What are the most important features for the next generation of gaming consoles?

[Kashimi]

With talks of next generations of consoles already coming to the forefront, even though it is widely agreed that new consoles are still more than a year out, what are the most important features that you want to see. What would you need in order to justify purchasing a new console at launch, or are you going to wait or purchase immediately no matter what the developers do.

If there is a feature you want but isn't listed, feel free to mention it down below. It doesn't allow me to create anymore poll options unfortunately.

[Imnotanybody]

Honestly? A system that works and has games I want to play. I got a ps4 for bloodborne, spider-man, and red dead 2. I hate exclusivity, but the games were good enough to make me get it and the system isn't an eventually paperweight like the xbox 1.

[Yoshi]

and... /thread

[MadMummy76]

None of the above is anything I'd want or need, or even realistic to expect, well maybe except for consistent fps. But I think devs will still aim for better graphics at 30fps rather than slightly worse at 60.

1. Streaming is useless unless they can guarantee absolutely zero latency while providing enough bandwidth to not make the game look like a youtube video. - Unrealistic Besides how long would it take for your streaming data do overtake the initial download of the game? 5 hours of gameplay maybe, if you expect HQ 4K streams.
2. I don't give a shit, in fact I don't want any connectivity. The PS4 already asking for your real name to be entered in your player profile. My name is: Why do you need that
3. Doesn't really matter, as long as you don't notice partial scaling, or dynamic resolution.
4. That's something to be striving for, but not the outlandish 240 fps that was invented by that idiot 'analyst'. Avg 60 fps with lows in the 40s and it's fine.
5. Why? No current TV set is able to go beyond 60hz as far as I know.
6. It's a console, you don't need to fine tune graphics settings, it's the devs job to make the most of it.
7. Again, that would make it a pc, consoles are supposed to be simple, not something where the average consumer needs to worry about HW upgrades
8. Good exlusives are always important, without them no console would sell. Then again I purchased consoles for 1 game
9. Don't care, consoles are AAA territory. I don't pay 500 or more for the box, to "enjoy" low production value games on it.
10. Unrealistic, a high end pc costs 5x more than a console, I'd not buy a console that costs even 2 times the current gen.

The only things what I'd want from the next console generation are not on your list:

1. Guaranteed keyboard / mouse support for games where it makes sense.
2. No artificial motion blur
3. Shorter loading times
4. No automatic updates that make you watch a progress bar for 30 minutes before you can play
5. Ultrawide support

[Aerrae]

All about the games. If they can't pull me with at least two games I REALLY REALLY want to play then forget it.

[isturbo1984]

How are you gonna get "pulled in" unless you buy and play the games in the first place? It would be a shame if you bought, say, a PS4 for Persona 5 and Kingdom Hearts 3... and NOTHING else, lol. Consoles are investments. It wouldn't be a good idea to buy one just do you can play literally two games on the thing. Likewise, it would be dumb if someone bought a car and just sat in it in the drive way.

The point being, you get games, you play games. Not sit on the sidelines and tell the world how utterly uninterested you are in the game you arent even going to attempt to play.

[Aerrae]

Thanks for the advice on how to spend my money? Point is I like KH and I like Persona. Those companies refuse to bring them to PC. I have no choice if I want to enjoy those series.

If someone wants to buy a car to have it sit in their driveway and they have the money... well they paid for it.

I don't really have a big liking for anything else exclusive right now. Will they be the only games I ever get on PS4? Probably not... but I'm not really excited about anything else on PS4 atm.

[Artorias]

I would say Backwardscompatibility overall. It should be like XBOX X is doing it with actually improving the games to real crisp 4k. From your points i would say a large library of exclusives. I dont really understand why consoles should "close the gap" with PC when its actually PC exclusives that lack behind console exclusives in terms of gameplay/graphics. I cant think of a single PC games in the last few years that blew me away like RDR2 or Horizon. Not counting obvious shovelware like SC of course. If you mean in terms of 120HZ+. I dont think more than 60fps makes any sense. Many games even work fine at 30fps. I also hope 4k or checkerboard 4k will be the norm for next gen so they will look phenomenal on my OLED without upscaling which makes games softer.

