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GRTV News - Is console hardware still about raw power?
The original Xbox creator shares their thoughts on how console technology has changed over the years and is no longer an arms race for the most-powerful hardware.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News. Today I figured we'd talk a little bit about something that's quite interesting, specifically it's about consoles and where they go next and it's also a bit of an insight from one of the original console makers of the last sort of two decades or so. Basically the original Xbox creators, one of the individuals involved with creating the original Xbox, has come out and discussed how the console development scene has sort of changed a little bit. It's no longer like an arms race, right, where both PlayStation and Xbox really just compete for the more powerful device. Things have changed and now it's not necessarily the most helpful thing to be the most powerful, so it's quite an interesting thing that we're about to dive into. So yeah, Xbox creator, this narrative around being more powerful is not helpful today. Seamus Blackley doesn't think having the most powerful hardware will do any good for Microsoft's next-gen Oration. So although long gone from Microsoft, Seamus Blackley is widely regarded as the creator of the original Xbox and he remains passionate about his creation. In interviews and on social media he often shares his thoughts on the subject. Few have missed the disruptive change in strategy Microsoft has been pursuing lately, releasing its games in all formats. However, they will still launch a new Xbox console in the future and a portable one at that, which according to Xbox boss Sarah Bond, is said to offer the largest technical leap you've ever seen in a hardware generation. But Blackley is not impressed by this at all, saying that performance no longer attracts gamers. Speaking to Video Game he explains his position, saying that performance was more important back in the day when it was actually still primitive technology. It was just that the story, it was just that it was a story that really worked and it was relevant then because we were still sort of in the nascent stages of graphics. Taking that hit in the cost of goods, of the cogs was critical, both from the standpoint of story and positioning us versus the other consoles that came from, you know, what was perceived as these giant Japanese hardware companies that were obviously producing these things for no cost and making all this profit off them. We were a western company, we were saying okay we're going to lose money on these to make them super powerful and take a bet on the games being awesome. And those powerful console hardware at the time meant huge differences between the formats with Halo Combat Evolved not being able to run on a Dreamcast or a PlayStation 2. Today the Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5 Pro run the same games and the differences are mostly about frame rate and resolution. This doesn't make anyone choose a particular console says Blackley who adds that he would have wanted to do things differently with the Xbox. Although he admits that this doesn't guarantee it would have been better. So being the most powerful was also important to get the guys going into the future. And then you know how they managed that brand and the story going forward."
"It's not my fault and it's not, you know, I would have not, I would not have done things the same way. I don't know if it would have been more or less successful but I certainly think that this narrative around being more powerful is not helpful today. So Blackley also sees as the Switch as proof that he's right. The performance doesn't sell hardware while exclusive games do."
"So what do you think? Will hyper powerful Xbox be enough to attract buyers or does that expect no longer matter? Now I would say that he is onto something here. It's interesting he brings up the Switch. I think the Switch is kind of a little bit of a unique thing because I do think the Switch needs to be more powerful and I think if Nintendo did offer a more powerful console people would be very happy with that. But I think the big change is coming in the near future. One of the major changes that's going to affect the games industry in the coming future will be cloud technology."
"We're already seeing Xbox really commit to it with the whole Xbox can be anything strategy and xCloud and all that stuff. That's going to massively impact things and when that does happen technological advancements in regards to hardware and performance and all that is going to go out the window. For the time being though, I mean I've talked about this multiple times, it's not to me when you talk about the next generation of consoles better resolution doesn't excite me at all anymore. We see it all the time when we look at video games and sometimes they'll hone in on somebody and they'll give you a really tight close-up of a character's eye and you'll see all the individual tiny little hairs on the character's face and all the different pigments in the skin and the pores and the reflection in their eye. It's all really good on a technical level, it's really impressive but when it comes to actually playing the game it doesn't impact you in any way or shape or form. It's nice to have games that are pretty and nice to have games that have good resolution and whatnot but I don't think the next jump is going to be say going from 4k graphics to 8k because I don't think anyone's going to really appreciate that yet. Besides the majority of TVs around the world and the majority of monitors don't offer the next alert resolution jump yet and even if they did before it gets to a price point where it's going to be accessible for the wider consumer market it's going to be years so that's not something we're going to see for a while. So if it's not resolution that's going to change in the near future then you look at frame rate and you go well 60 fps works really well right it's a really fluid frame rate would it be nice to run things at 120? Sure but the jump from 30 to 60 is so monumental in the first place because it basically goes from making a game run like you know a new frame almost it feels like there's a new frame almost every half a second whereas like with 60 it's like every second that's how it basically feels. So going even further it gets to the point where it's difficult for the human mind and the human eye and whatnot to perceive much difference. Obviously if you jump from 60 to 240 fps you notice it because there's a massive swing there but we're not going to be seeing consoles hitting that sort of frame rate anytime soon so I don't really know what the next generation of hardware or console hardware is going to do because I think it's sort of hit a bit of a bit of a wall really as to where it can go. We've got the SSDs that PCs have, we've got fast memory that PCs have, we've got decent enough graphics that majority of PCs have. Yes, would it be nice to have a better frame rate? Sure but no one's going to look at that and say it's a massive console generation hardware leap. So I really don't know what the future holds for consoles but I would agree with Black Lee here that it's not about power anymore. It's about software, it's about unique elements and I think Xbox has noticed that and is trying to get ahead of the curve here while Sony is sort of still doing its thing that it's always been doing. We'll see whether it pans out but I do think that the path into the future is a little bit different than it ever has been but that's my take. If you have a different take let me know in the comments below and otherwise I'll be back now tomorrow for the next GRTV News of the Week. So until then I hope you enjoy the rest of your Wednesday and I'll see you all in the next one. Take care everyone."
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