DF Direct Q&A: Too Expensive? More Cross-Gen? Is Next-Gen Just for Enthusiasts?

[00:04] Indeterminate Temperature to this the latest edition of the DF Direct Q&A primarily about the fact that next generation consoles well they don't seem to be having much going for them at this point. Uh discussing this and a lot of

[00:17] other topics uh myself and of course Oliver McKenzie. >> Yes, there's a lot of doom and gloom surrounding nextgen console speculation and rumors at the moment. I'm trying to maintain a sort of cautiously optimistic

[00:30] stance, but the rumors and vibes are not good at the moment, I gotta say. >> Yeah, absolutely. And of course, John Linamman. >> Yes, Rich. Uh I would agree. The the vibes are not good at the moment and

[00:44] there's a lot of reasons for it and a lot of it is external to the game industry. So, um yeah, we'll see what happens, but still. >> Yeah. Okay. Well, uh let's crack on with our first question. But first, this DF

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[02:12] built for the absolute limit of modern PC gaming. questions here. We're going to group them together since it's pretty much

[02:25] covering the same content. Uh this one from some guy person. You guys have mentioned that you feel we're about to see a massive crossgen period for the next 6 plus years, which I agree with. If you take the Switch 2 as the baseline

[02:37] platform to target, you can easily run your game at 60 fps on current gen consoles. We already know this. So, the main question is, what will the next people want to buy them? If future games will mostly run at 60 fps, what will the

[02:50] PS6 do that usurps the PS5 Pro? Better 120 Hz support, better upscaling, path tracing. I don't see the masses clamoring to pay over $1,000 for some better image quality, even though the

[03:02] people making and watching this channel care very deeply about it. And uh Allan, straight to it. Hi guys, you talked about cheap ways to get into gaming. John said the 5 Pro could sell out if people rush to get one for GTA 6, but is

[03:17] a 5 Pro with a disc drive not the most cost-effective option to get into gaming now and not bothering with PS6? You'll be able to play all PS4, very cheap physical games, PS5 games with better RT, etc., but also with a 5 Pro be able

[03:31] to get halfway into the PS6 generation. All you'll be losing is better RT and other lighting and dynamic effects. You would also be able to add PSVR, too, as well if you want. Um, I'm going to go to you first on this, Oliver, because this

[03:45] is an interesting question, right? because um um you know the concept of having a new games console is very very exciting but we kind of know what's coming because uh well effectively Nvidia has trailed uh blazed the trail

[03:59] so to speak with the RTX feature set over the past few years. Is that exciting enough for a next generation console? And does it justify a $1,000 console? Um what do you think? I think it justifies a $1,000 console to a

[04:15] specific limited slice of gamers. Probably a more limited slice than PlayStation 5 did over PlayStation 4. Likewise with series over Xbox One last you're going to see a range of fairly iterative upgrades. Like I think you're

[04:30] going to see more 4K120 support. I think you're going to see support period um for 4K 240 probably some aspect of the HDMI 2.2 spec there. Um, I think you're

[04:42] furthered, but not in any ways that are like initially, because when you look at current generation games, a lot of them current generation games, a lot of them are using RTGI, RT reflections, they're

[04:55] already kind of hitting the like lowhanging fruit of game graphics, the improve with rate tracing, with rate tracing and the improvement from like adding in RT shadows, things like that, improving finality further. Um, it can

[05:08] initially I expect it to be more iterative in nature. Um and I do think there is probably a real open question here beyond that as to exactly how these consoles will be marketed and exactly what people expect out of them because I

[05:24] out of the current generation consoles especially PS5 Pro and going to next generation. I'm really not sure how much of that you can really advertise to instead of something that's just an iterative upgrade that is not really

[05:39] selling the console that much. But I would caution people like Alan against the PS5 Pro route possibly because like I actually did cover a fair number of cross generation games after this generation of of consoles launched and I

[05:54] think we saw pretty consistent trends with consoles like the Xbox One X where well and then over time they were becoming badly underserved where advantage of the hardware and games were

[06:08] settings to the base console counterparts they had that generation, right? So, I would not expect developers to be rolling out the red carpet for PlayStation 5 Pro in the way they have as a way to advertise their games um

[06:21] into like 2029 or 2030. I expect those to be much more preuncts. I don't actually expect developers to be expending, you know, all the effort in the world to port over all the great ray tracing features and PSSR2 and all this

[06:34] jazz to their PS5 Pro console versions. So yeah, I'm not sure that's terribly optimistic set of remarks there, but in consoles, I kind of think it's incumbent on the platform holder and the um

[06:48] platform holders rather and the game publishers and the game developers to really show us something exciting. Cuz so far, if you look at the PC titles really seeing as much excitement. We're seeing more iterative steps steps up

[07:02] that the enthusiast will will value but the mainstream probably will not. >> Yeah, John, ultimately it comes down to software, doesn't it? And if the route able to play the same games on your last generation machines, um, do things like

[07:18] generation machines, um, do things like 120 Hz and path tracing um, make the grade as like a a proper generational upgrade? I'm I'm not so sure. >> Nah, I don't think so. And actually before addressing all that, I do want to

[07:32] mention I actually disagree with Oliver on the thing about the Pro. And I'll >> Uh as things go on, let's say they stop supporting Pro officially or they don't do anything special for it. >> What it still offers instead is

[07:45] essentially removing performance constraints by and large. We've seen this with so many games that only were developed for just PS5, not Pro. any kind of problems like that has largely

