I personally don't think the problem is with the ps4's (ailing hardware) but devs chasing the newest / best graphics/ video effects. I get that companies/studios want to remain relevant but isn't aiming for a moving target a lot harder than a stationary one?
I'm kind of afraid that in a few years we'll be in the same situation as we were after the switch to HD when most of the mid tier developers had to close shop because the cost of development was getting out of controle in relation to the pricing of games and their profit margins, and the size of the teams had to grow enourmously to be able to create all the extra art assets that HD would allow.
As an example I'll use Ubisoft where the 1st 2 AssCreeds were pretty pollished well flowing games the later ones have become these giant cobbeled together multi studio messes where they might look great but the games feel disjointed and badly scripted/programmed as a result of 14 different teams working on them.
Going to 4K is probably going to have about the same effect on studio's (in my mind). Ubisoft will end up with studio's employing the equivelent of half of the population of China to be able to make sweet looking games in 4K (that will probably still feel like they're held together with bailing whire and pieces of used chewing gum), anyone who can't afford to have a 500 or even more strong team won't be able to keep up. (I get that most of these people will be freelance or short term contract workers that get shed as soon as the title goes gold, but is this really the way we want this industry to head? no job security and people getting burned out and leaving after a few years of trying to work in game development, just to be replaced by the next wave of eager and naive college graduates who'll get chewed up and spit out the same way)
Going after increasingly better looking games is all well and good but I would rather they use some of that horsepower to actually improve other stuff in games like NPC AI and things of that nature instead of going for the easy answer of another bump in grapics quallity. I'd rather have my games look a bit more muddy than be walking around this pristene beautifull 4K landscape and still having to interact with the equivelent of damn cardboard cutouts. I get that it's an easy thing to show off to consumers with a little before and after 4K, but I would rather they didn't focus so much on pixel count and number of frames and instead work on improving the systems within the games.
Anyway I'll stop ranting now (I guess I'm going to have to build another gaming PC in a few years huh?)
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