, a Disney, or, I, I don't even know, some venture capital thing, uh, and I'm, I'm thinking, oh, maybe I should get into this video game business, oh, Xbox, hmm, now, I would look, if I were looking at it right now, I'd be like, uh, no, that looks a little,
they don't seem like they're, they've righted their ship yet, so, I'm not saying it, it couldn't happen ever, but I definitely don't think that now would be the time that they would even be talking to buyers or even considering the idea of putting Xbox on the market.
I mean, if Asha can steady the ship here and actually establish a strategy and get things moving along, like, with Halo and with just a cadence of releases and get this new Helix
hardware launched in the next, presumably, two years, then, like, maybe, like, then I would entertain it, but for now, I just think, yeah, now doesn't seem like the time that any buyer would be willing to spend what it would take to buy
Xbox. It just doesn't seem like the right time. Brian, I'm curious. Do you think there's any possibility we see Xbox selling off some of the studios and publishers it scooped up? Is there any world where they're like, oh, hey,
we're selling Bethesda the highest bidder, or we're selling Activision? They already have, obviously, with spinning out a few of these independently and they tried to find a buyer for Ninja Theory,
and according to them, two buyers fell through, and now, sadly, it looks like they're going to be closed. But in terms of the larger scale stuff, Activision, probably not, because that just seems like...
I mean, if anything, with these recent moves of putting World's Edge and Rare and Halo under Activision, that seems like they're just kind of coming closer together. Bethesda maybe, but, I mean, they paid relatively little for Bethesda, like, at least compared to Activision,
that you'd think the Elder Scrolls and Fallout IPs alone would probably be worth just hanging on to Bethesda and keeping that rolling. But as far as other developers, yeah, I mean, I certainly couldn't rule it out.
They've effectively closed Halo Studios. I know they technically haven't, and I don't want fans to get mad at me, but they're, in Microsoft's own words, just going to be doing community support now.
So they have definitely slimmed things down between these spin-offs and studio closures. Well, we are closing in on the sixth birthday for both the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
I'm firmly in the camp that doesn't think we need new consoles anytime soon, but how about you, dear viewers? Are you ready for next-gen consoles? You can head over to Hygen.com, Spotify, and now Discord to vote. You can find the link to our Discord in the description,
and we'll go over the results on next week's show. Just like we can with last week's poll results, we were asking, what's your favorite non-Bungie mainline series Halo game? And Ryan, you said you were very curious what would win this one. And with 50% of the vote, it was Halo Infinite.
That was followed by Halo 4 with 40%, and then Halo 5 had just less than 10% of the vote. Yeah, I figured 5 would be a distant third in that. And I did. I kind of thought that Infinite would take it,
but I'm actually happy to see 4 have a strong showing in that poll. I like Infinite a lot. Of those three, that's definitely my favorite as well. All right, that's our show. Thank you to both Ryan and Max. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind the scenes
to make this show possible. My name is Damon. We'll be back next week with more on the latest gaming hardware, and we'll see you then.
This episode of Next Gen Council Watch was produced by Damon Hadsfield, Gilbert Atienza, and Sam Claiborne. Damon is also the host, and Max Scoville and Ryan McCaffrey serve as regular panelists. Technical direction is by Gilbert Atienza,
with technical production by Mariah Franzen and Amir Rakib. Audio engineering is handled by Amir Rakib. Post-production editing is by Gilbert Atienza, and graphic design is by Justin Bastone. Next Gen Council Watch is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.