[07:58] been fixed. It basically just solved those problems, right? And I think that essentially like a cushion. It's like a performance cushion. So even if you don't get extra features with the Pro, you're still getting a higher

[08:11] performance ceiling that can sort of smooth out any potential problems. And in fact, I might argue that by not specifically supporting the Pro, you experience in general since we've seen before where implementing Pro features

[08:25] could sometimes reduce performance. Uh although that's not a huge issue this think that's a bad strategy there for that reason specifically. Um, but I think we're we're at a pretty difficult spot right now. And we're

[08:40] talking about this before anything has been announced, right? nothing is really known about what these new machines will be. And a lot of a lot of this hinges on what they're going to offer. Uh I think a lot of us fear that this is the last

[08:53] generation of consoles in the way that we knew them. But there's a lot of reasons for that fear and the game industry in general is kind of in a tough spot. So one obviously [clears throat] there's the the cost of

[09:08] components very very high right now, right? How do you actually create a box reasonable price? I'm not sure you can. So, the price is going to be very high uh at a time when economy's not doing that great. Things are not great for a

[09:23] lot of people. So, a very expensive box that's not easy for a lot of people to afford. Instant strike one. Secondly, games themselves, the big stuff, the stuff that gets people interested. I think this generation people realize

[09:37] that it's just taking forever for this stuff to to appear in a way that it's the worst it's ever been. And there are some reasons for that, including the pandemic. But um you no longer can expect to get new software

[09:52] from your favorite studio in a timely fashion. You maybe get one game a generation at best is what it feels like now. Uh in some cases, not every developer, which is a bit disheartening. So, people have gotten more used to this

[10:06] release cadence. Then there's the threat from the forever games like stuff like Roblox, Minecraft, you know, the usual suspects, which I would say you look at

[10:18] suspects, which I would say you look at Roblox, Roblox is a console. It's a new individual game. It is a place that people go. It's where they spend the people go. It's where they spend the time. really like Sony, Microsoft, they

[10:30] may as well look at the audience playing Roblox as a non-addressable audience. that audience is largely not addressable. They will not purchase your products outside of maybe the hardware because they are invested in this other

[10:46] thing, right? So, that's another potential issue dealing with that. And younger generation. We're reaching a point now where like the the game consoles as we know them are kind of built around concepts and ideas that we

[11:01] built around concepts and ideas that we were raised on, right? And it's like the 80s, the '9s, 2000s, like this style of like release a box, you know, here's a bunch of new software for it. You get that experience. Games you like usually

[11:13] would get like sequels and follow-ups within a pretty short window. So, it kind of had this like cadence, but now we've reached this point where people gaming or they're just sticking with specific games and that's all they ever

[11:26] audience and there's a lot of money to be made there. They may never have This is the kind of thing that they could have been into long term, but uh potential revenue. So, they take those moonshots and often falter

[11:44] trying to hit it. So, we're in this position then where there's fewer games that can be made by big studios. Everything's more expensive now. Uh, a

[11:56] are only interested in very specific games or platforms. And then on top of that, you know, the things like the physical media stuff, yeah, the majority doesn't necessarily buy discs anymore.

[12:09] That's true. But this has created a gigantic wave of bad press that I don't think is going to be easily forgotten. It'll die down, but I think it will pop up again. And you add all those other things with

[12:22] that, and it's just they're potentially promising this box where the only real difference might be, oh, you're going to get, you know, 120 frames per second now or slightly higher resolution stuff that I don't

[12:36] think the majority of people even care about at this point. This generation as about at this point. This generation as is is already I would say the most 60fps games we've had since like the 16-bit era which was a very different type of

[12:49] era which was a very different type of of hardware. Uh but now most games are 60, right? I think we can agree on that. On consoles most games are 60. There are some examples of games that that fail to hit that target, right? some big games,

[13:03] sure, but I would say the overwhelming majority is just 60, which is a dream in really good shape in terms of performance. And I think for the average enough, unless you're sitting really close or using like a PC monitor. So, I

[13:21] guess the question is is knowing all of those things, how do you sell a new console in a way that's appealing to enough people to make it worthwhile? interesting point because essentially the argument of improved image quality

[13:36] the argument of improved image quality and um uh resolution, that kind of thing was the promise of PlayStation 5 Pro, right? time. It took time for the second generation PSSR uh to come along and and

[13:50] basically uh address those issues. I think there is an interesting point there that PS PS5 Pro is doing a lot of the heavy lifting now in addressing those problems that the PS5 has got to the point now where it's routine that

[14:02] we're we're recommending the Pro version over the base PlayStation 5 version for the for the best console experience. Uh looking at this one more holistically though. Um yeah, the problem is is that the um PS4 generation had severe

[14:16] balance, right? you had a weak CPU, you had a uh spinning rust hard drive as as it's been referred to. >> Uh the new consoles addressed those core issues. The CPU obviously it's probably turned out to be not quite the leap that

[14:32] The storage issue is addressed to the point where I still don't think that the medium is being properly exploited by by most current games. Uh which is interesting. There's there's definitely room to do more there. Um, so what can

[14:47] going to be come coming down to stuff like path tracing, uh, enhanced ray tracing and I think that's great and I think you could get uh a proper generational leap out of those features. But at the same time, if these consoles

[15:00] are going to be expensive, then we're facing a problem here in that um, uh, these games have got to scale across a wider uh, array of hardware than ever before. And if the same games are appearing on PlayStation uh five them uh

