Your early speculation on the upgraded version of Xbox Series X and PS5?

Dear gamers in the Giant Bomb forums

This year, both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are turning 3 years old by November 10th 2023 and November 12th 2023 respectively, meanwhile, I researched the history of Xbox One and PlayStation 4's upgraded iterations, they were announced in mid-2016, code-named as Project Scorpio and Neo respectively.

• PlayStation 4 Pro was launched back on November 10, 2016
• Xbox One X was launched back on November 7, 2017

So this inspired me to create this thread as I would like to see you guys share your speculation on these two.

My expectation:
To me, they're both going to have very good ray-tracing support and I hope they're about to have very similar specs, Codemasters' F1 (3rd party game series), Gran Turismo 7 (PlayStation 5's 1st party) and Forza Motorsport Reboot (Xbox Series X's 1st party) are the best-looking eye candied Simcade Circuit Racers for 9th gen console era in my opinion, while Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series X's 1st party) and Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (3rd party multiplat game) are the best looking Open-World Simcade/Arcade Street Racers for the 9th gen console era.

It's obvious that these two upgraded iteration consoles are not going to be more powerful than the current-gen high-end gaming PC but much stronger than the Nintendo Switch (All iterations) and Steam Deck.

Sidenote:

I will definitely prefer GTR Revival (Working title), RENNSPORT and Assetto Corsa 2 more than Codemasters' F1, Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport Reboot, because:

• GTR Revival, RENNSPORT and Assetto Corsa 2 are hardcore Sim Racing games.

• Codemasters' F1, Gran Turismo 7 and Forza Motorsport Reboot are Simcade racing games.

I don't think well get a Pro or X version any time soon or probably at all.

Sony simply can't make enough consoles all year round yet and the DE which launched at a significant loss.

MS are in an even worse place with inflation an the exchange rate their taking a bigger loss on each box sold over Sony, and the Series X is a more expensive console to produce over the PS5 which is likely why availability has been much lower for the Series X, even with pretty hefty price cuts MS can't seem to move the Series S at all.

The switch to 6nm and any new model will simply be a cheaper model to keep costs down or enable to produce more units. The generation has also been held back 2 years because of covid were nowhere near hitting the limit of the current boxes. If MS and Sony want to extend the generation we might see an upgrade in 4 years.

The only tangible benift better hardware would bring is better raytracing which I don't think is an easy sell.

We won't get one. This generation was so slow out of the blocks any half-step would arrive too late in the day to matter.

Even Nintendo have decided to ditch the half-step Switch in favour of something more substantial.

i don't think we'll get one personally , as it stands xbox has their X and S which are sorta already like an eqivilent of having a pro n standard n devs already complain about having to deal with both models. as for sony , they're just now? getting PS5s on the shelves after all the supply chain issues. if anything they need a S version of their controller ( think og xbox with its duke n S). that thing just hurts , their hardware is Fine i can't see them doing another mid-step console outside of a slim version we usually eventually get

It's unlikely we'll get any concrete performance upgrades in the next couple of years. Some new designs with iterative upgrades like more storage, and more importantly cheaper unit costs, could be viable however.

In addition to everything else being said here...what's the sales case for half-step upgrades right now? We're just now starting to see 9th gen only games come out in large numbers so there's a lot of untapped powers in those boxes. Additionally...are slightly shinier graphics really worth it? 9th Gen's main advantages over 8th are the fast loading SSDs and more CPU power/faster RAM for better physics etc... The games look a little better than they do on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X but not much, and that even goes for games with no 8th gen version. You can't really make gameplay differences with half-step consoles so you're stuck with slightly better ray tracing and better performance etc... It's a harder sell. That goes double for Xbox because all the games have to run on the Series S.

8th gen came out late and underpowered (especially in CPU) and they didn't do 4K at a time when 4K TVs were starting to take off. It made sense to launch half-steps to try and correct some of those issues. 9th gen consoles don't have those issues. Given how weird this console generation has been and the supply chain issues that remain (though PS5s and Xbox Series consoles are more available than they once were) it probably makes more sense to ride out this gen and make it slightly shorter than the last two. Maybe a 5 year generation like we used to have instead of 8 and 7 years like the last couple. Then finally start 10th gen off with all your ducks in a row. Hopefully.