[Animusisters]

Better performance and more innovative games. The reality will probably just bring us more monitization and more restrictions what you can't do with your games.

[Aidy]

People on this forum: I hate money-grabbing companies with their cash-grab activities like micro transactions
Also people on this forum: I love console exclusives, it means I have to buy all the consoles instead of just one

[Aidy]

Also people on these forums:
"If someone says something I disagree with I'll just call them a fanboy and to back that up I'll accuse them of saying things they haven't said"

[Aerrae]

You do have the option of stepping away from your computer if you're getting overly salty Aidy, which seems to be the case always.
You should drink more water.

[Aidy]

What? How dare you! How dare you accuse me of these things? I'm literally shaking with....

...oh wait, I'm not.

[ciderPunk1877]

Honestly, the idea of the next console generation kind of exhausts me.

I can't wait to watch ridiculous announcement press conferences and then be subjected to countless hours of internet experts and analysts arguing about which is better..

Only to play games at a marginal difference in performance.

[isturbo1984]

I chose all of them. New hardware is important. and people can squawk about any one thing in particular, like exclusives. But at this point, does anyone actually want a new console completely without any of the features the op listed? I mean judging from the list, I was the only one to click "social media," but what if the PS5 completely took away pages and community sections of the individual games and the ability to create your own groups? It would seem like a lesser box. I don't want to go backwards unless it is BackCompat. The new consoles must improve upon themselves. That is most important, I think.

[Baron Baldric]

Backwards Compatible

[Mike]

Honestly, the idea of the next console generation kind of exhausts me.

I can't wait to watch ridiculous announcement press conferences and then be subjected to countless hours of internet experts and analysts arguing about which is better..

Only to play games at a marginal difference in performance.

Agreed...

I don't care about any of the ideas mentioned by OP either. I want good gameplay, original ideas and to be able to own it on a physical disc / cart and for it to not cost £40+. I couldn't care less about the latest graphics or technical specs and so on.. These companies seem to have hit a wall as they realise that VR and AR aren't the next big thing like they thought.

IMO the next gen of consoles will feel the brunt of the video game crash especially consoles which are download-only... people don't like being ripped off, and outside of cities the internet is slooooow in a lot of areas. General economic factors will mean much fewer people will be able to drop £400 on a console, and parents (the main purchasers of consoles) will not see enough of a difference between the current and next gen PS/XBox/etc. to justify the expense. Especially if backwards compatibility is removed by not having a disc drive, which will piss off a LOT of people.

[Dub-Z]

What's important to the broader market will probably be different than what's important to me, but I need backwards compatibility and cross-generational carry through at this point. I want iterative consoles and see no reason whatsoever to go back to reinventing the wheel with crazy hardware design. I don't need some fancy new controller either. Both controllers are fine, and if anything needs to be fixed on the DS4, it's battery life due to that stupid light and a rumored, full touch screen isn't going to help.

If I get Last of Us 2, Death Stranding and Ghosts of Tsushima on PS4 Pro before the next Playstation comes, and I can't just put those discs in the next box, or download them straight from my account day 1, I ain't buying in until the drought is over and there's an absolute must have (like Bloodborne was). I'll consider it a middle finger.

I want easily implemented upgrades and scalability for what I already own, and performance vs fidelity options. I want the capability for 4K/30 or 1080p/60+ with effects so if there's multiple sku options, I'm going to pick the best one. I don't want to still be begging for upgrade patches to Sony's first party titles 5 years in, like we have been with Bloodborne. It also shouldn't cost second and third party devs an arm and a leg to offer patches, making it too costly no matter how many fans ask for it.

I also enjoy the share functions on the current console, especially the PS4 where it's super snappy, easy and supports more places to share. I hope this continues on Playstation, and I hope it improves on Xbox.