[15:15] and PlayStation 6 that the the urge to upgrade is going to be deadened somewhat. You know if you look about uh if you look at the sort of uh uh differences we see in games between high-end PC and PlayStation 5. Now the

[15:29] target of those games is still PlayStation 5, right? So, you're getting iterative upgrades as opposed to that particular high-end platform being the focus for development and then the lower-end systems being unduly

[15:43] compromised, that's probably not going to happen. Um, so I do think that if you're looking at something like uh let's say for example um Alan Wake 2, um it's fine on a base Play PlayStation 5, right? It's it's pretty good. You've got

[15:57] your 60 fps mode where it's it's it's a bit wobbly, but it does the job. uh 30 fps quality mode looks looks okay. It looks iteratively better on PlayStation 5 Pro. It looks a lot better on PC with with, you know, improved image quality,

[16:11] but the the the point is that you're still playing the same game and it still looks perfectly fine on the um on the sort of standard system. I think that's the problem there. Um but the PlayStation 5 Pro, you know, it does

[16:24] give you that extra refinement at the moment. I kind of see where Allan is is huge caveat to all of this though, which is that we've yet to see the pitch that's being made by Sony and Microsoft for these new machines.

[16:38] going to be facing at the moment, which is they've got to more than ever before justify this new hardware. Um, I think they did a pretty good pitch with um the they did a pretty good pitch with um the last generation machines, but um,

[16:53] arguably they've got to do an order of magnitude more work to actually justify, you know, what could be a $1,000 console uh, next time around. Really interesting. Um, PS5 Pro, I think they are going to shift a lot of units

[17:07] because it's going to be the best way to play Grand Theft Auto 6. Um, I think that's [laughter] that's that's the bottom line. bottom line. Um, any final thoughts, Oliver?

[17:19] >> Well, Alan Wake 2 is a funny example because that's actually one of the more extreme examples in favor of PC and even still in your telling. Not that still runs fine on PlayStation 5. But like you look at a a game like

[17:34] Assassin's Creed Black Flag Reync or certainly the recent and and gorgeous Halo Campaign Evolved and those are games that kind of have everything on the consoles like they have all the RT features. They have like good

[17:47] performance, acceptable image quality broadly. Um I mean Halo has that film hopefully they'll turn off but once they turn it off I'm sure it'll be fine enough. And they basically hit every single mark that you could want. All the

[18:01] upgrades on PC are kind of like win more upgrades. Like wouldn't it be nice if the frame rate was 120 fps, okay, but 60 is fine, right? Wouldn't it be nice if the game was upsampling to 4K instead of like 1440p? Okay, but it looks fine.

[18:15] [laughter] You know, these are all kind of it upgrades and at the moment we do see a lot of those upgrades on PS5. I I completely agree with John that um PS5 Pro is likely to ameliate performance issues that you see on PlayStation 5

[18:27] versions of games that we see in the future. But I do think it probably is red carpet is not going to be rolled out for PS5 Pro as much when the enthusiasts consoles. I think that's probably the case as well. My current kind of bet

[18:41] here is that any current generation hardware will suit you fine for a while. PS5 Pro is definitely the safer bet, but if I was being prudent as the kind of prudent enthusiast, I'd really be sh saving up my simoleons for the

[18:56] PlayStation 6 uh down the line because I think it will be a better experience for enthusiasts. But I don't know that that will appeal to the mass market in the same way that like a PlayStation 5 did where you could easily say, "Hey, 60 fps

[19:08] gaming, rateracing, all these nice features, new things, SSD, these are not novel features on a PlayStation 6. Yeah, I think there's an issue here person's questions here and all of the key points as to what PlayStation 6 will

[19:24] do better than PlayStation 5. Um, it's all stuff that's kind of like reserved for high-end PC enthusiasts almost. You know, 120 Hz, better upscaling, path tracing. It's the sort of thing that people are happy to pay extra money to

[19:38] experience. Um, but is that the same kind of pitch you can make to a mainstream uh console buyer? I don't think it is. So, you've got to come up with really good software. And that's my worry here because there's such a

[19:51] critical mass of systems out there that will be operating at a much lower power level that it kind of makes commercial sense to ensure that the game delivers a great experience uh for the for that class of hardware. And I think that's

[20:04] what why I chose that Alan Wake 2 example because you know you can see that obviously you can uh get much better um uh results from PC. you know, got your path tracing, it looks incredible, but you know, the the the

[20:19] hardware that people already have is kind of good good enough. So, yeah, it's all about the pitch there. Um, okay, let's move on. Right. Interesting question here from Snorlax Cat. Uh, I keep my Xbox One S as a remarkably cheap

[20:35] 4K Blu-ray device, so if we have a new pandemic, I can watch my physical movies. Do you think people will hold on to their PS5s and Series X as I plan to because they will at least PS5 lol be able to play the games that are on disc

[20:49] completely uh to be installed or that this minority will just be as small as people who keep their PS3s to play backlogs that will never be ported like backlogs that will never be ported like GT5, GT6 or Motor Storm? So yeah, this

[21:01] is an interesting question that kind of strikes at the heart of the physical strikes at the heart of the physical media um discontinuation, John. And you know, also for me, I think a reason that a lot of people would upgrade, consider

[21:14] an upgrade from PlayStation 5 to PlayStation 6 is basically that they can take all of their games with them. Right now, as things stand, we have no able to take all of your library with you from PS5 to PS6 because there's um

[21:30] no answer to the physical media question. So, what do you think about this? Will people hold on to their PS5s and Series X? And I guess by extension, do you think they might move on to a different platform? Uh because it's uh

[21:44] represents a a jumping off point potentially. because I think it's just going to vary depending on the specific person and there's different categories there, right? There's going to be the the

[21:59] people that maybe can't afford a new system and they're just happy to keep their old system around. But a lot of people in the past when a new machine their old one and get on with it and just move over. Uh in my case, I like to

[22:13] keep all of my old hardware even when new hardware is released. But I recognize that's not what everybody's doing. Um but I feel like this jump specifically could be a little different. uh depending on how it goes.