@thepanzini: Got it and I guess by 2028 is when the PS6 and next Xbox would release plus not to mention that back in 2021, a lot of people want the PS5 and Xbox Series X but it is very difficult to buy a new one from retailers.

@shindig: Yeah, I remembered how Nintendo decided to cancel the Switch Pro as they appear to ask their designers and engineers to develop the Nintendo Switch 2 instead.

@styx971: Hmm... I remembered that between the fall of 2020 to mid-2022, there were shortages of electronic products in general, so I'm expecting this year will be easier to buy any sort of electronics than what customers exactly want.

@isomeri: Understood, as I know, from one generation to one another, things may get changed for the gaming industry.

@bigsocrates: Oh, I should have thought about the marketing-wise as well, for the gameplay-wise that you've mentioned that is true as it won't get changed unless their developers change something like physics, control response improvement, etc. Then it will be released as part of the patch. For the 8th gen, I remembered that the early 3rd-party PS4/Xbox One games didn't have much difference compared to their PS3/Xbox 360 version plus I can tell PS4 and Xbox One designers didn't want them to be way too expensive in terms of the launch price.

@gtxforza: Before covid hit Sony were expecting the next gen to start 2027, we're looking at a few more years now.

I'm not so sure well even see another traditional next gen it'll be more like a Pro .5 upgrade anyway.

Ray tracing and probably ai assisted hardware aren't going to be notable upgrades for most.

honestly considering how sony is starting to 'finally' put first party stuff on pc i think a ps6 is going to be a bit hard of an ask if the current pace of things are going. personally as someone who doesn't need an xbox cause they have a gaming pc i'm expecting times to start going back to us seeing articles like 'console gaming is dead' or something of that regaurd, not to say they won't exist they exist cause they're usually cheaper to buy and just 'work' compared to a person needing to know how to trobleshoot a pc. that said as we see things like gamepass coming to TVs n such i'm sure sony will try to slowly push its cloud stuff more too leading to alot of ppl saying do i even need a console? ... also i find MS long game to be a bit hatefully amusing considering what they wanted with the xb one is slowly starting to honestly be a thing at this point with everything so 'online' and such

@styx971: I have a hard time beliving cloud gaming will have a substantial impact on the traditional market, well before the next console cycle. MS itself has said recently that xCloud uptake has been slower than they expected.

Sony, MS, Google and Nvidia all have cloud options yet none have achieved what could even be described as a moderate success.

Game Pass has been around nearly six years since then has not shown any impact on moving hardware, not only that but we have clear evidence that subs have slowed and starting to reach its ceiling.

Most people don't play a lot of games and will have zero interest in GP, MS have said they expect 15% of Xbox revenue to come from GP which is pretty much what PS Plus is for Sony.

That would mean about half of Xbox users which is what GP is reaching atm, a more interesting question is why don't PC users care about GP? When the audience potential is limitless, why would xCloud be any different? So far only Xbox core users are subbing which are on console.

We finished the last generation with 60% digital when the next one ends its going to be closer 90%. The majority of their users wll be locked in with nearly two decades of content.

Unless the platform holders provide cloud access to libraries likely for free I don't see hardware going anytime soon.

Cloud gaming isn't just saving $500 on the new box but also costing several thousands losing access to what people have.

You can't talk about refreshes without talking about process nodes. Ask yourself what process node you think a PS5Pro would be, what advances you think that process node would afford you, and what sort of time table it dictates.

5/4nm? It might give you, what... (up to)25% more CPU? 50% more GPU maybe? Would studios even bother to add a SKU-specific profile for such a small spec increase, or would it just run games a bit more smoothly? Would consumers feel ripped off if all they got was a more stable vsynced 60fps?

3nm? When do you figure such a refresh would be reasonable? I don't think we'll be seeing AMD shift their product stack to TSMC 3nm for another couple years yet, in which case we might be talking late-2025 for a hypothetical PS5Pro. What would a 2025 PS5Pro mean for the PS6's schedule and launch? Perhaps by that point the industry will be unable to deliver new iterations that justify being called 'generations', and it's just a series of updates with continuous backward compatibility?

Of course all this depends on how desperate TSMC and AMD are to move product over the next few years. If TSMC has too much spare capacity that's going to waste and AMD is struggling to hit revenue targets, then maybe they give Sony and MS such a sweet deal that they can't pass it up. I don't think we would have had a PS4Pro/X1X if not for the fact that AMD was in terrible shape at the time.

