"No plans to port Elite Dangerous to PS5"

Thanks for confirming the obvious platform bias inherent in your post

There's no need to bring the console wars into this. What's being discussed is the differences in the platforms, to bring context to why we are where we are today.

Everyone here wants an announcement for next-gen.
 
I didn't realise it was some special emulation mode. I thought it was simply the case the Xbox X had an improved version and that is what they are now playing on Xbox Series X, while the PS Pro improvements were not as good / broken and that's what PS5 players are playing.

Anyway, I stand corrected Sashamorning.
No worries. That's been Microsoft's strategy for a while, and it's been slightly controversial, not the least of which is the absence of a NEED to upgrade. I can play the same Elite on my One OG, my One S, my One X, and my S|X. The difference is load times and resolution (4K on the later machines). It's the same architecture throughout; no need for all-new coding, and no need for me to upgrade for the most part, although down the line I'll have to in order to play new games (like The Medium dropping in 2 weeks). But for the most part, no upgrade needed.

That's exactly how PCs work. Your older PC will play the games, but over time that PC will get slower and slower... you'll have to upgrade for it to run better, even though the code is the same. The old machine just can't handle it anymore, not that you have to throw out the old machine and buy an entirely new one.

That's going to be the real Achilles heel in this gen of the PS. Xbox is focusing more on software (SeX vs SeS vs cloud gaming v PC) as opposed to creating an all new system. It'll be interesting to see in the long run how well Sony fares against that strategy.

A long time ago, that was Microsoft's strategy v IBM: it's the software, stupid. Get Windows on every machine. That has led to domination of the PC market ever since.
 
I would definitely opt for this. I always made the point to get rid of the old gen consoles and go forward only with the current gen with the release of Odyssey (compared it to how Diablo III handled this). I guess the developers would love my idea, the finance guys not so much. But in the long run, even financially this might have been the wrong call, especially after this significant delay. Guess the interest for a PS4 DLC end of 2021 will be much lower than early 2021.

Thats the key commercial issue here - and is likely to be the driver for any future changes to Fdev`s plans. Right now, PS4 is where all the players are, what we don't know is how quickly that will change (to PS5) over time, particularly given they can't make them fast enough to keep up with demand. But you are right in how that's the way they are framing these decisions.
 

stormyuk

Volunteer Moderator
They don't have to do anything with regard to S|X or PS5. They aren't going to write whole new software for the other two platforms when they work well enough...

Oh wait. Xbox runs on Windows, so the Xbox version is already essentially the PC version. The S|X is basically an amped up One, so it's like upgrading a PC. Runs the game better (and it does).

PS5 runs PS4 games on an emulator. They'd need whole new code to make it for the PS5. Good luck with that. They sell most on PC, so they aren't going to make new code for a minority of their base.

Sony fans seemed to make fun of Xbox for basically just upgrading the One, but this is one of the benefits. Developers don't need whole new code for the PC, or even the X|S. Eventually the One won't be able to handle the new games, and that's where the X|S comes in. It's just like upgrading a PC... old PCs can't play newer games.

You can thank Sony for making it harder for developers to incrementally upgrade. An emulator won't look as good, so... oh well? Why is that FDev's fault?

The PS4 was an AMD Jaguar CPU with a custom AMD GPU very similar to Xbox One architecture. The Xbox Series and PS5 are basically AMD Zen 2 CPUs with RDNA custom GPUs . Again very similar in architecture.

PS5 backwards compatibility is not an 'emulator' just as Xbox Series isn't either.

The Xbox I won't deny has much more refined backwards compatibility than PS5 in terms of implementation from the system.

As for 'wasting' time improving the game on both XS and PS5 I just don't agree. Both would benefit from enhanced versions rather than relying on backwards compatibility.

Commercially as well as technically. That's for FDev to decide and we all know the current state. 'no plans'.