[22:28] Just we've never had if if things cost what they might cost, what we think they will cost, we've never had a leap in price this gigantic never had a leap in price this gigantic before, uh ever. And we've never had so

[22:44] many features being removed all at once. So, it's like we're taking things away from you and we're charging you way more money is that's a really tough situation there. there. And I could see a lot of people just largely being like,

[22:59] for now, especially if the crossgen stuff continues for a long time, which I stuff continues for a long time, which I think it will. Um, it's but there's still too much we just we just don't know what's going to happen. And I don't

[23:13] think I think the pro well the problem with this kind of question is that we can only look back at what's happened in the past, but I think what's coming is different than any other console transition like ever. and that so we

[23:26] people from previous generations to determine what they're going to do going forward. Uh like I don't have any plans on spending my own money to get a digital only PS6 like this and it wouldn't become the cornerstone of my

[23:42] wouldn't become the cornerstone of my setup like most new consoles tend to. Um it's but [sighs] man it's just it's difficult. I I really we can't say. We're just going to have to wait and see. And we still owe it to

[23:56] them, I guess, to wait for them to present their their case for what it's going to be, right? We can't just say like, "Oh, we're not into this yet." >> right? Mhm. >> Uh for instance, like the if Sony was

[24:10] was to come out and I don't think this is going to happen, but if the P PS6 turned out to be sort of like a handheld machine, for instance, I think there's just been that that machine, it's a handheld now, like the Switch, uh it

[24:24] handheld now, like the Switch, uh it runs PS5 class games, whatever. I think you position it right, it could be more interesting and that would also help sort of mitigate the the lack of disc support because well, you're not going

[24:39] to run Blu-ray discs on a on a portable system. So, that would kind of automatically answer that question for a lot of people as to why that change was Uh, and I so I think that's just an example of how announcing in like the

[24:53] nature of the product could shift the general consumer feelings on something. Yeah. But if it's just another console box like this, but costs way more money >> we'll see. >> Yeah, it would have fewer features. And

[25:07] that's what what I think the uh Snorlax Cat is suggesting here. It's like, well, maybe I should keep this machine in order to play my games, which is not a question that really was an an issue with PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5.

[25:19] It's like, it's got a disc drive. Um, if I don't have a a disc collection, I can >> and that's the that's the main thing, Rich, and this is really important when you went from PS4 to PS5. There was no reason to stick with the PS4 if you

[25:33] wanted to upgrade, right? Not only would you get PS5 games, but it would run all of your PS4 software better. Yeah, >> this time around PS5 software largely runs well. It's much better than the PS4 generation. So, there's not this real

[25:46] desire to see massive upgrades to performance that we sell saw last time. collection, you're likely not even going to be able to use it. >> Yeah. Um Oliver, what do you make of this?

[26:00] this? Well, I think it's it's early a little early in this whole cycle to be talking about this stuff because I think it's safe to say that we won't see new discs for PS6 and Helix, but we don't know

[26:13] what the state of disc entitlement will be on PS6. We don't know if they'll have a disc to digital program. Maybe it's not technically feasible, but it's possible. Who knows? Maybe they'll have some kind of external disc drive

[26:26] selling a PS6 with the disc drive natively, but perhaps they could have one. We just don't know. All All we have, of course, is the kind of somewhat have, of course, is the kind of somewhat tur slightly cryptic three paragraph

[26:40] statement that always references that was uh obviously very negative to a lot of people and and and sparked so much discourse online in in social media commentary. But we don't know what Sony's plans are. I almost think it's

[26:52] incumbent on them to reveal those plans a little bit sooner rather than later if they are positive plans at all because I think people are very very upset. Um and maybe who knows maybe it's something they could add to the conso's uh you

[27:05] know add to the conso's lineup if people are still really wanting such a device. I imagine they could probably add a disc drive but at the moment we just don't we just don't know. Um, assuming as is kind of suggested here that maybe the PS6

[27:19] won't have any kind of disc drive attachment, then yeah, I I assume people will hold on to their PS5s for a long time to come. Um, it's a little bit of a trickier situation though than with PS3 cuz PS3 was such a great platform,

[27:32] especially if you had an original fat model for playing so much PlayStation software and getting HDMI output, good HDMI output on PS1 games, PS2 games, PS3 HDMI output on PS1 games, PS2 games, PS3 games, that's so valuable. And with PS5,

[27:46] isn't that compelling. You have PS4 games, PS5 games. That's some PS2 on PS4 titles. You can play things like that. I guess now you can play like there are some emulated PSP titles, but they're limited in PS1 titles, PS2 titles, but

[28:02] it's a fairly limited lineup, so it's not as appealing as like that OG PS3, nicely. >> Yeah, Oliver, I like your PS3 point. I mean, that thing could even play like SA CDs. It's like CDs, SA CDs, DVDs,

[28:16] Blu-rays, all different generations of PlayStation. Like, there was so many things that it could do. It's kind of cool. I guess the one thing we learned from the last couple weeks with both the PlayStation and the and the Xbox online

[28:29] outage, which prevented people from playing games, is that if you were worried about the consoles always being online, don't be because they're not always online. [laughter] >> Oh my god.