@thepanzini:

you bring up some pretty sound points at the top there , but thinking only console users use gamepass is a bit nuts. theres plenty of pc only users. the biggest issue they have on pc is they windows store was a mess when it started ,... i'm not saying it isn't a mess now , i think rorie has complained about their versions of things a fair number of times , but for me idk i have no issue on 95% of the things i've played off of gamepass, i honestly think its been getting better over time.

as for thinking its reached the ceiling i think your forgeeting just how many ppl are going to age up by the time this cycle is over. personally i have a neice n 2 nephews who played games , and asssuming this gen lasts 7 years or so all of them will be at a point where they should have expendable money ( depending on how much worse this current capitalist hellscape gones) that they could easily end up putting into that sub, as it stands the 2 youngest already want to, that generation is already used to things being a sub online for better or worse, the oldest shes always watching streaming services n i don't think i've seen her care about any physical media other than books, n the boys like their digital game copies so they don't have t look for it when the other looses it. and they're only 3 ppl theres a whole generation like them.

so for as much as i prefer a hard copy of a game n dread the digital future i don't kid myself that it'll be gone eventually, specially since these companies are already pushing out discless systems and PCs these days don't even have them anymore pretty often now as well. i'm not saying xcloud is going to take over by the end of the gen , but the tech is getter better and i still think its MS playing the long game on that one. that said i think the slower adoption rate isn't the product on their side of things i think its the infrustructure in alot of places n specially in here in the US just isn't good enough for it . and as for sony their offerings aren't as good and haven't been from the get go in that area. but frankly we're getting a bit off topic here , point is i don't think wee'll have half step consoles this gen n next gen i think might end up whhere alot of us might not hope/like

Other than the ssd, what has actually been the improvements that we've gotten from this generation to last generation?

Even if on paper the specs are 6 to 8 times better, comparison shots of PS4 to PS5 are like a where's Waldo of fine details. For many years now the limiting factor of higher performance has been a studios budget and head count now that art assets are so labour intensive.

Since I'm in my 30s I do remember fondly the excitement of technology getting better and seeing improvements but I just don't think that stuff is worth getting excited about anymore.

8K will never matter whether it is rammed down our throats or not because the human eyeball would require us to sit absurdly close to our tvs, or purchase 100 plus inch TVs to put in our living rooms and that will never happen. Like how VR has never truly taken off because the limitations of people's physical spaces more than the hardware itself.

At this point I can't even see a way that a full next generation in 2028 will be that exciting.

That doesn't mean that I'm not excited about games, I just don't really see the appeal in more powerful hardware anymore.

At this point, what should matter is making games co soles way more energy efficient for the same performance, and stuffing bigger ssd's in. Those improvements won't matter to enough people to ever be a reality, unless for the former government action forces home electronics to be more energy efficient.

This generation barely got started because of the pandemic slowing game development down. The true potential of the Series X and the PS5 have yet to be tapped. I see no reason for a Pro version of either console and by the time people would suggest such a thing, both Sony and Microsoft will be ready for their next major consoles. Like how Nintendo didn't go through with their plans for a Pro-Switch, because enough time has gone by and it makes more sense to release a Switch 2 in the short future, so they just came out with the OLED upgrade. And I think this is what we will mainly get. Like how Sony has already confirmed they are making a PS5 slim with a detachable UHD disc drive.

@av_gamer: Understood, I would also love to see Xbox Series X slim version as well, but better avoid confusion with Xbox Series S.

@styx971: Spencer said they've probably reached all they could on console for Game Pass. Considering Game Pass has missed its subscriber targets for 2022 which were ~28% (10 million), yet PC growth was 159% the figure for PC it must have been pretty low to begin with.

People are always aging up that's always been the case its how GTAV keeps selling for more than a decade, for instance Switch has more older users than younger source.

Most of the people likely to buy a next gen console are in their twenties or older, kids & teens are already playing Fortnite, Mincraft, Roblox and streaming, what will be different tomorrow?

Gaming has already shown itself to be very resilient like entertainment normally is, the PS4/XB1 released on the back of a economic down turn despite the pessimism they shot out of the blocks.

@styx971: What do you mean by "that thing just hurts"? Are you saying the Dual Sense is painful for you? If that the case, I'm curious what about it does that , because it's one of the most comfortably sized controllers I have ever held.