I like Sony's XMB, but hate how cluttered and non-navigable the PSN and the total cluster**** account system. I love how everything works better on my X, the store is a lot better, but I still feel like it's an unintuitive, clunky OS. I like Game Pass. Keep that up.

I want options for online play subscriptions... that genie is never going back in the bottle, but since I don't want 90% of what's on PS+ or already own it, let me pay $10 for online. Especially since I don't play Fortnite, CoD etc and Sony sure as hell ain't putting my subscription money into servers for the few online games I do play. Any extra deals it gets me on PS+ don't amount to much if I already bought stuff at release, and even with PS+ discounts being Costco membership style, they don't get near as cheap as Steam.

Refunds.

I'm still going to want a physical disc drive, even if I buy a lot of stuff digital or just use Game Pass for some things. I buy movies on disc and it's an essential part of my entertainment center... would prefer not to have a dedicated player + two consoles, or an old console + two other new consoles. I want to see 4K UHD discs not just for movies, but also for storage capacity. We've already broken 100GB, but a lot of that can go on disc for everyone's sake. I got a new external HDD on Dec 31st, immediately went to download some stuff I'd deleted throughout the year, and went over my data cap for the month... extra $30 on my bill. Options are cool.

On that note, we need smarter digital content delivery. Nobody who isn't 4K capable, trying to downsample, or who's going to prioritize higher framerate performance modes should be downloading and inflating their install sizes with 4K textures and assets, and if I want to be really optimal about things, I shouldn't have 20GB of 1080p assets if all I want to see is non-upscaled 4K with actual 4K assets in any given game... turning 110 GB into 90 GB certainly wouldn't hurt. I understand this won't always work with dynamic res, faux-K or rendering tech that mixes and matches different quality textures (LOD etc)... but where applicable, I can see myself selecting what to download in the same way we can with DLC add ons.

tl;dr a lot of what I want is PC 101, but there's no reason consoles can't be better, and they suit my lifestyle + offer exclusives.

[Aidy]

Who says next gen consoles are going to be download only?

[Dub-Z]

Who says next gen consoles are going to be download only?

No one, but Microsoft is floating the idea of having a discless console option. I'm expressing my intention to choose the disc-based option out of whatever they have available, and my preference for local computation over streaming along with it. It will remain important to me even as iterative options increase.

I also would like to see games shipped on 100 GB capacity 4K UHD discs, which isn't currently a standard outside of movies, but could have benefits in regards to modern install sizes and data caps. I don't see that happening on the next generation though because many people will still own the previous iteration consoles which wouldn't be compatible with a UHD game disc. However, if movie studios can afford to ship films with both a blu-ray and a UHD in them, there's no reason AAA game companies couldn't do it with their huge games.

[Sirgeorge]

No one, but Microsoft is floating the idea of having a discless console option. I'm expressing my intention to choose the disc-based option out of whatever they have available, and my preference for local computation over streaming along with it. It will remain important to me even as iterative options increase.

I also would like to see games shipped on 100 GB capacity 4K UHD discs, which isn't currently a standard outside of movies, but could have benefits in regards to modern install sizes and data caps. I don't see that happening on the next generation though because many people will still own the previous iteration consoles which wouldn't be compatible with a UHD game disc. However, if movie studios can afford to ship films with both a blu-ray and a UHD in them, there's no reason AAA game companies couldn't do it with their huge games.

As downloading games and playing them on hard drives becomes more popular and viable, I'm afraid the dying days of disc based solutions will become apparent. That extra hardware makes any console more expensive, complex (prone to failure), and bulkier/heavier. We'll see where it goes from here, but it would be rather difficult to see a maintenance of current status on this front.

[Dub-Z]

It's inevitable, but it's still in my current needs, wants and expectations. If they want to cut costs for the entry level console, do it there, but give people like me a premium option. In the future, a disc drive add-on might be a viable product for a "stubborn" demographic like mine. Something that will plug into hardware for several generations until the cable/port it uses becomes the equivalent of a 3.5mm audio jack.