[28:41] Oh dear. Well, you know, I think that um as you say, [clears throat] we've had both platform holders um with outages there, and I do note that, you know, Microsoft owned it. They put out an explanation for what happened. They're

[28:54] again. I mean, I don't think they can make that guarantee, but at least at accountability, right, and communication with the user base. And this is like at

[29:06] the moment uh Sony's weakest uh aspect from from from my viewpoint. They just audience. They don't think they the audience deserves an explanation for any of this stuff. >> And it's worrying. Okay. Um, what's

[29:21] interesting, Rich, um, one thing I'd heard from a couple sort of sources, and this is just kind of like, you know, potential rumory stuff, but at least before the current Xbox reset, I don't know where it is now, it sounds like

[29:35] Microsoft was actually very much going to continue disc support, not because they valued retail disc sales, but because they wanted to like ensure that on new Xboxes. >> Right. Right. And it's like, oh, we

[29:51] could offer maybe like an external drive or basically some means. And I think that might all tie into this distigital stuff as well. But I get this feeling that they actually, especially given the reaction, I'm not saying they're going

[30:05] to solve problems or anything drastically going to change. But I I do see a future where Microsoft actually supports discs going forward for users that want to take their library with them while Sony just completely cuts

[30:18] people off. >> Right. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Let's move on. Okay then. So, um, another couple of questions I'm going to group together. This one from Chromulant FX Super Resolution. Uh, hello Foundryman.

[30:31] with the PS6 graphics power expected to perform around the level of a 5070 Ti and the possibility of Steam OS eventually having Nvidia support. Is there merit to the idea of spending big money now on a gaming PC that will

[30:43] provide 10 years of at or above mainstream level gaming? Essentially bringing down the cost per year to a more reasonable level or is this simply mental gymnastics to justify the contemporary hardware prices? Probably

[30:55] the latter to be fair. Uh this one from raging whiskey. A crystal ball prediction time. What would you all do? Buy new hardware now expecting costs to rise or would you wait and for how long before dipping the toe back into PC

[31:09] component/h hardware purchases? So I think in the considering moving to the PC for a number of reasons. Um firstly that you have access to a truly dynamic market. Obviously, the pricing does generally

[31:22] tend to rise and that's not great, but there is competition out there. You do occasionally see some deals. Um, I'm currently looking to sort of build what I would consider, how can I describe it? Uh, the most cost effective PC, gaming

[31:37] PC that does what I want it to do. So, you know, I've got like um a miniITX board that I got off eBay for £100. I got a Ryzen 57500F got a Ryzen 57500F from AliExpress for £86.

[31:51] And basically the idea is that I'm going to slowly uh get the components that I to slowly uh get the components that I need over time uh when there what I would consider decent prices. Also two TB SSD. I've got that direct from

[32:03] TB SSD. I've got that direct from SanDisk for £160 which um isn't great but is certainly great compared to the direction of travel. Um, but what do you make, Oliver, of of the two questions here? Um, it's a tricky one, right?

[32:17] [laughter] Um, I'm not sure that spending a gigantically galactic galactically large amount of money now in order to have a PC that lasts 10 years is is a good strategy.

[32:31] I I think 10 years is tricky. Like if you're tell me if you're to tell me I want to spend big money on a PC now so I can enjoy all these great pathpriced that will extend into the next generation by quite a margin. That I

[32:45] I mean you've never been able to squeeze 10 years out of a graphics product. Maybe that will change. I don't know. But you never know what kind of feature level requirements might emerge even with a 5090. Who knows, right? Who knows

[32:58] what the state of driver support will be in 10 years. Um, I do think it's a safe bet to buy if you want to buy a PC for like $1,500 or something. I think that's a pretty safe buy for a while, but I would not go whole hog on a $5,000 PC

[33:13] think you should just cool your jets a little bit on that prospect. Even if I reasonable expectations for what that machine might be able to do over the years, I think that's probably an easier prediction than 10 years. Um, in terms

[33:29] of if you should buy new hardware now or wait. I think you should buy new hardware now if not yesterday. I mean, I have an M3 last year. >> Yeah, I have an I have an M3 Ultra Mac Studio that I just got or just got. I

[33:43] ordered it months ago and it finally arrived because of various shortages, arrived because of various shortages, but it increased in price by like 35 40% very recently. So, I'm really glad that I bought it when I did. I mean, I wish

[33:55] I'd bought it a year earlier, but uh I guess better late than never, I suppose. But but certainly I did manage to avoid that price increase. And I think we're seeing from just about everyone, everyone says prices are going to get

[34:07] higher. And a lot of people including um some valve engineers are saying that some valve engineers are saying that prices currently in the market at retail do not reflect obviously do not reflect the price of current um inventory when

[34:21] things like this because current production lags behind retail availility availability typically by months. So you know for a lot of products out there you really should buy now because you have a reasonable expectation of future price

[34:35] Now, maybe there are some exceptions like mice, uh, peripherals in general, mice, speakers, monitors, things like that, things without reasonable storage products, PCs, consoles, things like that, I think you should buy now. Um, I