Edit, backwards compatibility background:

From Eurogamer

'PlayStation 4 Pro was built to deliver higher performance than its base counterpart in order to open the door to 4K display support, but compatibility was key. A 'butterfly' GPU configuration was deployed which essentially doubled up on the graphics core, but clock speeds aside, the CPU had to remain the same - the Zen core was not an option. For PS5, extra logic is added to the RDNA 2 GPU to ensure compatibility with PS4 and PS4 Pro, but how about the CPU side of the equation?

"All of the game logic created for Jaguar CPUs works properly on Zen 2 CPUs, but the timing of execution of instructions can be substantially different," Mark Cerny tells us. "We worked to AMD to customise our particular Zen 2 cores; they have modes in which they can more closely approximate Jaguar timing. We're keeping that in our back pocket, so to speak, as we proceed with the backwards compatibility work."'

Source:
 
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Thanks Sashamorning but:

The PS3 Cell architecture was the last time the consoles differed in design philosophy.
The PS4 and Xbox one have both aligned closely with PC x86 architecture to aid in software development.
The PS4 does not run on an emulator.
The XBox One X got 4k uplift, but that similar update for PS4 Pro didn't happen (and the pro enhanced features over time broke and were not fixed)

The 'Xbox-can-play-on-any-windows-device' is more as a result of the Microsoft decision to harmonise their product offering across all micosoft console / PC with a central cloud save function. I appreciate you trying to help but you were slightly off the mark,
 
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PS5 backwards compatibility is not an 'emulator' just as Xbox Series isn't either.

We can argue about the semantics, but there is a fundamental difference between the two approaches, and that manifests itself in an important way that's pertinent to this thread - in that Sony`s approach puts more onus on the developer to patch in specific improvements in frame rate or resolution outside of DRS or unlocked frame rates already present in older games. I can't find a better citation for this, over and above what's already been posted in this thread.


I bet you just inspired so much salt 😂😂😂😂

Think about it - The cobra engine scales very well indeed, as evidenced by the fact that you have 4k/60 at the top and 1080p 30-40 at the bottom - in the exact same build of the game. This of course is not news to PC owners who've understood this for years.
 
I don't consider "they aren't going to devote resources to taking Elite next-gen when it runs well enough on last-gen" to be an objective fact

Well of course you don't - to accept such a position would be to undermine your entire argument. Doesn't mean that Frontier could well be framing the next-gen decision in this manner though, does it?
 
PC exclusives like Space Engineers and Microsoft Flight Simulator

Just FYI: Space Engineers has already been out on Xbox for a while now (I have a copy on Xbone) and MSFS is coming to Xbox 2021 AFAIK.

Honeycomb have also announced they're going to release their hardware for Xbox.


With the new gen out and the architectures converging nicely with PCs (as they have for a while now) which makes things easier on the devs and will only guarantee more multiplatform (and crossplay) games in the future, it's a great time to be a console gamer.

Just not a console ED gamer.
 
Well of course you don't - to accept such a position would be to undermine your entire argument. Doesn't mean that Frontier could well be framing the next-gen decision in this manner though, does it?

I don't think you've played it on PS5 either, have you?

Not sure why Xbox players would want to come on the PlayStation sub-forum and discuss how the game plays on PS5. Oh actually... I think I know why...
 
I don't think you've played it on PS5 either, have you?

Not sure why Xbox players would want to come on the PlayStation sub-forum and discuss how the game plays on PS5. Oh actually... I think I know why...

We're discussing next gen versions. Try and stay on topic.
 
Sashamorning is correct. PS5 runs PS4 games in a specific emulation mode, which locks out options such as frame rate or resolution boosts without a whole new build of the game.
Not sure if that is true. I haven't looked in too much detail into this topic, but from the few things I read and saw it seems to be the case, that there can be a performance boost without any (?) additional code frome the developer. Have a look at this video from DigitalFoundry, there they're pretty happy about the performance boost they get for quite a few PS4 games played on PS5:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKQ6NeTjccA
 
Oh that's why it says that in the thread's title :D
We all know you'd like to set the tone of this thread but that not how it works.

You know full well decisions to develop for next gen will be taken as a whole. There is zero chance that PS5 would be announced in isolation.
 
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