Recently, Sony mentioned that the Playstation 5 is in the later part of its life cycle. Obviously many are speculating what the next generation console specs will be. I thought it would be fun to list some bold moves that either company could take. Keep in mind, I don’t necessarily think any of these ideas are likely or a good business move.
Move away from the x86/amd64 architecture.
The Playstation 1 and 2 were MIPS CPUS. The Playstation 3 was a PowerPC CPU with many cell “synergistic processing elements”. The original Xbox was a Pentium III. Then they moved to the PowerPC architecture for the 360. Other than Nintendo, modern consoles have used the AMD64 architecture. This has been great for backwards compatibility.
ARM CPUs are all the rage now. Microsoft have been pushing their Windows 11 for Snapdragon pretty hard lately. The benchmarks have been great as well. Though unlikely, it is not out of the question for the next Xbox to be based on ARM. If Microsoft will have a portable version of their next console, ARM could make it more energy efficient. However, they would lose the backwards compatibility from this generation.
True backwards compatibility
Before the PS5 was announced, it was much speculated that it would be backwards compatible all the way back to the original Playstation. That would have been amazing. I am still disappointed that it didn’t actually happen. Xbox’s backwards comes close to being great. But then they stopped adding games.
It’s possible to emulate the PS3 on the SteamDeck. The next generation of consoles will be magnitudes more powerful than the current SteamDeck. There is just no excuse for the lack of backwards compatibility.
In the Xbox Series, Microsoft should have a default emulator. So if a game isn’t officially supported, it would run as it did on the original system. Upscaling and other features would be nice. But I’d be happy if it simply just played the game.
The PS6 could have “simple” emulation for PS1 through PS3. Because it will be likely that it will still be on an AMD64 stack, the PS4 and PS5 backwards compatibility should be easy.
These corporations argue that most people don’t use the backwards compatibility. That may be true. But of the ones that do, it’s really missed when it’s not there. I played PS1 and PS2 games on my PS3.
Backwards compatibility would give hackers one less reason to poke around in the system. If you can already play your old games on it, less of a reason to hack it to install emulators. I could understand if the architecture of the system was strange. But these systems are basically normal AMD PCs. Which brings me to the next idea.
PC mode
As previously stated, these consoles are basically PCs. Xbox works on a light Windows kernel. Just have PC mode.
It could be argued that this would result in less Windows licenses sold and Microsoft losing revenue. But this could be the DVD effect with the Playstation 2. Many university students could use it as an “everything machine”. They could do homework, watch blurays, stream movies, play games, and more. No need to purchase a computer and an xbox. And if they could only afford one video game console, this could be a reason to purchase an Xbox over a Playstation.
Sony could bring back Linux as an option. They offered it for the PS3 but eventually removed it. That resulted in a lawsuit and giving hackers a reason to start poking around. Linux mode would likely be less popular. But it would still open the possibility of Steam being installed.
Return to cartridge media
Optical media like bluray are very cheap to press and have fairly large. The next generation “BDXL” can get up to 128GB. The problem is optical media is slow. This has been an issue since the 3do. Yes the TG16CD was first, but load times weren’t an issue.
SD cards have come down in price. 256GB can retail for as little as $30. Most games wouldn’t need nearly that much space. SD cards are much faster than optical media. Using an SD card type media would also allow physical media on a portable console. The latest SDUC standard allows for very large drive capacity. This has worked for Nintendo. Well, to a point. Nintendo uses very small cartridges which often still require the downloading of game assets.
Unfortunately, it is more likely there will be media “download” only consoles.
Gimmicky controllers
With the exception of Nintendo, controllers have not changed much since the PS1’s dualshock. Consoles are starting to feel a bit stale. Let’s mix it up a little bit. Nintendo’s next console is rumored to have a scroll wheel. That seems fun. Or how about a screen instead of a touchpad? It could be useful to choose football patterns or maps. Literally, anything different.
TV direct streaming
Having Playstation and Xbox apps in Samsung, LG, Sony and other brand name TVs would be outstanding. The Xbox and Playstation controllers would have to pair directly with the TV. Then games could be streamed from Xbox Cloud or Playstation Plus. But that isn’t a next gen console upgrade, is it?
What if your console could stream directly to the app? If your family is using your main TV, you could take your controller to a different room and stream locally to that TV. Sony’s Portal, Switch and Wii U’s GamePad try to solve that problem. Why require a separate device? Just use a TV app. Much like a SteamLink. Please Sony and Microsoft, just do this!
Conclusion
Have a favorite idea? Have an idea I didn’t lists? Please let me know in the comments!
This console generation feels stale and almost unnecessary. To be totally honest, most modern games don’t feel much different than PS3 and 360 games. Hopefully, most of the ray tracing and AI power in the next generation will be to make game development easier. That could result in less crunch time for game developers. Most games don’t need to look nicer than they currently do.
These consoles need to do something to differentiate themselves from each other. The PS5 and Xbox Series are pretty much the same. Their only real difference are the exclusives. As a result, Microsoft and Sony are purchasing and consolidation game studios, which isn’t good for anyone.