[34:52] don't think you should necessarily buy like a 5090 PC now necessarily if that's normally, but I think you should probably buy now if you have a reasonable thought that you would buy a buy that hardware anytime in the next

[35:04] buy that hardware anytime in the next like 6 months or a year for for sure. >> John, >> uh, actually just as it's a funny thing you mentioned, Oliver, and I I hadn't thought about this, but TVs and such

[35:16] affordable. They haven't massively increased yet, right? And I kind of was thinking like what if this uh component shortage crisis ended up and it probably won't, but reducing the number of smart features and TVs going forward. How

[35:31] like, "Well, we can't afford to put all that stuff in there anymore, so let's just make a a display." I would love that. Just some vanilla displays that doesn't have any of that extra stuff bolted on. Uh just just give us the

[35:44] screen. I mean, PC monitors are still kind of technically that, although as we learned with the LG stuff recently, there's some nasty business going on in there in that space as well, unfortunately. Uh, but yeah, I mean, as

[35:57] far as buying now, I think Oliver is right in that at this point, it's like you may as well just just buy. Like, there's no if you if you're really interested in getting something, it things just keep going up and I don't

[36:10] you guys have any ideas on how this could stop? Like what can what can be done? Like what is causing it to continue to to to increase at this rate? It's just it's it's reaching a point where I fear like the entire future of

[36:26] of computing devices is currently at risk right now. >> I think basically that where there is a market, there is where there is demand, there will eventually be surprise uh supply rather. what we're seeing here is

[36:38] like a sort of one-off shock to the system, right? Uh I'd hope it's oneoff, [clears throat] will have to compensate, I'd imagine. Um there's there's too much outside of AI that's relying on this sort of stuff. So there will be

[36:53] mitigations. There will be like new fabs coming online to deal with this sort of thing. The problem is the time scale required to make them. Uh and in the meantime, nobody seems to know how long um it's going to be before with this,

[37:07] you know, supply will turn up. You know, the the sort of prognostication from people like AMD and ASUS and MSI, it seems to change on a weekly basis there. Um yeah, it's it's looking pretty bleak though in the short term. I don't know.

[37:22] I also noticed that uh in the last week or so, Google posted a negative cash or so, Google posted a negative cash flow for the first time since like 2004, >> And making it feel like they they've been they're chasing this AI trend so

[37:36] hard and it doesn't actually seem to be making them money. And I thought about search now, everything always comes up with just they're just scraping other summary. But that also means there's no more platform for actually selling ads

[37:50] and other traditional things used to generate money from their side. But data center sucking up the world's like supply of RAM and then they're not even

[38:02] what are we doing here? >> Well that they're considering it as a a capital investment right on what they think is going to be one of the most transformative technologies. Uh I'm not I don't particularly see that that to

[38:16] that extent at the moment. Yeah, it's tricky. Um my sort of uh summary of this question here. Um yeah, Oliver's right. Building a PC that's going to last for have done it. You know, they've got their 1080 Ti from back in the day,

[38:32] they're happy with it, but obviously the uh performance of that component has diminished over time as the demands of games of games have increased. Um so yes, that's going to continue. I think um I don't know. I think you can buy um

[38:47] um I don't know. I think you can buy um a a good PC uh but maybe not for 10 years, five, six. Here's the thing, right? I mean um across the sort of I mean tracking back to PlayStation 4, you could buy a PC that did um um pretty

[39:01] much the same as a PlayStation 4 for a very very similar price once you factor in subscription and that sort of thing. Um but across the generation um the PlayStation 5 got considerably better in terms of uh what the hardware was

[39:13] delivering versus that PC. Thing is this generation is kind of like okay well a PlayStation 5 is kind of like an RTX 2080 that sort of class component and it's still the case that today's 2080 equivalent which is basically a 4060 you

[39:29] know it's still basically able to deliver a PlayStation 5 like experience. So yeah that's that's interesting. perhaps there is more legs to a PC in in the current era. It's an interesting uh perspective there. I still think though

[39:43] in terms of like, you know, there are certain things if you're if you're certain things that you probably should consider buying now before things get a lot worse. >> DDR5, memory, storage, those are

[39:57] probably the key ones. graphics hardware. There's just been reports that Nvidia is upping the price of the kits that it gives to the addin board accounts for, I think, the, um, the chip and the memory. That could be

[40:10] concerning. And that's kind of weird because, um, you know, we're in the because, um, you know, we're in the situation where Radeon 9070 XT, RTX 5070, they've kind of like held their prices even since sort of Black Friday

[40:22] last year where we were telling people to buy. I'm not sure the extent, you know, how long that's going to continue. That's that's very very worrying. Um, curious to see what's going to be happening on the CPU side as well, but I

[40:35] highly capable parts out there in the market in the market already. >> Maybe it's time to sort of consider some strategic purchases on specific components while prices are kind of like

[40:49] >> I was going to say okay, but it's not okay. How about not going to get worse? >> Quick little breaking news from friend of the show, Alex Anne Neil. We've got new sales data being analyzed here on Resident Evil series. And apparently

[41:03] Resident Evil 2, the remake for 2019, is now the bestselling Resident Evil game of all time. And I I would argue it's the best Resident Evil game ever, possibly. It's very, very good. But it's uh now up to 19.75

[41:17] million copies sold. >> Wow. So, surpassing Resident Evil 5, which was the previous record holder. Uh, they're very close, but it seems like RE2 might be the first Resident Evil to reach 20 million.

