Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida recently talked to AV Watch about issues the game industry faces. One of the points he touched on was what direction console development should take in the face of ballooning costs of game development.
Commenting on the evolution of the PlayStation so far, Yoshida says that up until the PS4 and PS4 Pro, it was very easy to identify where the platform should head next – “even the game creators could clearly see that there was a lot left to be accomplished, and they had their own ideas about what they wanted from the next platform.” Moreover, gamers also had no trouble spotting how big an improvement each new console brought.
On the other hand, when it comes to the transition from PS4 to PS5, the biggest value the successor console brought was fast loading, Yoshida says. “This can be said of smartphones and the like too, but users simply cannot wait. They want instant responses. This made the long loading times of consoles up until the PS4 no longer tolerable.”
According to Yoshida, SIE’s decision to focus on speed with the PS5 was a huge success, as indicated by the fact that the console continues to sell at the same pace as its predecessor.
However, as the PlayStation continues to evolve, SIE will have to carefully consider what the “next wave” should bring. “In the transition between the PS5 and PS5 Pro, ray tracing improved greatly, and while improving graphics quality is important, it’s hard to tell the difference.”
Yoshida goes on to comment that “up until now, the DNA of the PlayStation has relied on values such as cutting-edge graphics” – this has been consistent since the days of Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation. However, Yoshida considers that it’s time for SIE to rethink these values. “It is of course, necessary to offer top of the line graphics to players who seek them. But in order to maintain popularity among a broad user base, [SIE] will have to change its way of thinking.”
While the pursuit of fidelity (by both console and game developers) so far has led to some beautiful games coming into existence, it has also, as Yoshida suggests, reached a point where it’s hard to tell whether further improvements will really make a difference that the player can tell apart. Moreover, high fidelity also means expensive development and long release cycles, which puts a strain on developers financially and makes each project a risky, high stakes investment. Although Yoshida is no longer a decision maker at SIE, it will be of interest to the how the company tackles this issue in future console development.
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