@bigsocrates: Interesting. I would find it very difficult to believe that the console generation would get shorter. We are 2 years in and still have barely tapped the potential due to the supply chain issues. I cannot see a world where in 2025, the PS6 and Xbox Series 2 come out. That would be like writing off the entire generation. I could see a Switch 2 waiting until 2025.

Both consoles are just PCs in a box. Developers aren't going to "learn to harness their power", they already knew how to do that before they even launched. The Playstation 3 was probably the last console that had a significant learning curve to develop. We have already seen multiple games that run at 30fps, or at best give you an option of either a good framerate or good resolution, can't have both. The sad reality is that we have already seen these consoles at near their max capacity.

I'm sure you guys are right that they won't do half-step consoles for the simple fact that the regular ones are selling fine. But I do think that it's a real bummer. It's been my opinion since the beginning that these consoles launched way underpowered compared to what you might expect new consoles to be at, and had they waited 1-2 years longer they would have seen significant increases at the same price point. We have already seen that on the PC where mid-range builds are comfortably whooping both consoles asses right now. I know what you're going to say, the new GPUs are really expensive, and they are - but they are also ridiculously fast and if your only goal is to replicate a console-like or slightly better experience on the PC you don't need the new GPUs to do that.

My opinion is that if the consoles can't do 4K AND 60fps across a wide variety of games, then there is no point in this generation. The half-step consoles could remedy that and that alone for me would be worth the price. But as we've said, that's unlikely to happen. This might be shaping up to be my least favorite generation ever, and it's only saving grace is the backwards compatibility.

@ginormous76: yes i'm saying its painful for me, my hands kill me with increasing amounts after an hour or so , depends on the game what parts of my hand are the worst but usually its the thumb area at minimum , heavy trigger games hurt the index finger too tho and thats without all the fancy trigger tension on . not sure what the cause is other than something about the shape n weight of it maybe . either way i beat lost judgement around release and my hands here killing me to the point i couldn't use a controller for a good week or 2 , same with god of war more recently. it sucks cause i don't even want to use the system cause of it most of the time. i never had this issue with other controllers and its not a getting old issue cause i can still marathon game perfectly fine with a xbox or ps2-4, switch contrioller or the like. only other times i've ever had issues were just light cramping with a skinny handheld like a 3ds but even that was fine just taking breaks after a bit n resting my grip for 5mins or so

i'm also far from the only person with the issue , alot of ppl have issues win different parts of their hands/arms with it

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/katisx/ps5_dualsense_controller_pain/?sort=confidence

Update: here is an article from Push Square, which appears to be a rumour that PS5 Pro's development could be cancelled in favour to develop the PS5 Slim and PS6 instead.

Sony Could Skip PS5 Pro for PS6, Says Social Media Scuttlebutt | Push Square

@gtxforza: I don't think the new model in June will even be a slim, I think its more likely Sony will scrap the disc version and just produce the existing DE with the external disc drive being an option for those who want it.

It would be the cheapest way to go considering the thought process behind the move is to cut costs by only having to produce one sku, it would also effectively be a $100 price cut and give MS a real headache.

@styx971: Interesting. That's unfortunate. Was never trying to suggest it was only you or anything. Just curious what about it was causing issues. I do appreciate that I have NFL WR sized hands, so what's comfortable for me, may not be for all.

yeah no i get that , i always thought it was weird when ppl would complain about the size of the dualshocks n them being too small or having issues with stick placement , n while i can understand the small size issue the stick part still makes no sense to me lol. i can imagine those with big hands having less of an issue since clearly the size is bigger , but what gets me is its not That much different than a xbox or switch pro controller so i think other ppl saying its the curve of it n it getting smaller mixed the the weight of it thats probably the issue , idk.. all i know is i'm bracing myself for yakuza:ishin coming out next month cause i'm stumborn n like physical copies and i've played the last 11? games on a sony system n don't want to change that now even tho i could get a pc copy if i wanted to ,..it just feels wrong for that series .... like lost judgement tho i'm sure my hands will kill me for weeks afterwards , those face button controls while i prefer them i think they hurt more with that than the triggers even tho both input types do. it just really sucks. i'm honestly hoping with the start of third party controllers finally being a thing they'll loosen up the forcing you to iuse a dualsense issue, specially since i've read its not like you can't use a ds4 if you use remote play , but my net ain't great n i don't want the input lag i'm sure comes with it