[41:31] some cool news there, right? >> Isn't it the case that Resident Evil 4 is is tracking to be the best performing remake >> Is indeed. It's it's still heading in that direction, I believe. But currently

[41:47] in terms of overall sales, it seems like Resident Evil 2 is the king. >> Nice. A question here from Yatsuban. Hello DF. Exclamation point. When I first heard the news about Xbox bringing original Xbox backwards compatibility to

[42:00] their first step in bringing back their older library for Helix, which we know older library for Helix, which we know will be a PC and play PC games. Uh, if establish backwards compatibility between PC and Xbox consoles, do you

[42:15] think Steam is in big trouble? The greatest barrier for any non- Steam PC storefront seems to be the fact that most PC players already have established digital libraries on Steam. If Xbox releases a PC console hybrid and brings

[42:28] their existing console user base along with them with their libraries intact, I reckon that Xbox will become a much fiercer competition for Valve. Cheers. Exclamation point. I'm not sure I'm buying this one, Oliver. Um, I think my

[42:43] the backwards compatibility that's going to come to PC is probably going to be highly selective or at least selective, whereas Steam, it's just like you can buy anything or if you've got existing games, they'll they'll kind of just

[42:57] work. >> Yeah. I mean, for the most part, although, you know, I mean, I guess it depends. And [sighs] it's a tricky question because a lot of older PC titles don't run that well and need

[43:11] various enhancements, various hacks to work. Maybe they don't work with modern conventions like having UI that's navigable with a controller, right? older PC titles, especially games released like I mean this is going ways

[43:24] back, but like prior to like 2012, 2013 often times did not have controller uh for living room play. nowadays that's basically cleaned up but you know there Microsoft approach of basically running games in an emulator possibly with you

[43:41] know some additional enhancements on top that is actually a format that probably should work pretty well until the end of time as far as we're aware on this class of hardware that's more promising but I think in general just like with respect

[43:53] think in general just like with respect to you know esteem in trouble um I don't know I don't really think so I think if you are on a PC platform and you have access to Steam and you have access to the Microsoft Store, I think you're

[44:06] That's for a variety of reasons, but I'd where people who had pre-ordered Halo campaign involved in the Microsoft Store on PC were not able to access that game, right? In addition to their litany of

[44:19] network problems recently, which have caused certainly issues on my end with capturing footage for Halo campaign involved unfortunately on Xbox. um gamers were locked out of that game entirely on on the Microsoft Store and I

[44:31] from Steam at the moment and there are all kinds of issues here in this space. I I I guess I just don't know also as well as to whether Helix will support third party storefronts. It seemed like under the Spencer era that was uh

[44:45] something that was basically confirmed under the Asha era. I'm not quite sure if that is something that's confirmed. So I think it would be profoundly silly to not support Steam. not support third party storefronts, but I suspect it's

[44:58] at this point. So that could complicate necessarily be positive for Microsoft. Maybe in the narrow sense, positive for the Xbox store, for the Microsoft Store, but not positive for the Xbox brand as a

[45:12] whole, nor its sales. >> I think the problem here, John, is that maybe there's not enough people who have Xbox digital libraries to present any Xbox digital libraries to present any kind of challenge to Steam.

[45:25] Yeah, I don't think that this is going to lead to any sort of significant to lead to any sort of significant challenge to Steam, per se, but it's a >> Yeah, right. That's kind of where we're at with it where uh yeah, it's not does

[45:39] Maybe they will. Who knows? I I don't think so. But uh if they can find a way to make software that's been purchased more accessible to to people via the PC, that's that's a win in my book. Mhm. Yeah. I think we've got to applaud what

[45:54] Microsoft is attempting to do here, which is essentially to take those digital libraries and allow wider access to them. And so the concept of like Xbox 360 and OG Xbox emulation for PC, I think it's really really cool. It's it's

[46:08] a big deal. I'm I'm really on board with what they're doing there. And uh if there is a way to um basically migrate your uh physical um discs from the um Xbox One and Xbox Series generation into digital entities that you can take with

[46:23] you to PC or to the next generation Xbox. That's all really great things as well. It is essentially um uh treating your your core audience with respect. I

[46:35] it's really really important especially in the current era where you know all of the vibes we're getting is that it's it's all about revenue per user and it kind of rubs you up the wrong way doesn't it? So the concept of of an

[46:50] actual consumer win is is a very good thing. So I think that's that's kind of like why I think it's it's important why why it's good to see this sort of thing. why it's good to see this sort of thing. Um, I do think Microsoft strategically

[47:03] is in a very very difficult position though because you know if the concept of of of the strategy is to basically go back to being console ccentric and to produce uh exclusive games for that console and PC is kind of like a rerun

[47:19] of what happened on Xbox One and um that didn't turn out particularly well for Microsoft. There was an alternative strategy which um uh Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond were kind of like hinting at which was hey we're going to basically

[47:33] um migrate towards Windows and Helix is going to be a box that's like you know it it will give you a curated experience like a console but it will also open up like a console but it will also open up the PC experience for you. I'm not sure

[47:47] particularly effective either. I mean, why would you just not bring your Steam library over to Helix? What what would bring you, you know, what's the motivation to uh get more involved in the Xbox ecosystem? It's a really really

[48:03] tricky time ahead. Um I think for all of the console manufacturers because I I do think there's a worry that the um audience is the same people genon and they're going to age out at some point. Therefore, you've got to appeal to a

[48:16] wider audience. And how are you going to do that? Um, that's that's that's really really tricky. Final question here from teasing hilarity. Hello, fine gentlemen. in full swing on the roster of games. Microsoft might port to the Switch 2.

[48:31] Various titles from Bethesda, ID, and even the former 343 studios regularly did the rounds. However, that was before the hardware crunch and Xbox reset. I'm wondering, do you think we'll see any further Xbox ports beyond those already

[48:45] certainly the hardware is capable and with pricing the way it is, Nintendo's on track to catch up with the series install base soon. Uh but then there's that reset to consider. Ke for your thoughts. Thanks and best wishes for the

[48:59] week. Exclamation point. Yeah, interesting question right John because um we were expecting uh the floodgates to open uh for Microsoft ports to come to Switch 2 and there's a lot of games there which I think would be really good

[49:12] a really good fit. You know, Forsa Horizon 5 being an obvious example. Halo Master Chief Collection on Switch 2. It would be awesome, right? Um, however, it does seem to be somewhat more muted than we expected. What do you think's going

[49:27] >> Yeah, I agree. I'm not sure what's going on to be honest at this point. that those feel like no brainers to me, especially some of the back catalog titles like you said, Halo Master Chief, Fors of Horizon 5, games like that would

[49:41] probably be a huge hit on the Switch 2 and quite feasible. Um, but either been scrapped. It's really hard to say at this point. Uh, I do think the Xbox

[49:57] reset [laughter] has uh changed things internally in a way that no nobody external to it can be really no nobody external to it can be really aware of at this point. Um, so I don't

[50:11] know. It does feel like they're kind of leaving money on the table by not >> tackling that platform a little bit more seriously at this point. Uh although man games like Master Chief and Forts Horizon 5 are both north of 100 gigs I

[50:28] believe. Uh and on a on a Switch 2 that's uh that's not a good thing [laughter] to say the least. So I don't know. that the concept of Switch One ports and I think it extends to Switch 2 as well

[50:41] is that it's it was the console that you know um a lot of people would already a Switch because it does something fundamentally different and and quite special in its own way. So the idea of bringing those games over to Switch, it

[50:57] didn't really seem like that much competition as such. And yeah, you could curious what you think about this. I mean surely we should have seen some mean surely we should have seen some more Microsoft games on Switch 2 by now.

[51:11] >> Yeah. And especially in the age of like this kind of postplatform competition Microsoft maybe maybe so maybe not but that's the way they were trending. It incentivized to produce Switch 2 versions and indeed we've seen you know

[51:26] a good number of them. We've seen the Skyrim Anniversary Edition, Indiana Jones. Um, South of Midnight, which I think came out a couple months ago. Um, Minecraft obviously. And then of course upcoming would be

[51:40] um I think in a couple weeks we're getting the Oblivion Remastered. I'm sure that'll be lovely. The Oblivion Remastered port to Switch 2. And then of Call of Duty. But it does seem like maybe they're kind of hunkering down and

[51:54] titles, a little bit more perennial Minecrafts, like the kind of maybe a couple Activision titles here and there, um, like the Oblivions and less so games that are a little bit more interesting

[52:08] or experimental or technically innovative in certain ways like the that's just reading into the tea leaves a little bit too much, but I think that's probably what's at least at the moment that's what seems to be going on.

[52:20] Doom: The Dark Ages. I think that's probably off the table for a variety of probably off the table for a variety of reasons now possibly, but um certainly, you know, I think Microsoft would be uh would be in a good position to deliver a

[52:34] currently delivering, but perhaps they're in the pipeline. We just don't that, but it does seem like Microsoft is maybe shying away from that a little bit. Um to to John's point though about very large games on Switch 2 obviously

[52:48] yeah the idea of a fortza horizon title that's like 100 gigs on Switch 2 not too appetizing maybe they could slim it down somewhat but we have seen some gigantic Fantasy 7 Rebirth and I think Final Fantasy 14 is the largest Switch to

[53:03] title ever and I think 110 gigs or something like that in that vicinity. games on Switch too. Perhaps it's not well advised. uh you can do it, I guess. And people seem re I mean people seem receptive enough to remake on Switch 2,

[53:17] so perhaps it's something you can get away with um even on that console. So yeah, I'm I'm I'm hoping to see more Switch 2 ports though for Microsoft. I them. And you know, maybe they're shying away from the likes of Master Chief

[53:31] their new new found focus on Halo remakes. But it certainly would be nice to at least see Fortza. And I think maybe Forts Horizon 5, Forts Horizon 6, that would be a great game to to see on Switch 2 for sure.

[53:45] >> Yeah. Interesting. Um I'm unsure of the extent to which Microsoft views the this point. All bets are kind of off this point. All bets are kind of off with the Xbox reset. So yeah, I mean

[53:58] of moving into uncharted territory and it's very difficult to actually predict anything that Microsoft does at this point because um all options are on the table seemingly and uh also the fact that some of the decisions are just

[54:12] bafflingly bad. You just can't really tell at this point, can you? Uh [laughter] anyway, that was uh the final question, therefore the end of the show. sort of thing on the off chance you enjoyed it. ring bells for things that

[54:25] may or may not happen. DF support program patreon.com/digitalfoundry. Please do consider uh supporting the team. It's very very important. Um but for watching and supporting Digital Foundry. And I guess we'll see you in

[54:41] Foundry. And I guess we'll see you in the next direct proper.