Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Content

Hello there! It's Thursday which means it's time to prioritise DF Direct Weekly above other things in an ever-increasing workload. But first of all - yes, we are aware that the YT previews on digitalfoundry.net are not working and a support ticket has been lodged.

So, what's on the docket thus far? Obviously we'll be talking about the Xbox price rises. Beyond that, Alex has been looking into some of the alleged stutter fix mods for Oblivion Remastered. Do they actually work? What are they actually doing? The results are intriguing - but predictable.

Meanwhile, other topics up for debate proposed RTX 5070 and 5080 Supers with 18GB and 24GB respectively. We may well look at the Far Cry 4 60fps patches for Xbox and PlayStation, while John isn't happy with the changes made in the new Virtual Game Card update for Switch consoles. Path-traced Doom reveal? Well, assuming Alex has something interesting to say about it, we'll cover that too.

So, yes, it'll be Rich (ie me), John and Alex on the panel tomorrow and you are hereby requested and required to post any questions you may have for the team, comments on the topics mentioned above - or you can suggest your own! Enjoy filling out the invitingly empty webzone beneath this post!

Files

Comments

Centralperkin

Would love to see some coverage of the PS5 Pro patch for Returnal

spaciepoo

Hello DF crew! Do you think Nintendo’s use of DLSS in future games could complicate porting those titles to other consoles if they later move away from NVIDIA hardware? Could that potential limitation be a reason for Nintendo to avoid relying on DLSS for first party games?

Adam Wood

Will you be covering Arc Raiders upon it's full release? It's a game made by Embark Studio's (Makers of The Final's and Unreal Engine Wizards.) Only real issue I have seen so far is some screen tearing whilst on PS5 as Linux is currently borked. Much love DF Team!

Peter Karadimas

Hello gents. Do you believe the Oblivion method of taking an existing game engine and layering unreal 5 on top of it is a good way to handle remakes and remasters? The game looks good and feels like the original but seems to be a bit of a technical mess.

1040STF

People on social medias are "thanking" Nintendo for the Xbox price rises, as if the Switch 2 hardware and software prices were the reasons Microsoft is making this announcement. On my side, I can't believe a 28 days old announcement by Nintendo had an impact on Xbox strategy: those kind of decisions at that scale take time to make. What's your take on this? How big do you think is the risk that Sony makes the same announcement soon?

Peter

Good afternoon DF crew, hope you are all well. With 2 recent releases on UE5 (Oblivion and Claire Obscura). It begs the question, why is UE5 such a problem on pc? It's an engine that started life on pc and historically, always seemed to be relatively performant and reliable. I understand how UE5 has it's benefits, especially for smaller teams (such as for the aforementioned Claire Obscur). Sadly, now when I see UE5, I immediately expect the worst. What happend?

Dan Matte

Hi, DF. One for John, Tom, or Oliver—the Lunar and Suikoden remasters both suffer from uneven pixel scaling. Any chance you could comment on them? Seems like Lunar might only look good output to a 4K pixel grid, and Suikoden aligns to a 1080p pixel grid? Thanks for everything you do!

Marcus

Hi DF! Stutter-fix mods pop up so often—Clair Obscur, the Oblivion remaster, etc.—that I now delay buying games built on UE5, RE Engine, or many Sony PC ports. Ubisoft titles, by contrast, usually launch smoothly. Which studios, engines or other warning signs worry you before launch, and which ones do you usually expect to have solid day-one performance?

FrametimeSommelier

Recent rumors suggest that Half-Life 3 is undergoing extensive playtesting and is fully playable from start to finish. Allegedly, a summer reveal is imminent, followed by a winter launch. Gabe Newell once stated that Valve wouldn’t pursue Half-Life 3 unless there was a significant innovation, something that would meaningfully push the franchise forward beyond simply concluding the story. Any idea what the driving force might behind the Valve's efforts? To be honest, we do expect something new and exciting from a new Half-Life. What could it be, what is that new thing no other game has done before? Also, could it be a GTA 6 killer (LOL)?

Mr Bespoke

Hello DF!! I was wondering if John has got another DF Retro Q&A on the horizon? Saving me and probably others bombarding question on the the DF Direct weekly such as what pick ups did you grab this time in Japan? etc, etc. Thanks and keep up the Awesome work!

Question Generated By JensenGPT

Question for John - which retro console do you think cleans up the best when connected to a modern display? I ask because I just bought a Retro-Bit Prism HDMI adapter for my DOL-001 GameCube (which supports digital video out) and I'm stunned by how good it looks on my LG B8, which is from 2018 and doesn't have a cutting-edge upscaler. Even GBA games running on the Gameboy Player look fantastic on this setup. Seeing this makes me want to buy more old consoles and try out HDMI mods / adapters.

ThatGuyWhatDidThatThing

Other than an OLED screen is there anything missing from the Switch 2 that you'd hoped would be included? It doesn't matter if it's actually practical, likely or unlikely. Just something you were hoping to see. Personally I was hoping for a Wii style pointer with the JoyCon. Either using IR fiducials (like the Wii), or on-screen fiducials using a border (a la the Sinden Light Gun) or static UI elements. Instead we got pseudo-mice... I guess it's time to start making Zelda lapdesks for my Etsy store...

L p

Are we seeing MS and Sony comprehensively ditching their console-pricing strategy from the previous three gens? The market for non-Nintendo consoles is seemingly stagnant (at around 170m units combined) and the rise of tablets/smartphones/smart TVs (not to mention the dominance of the PC in huge markets like China) seem to have quashed any dreams for a mainstream console reaching PS2 level sales (with the Switch the possible exception). It seems both MS/Sony now are strongly pivoting away from the loss-leading console model and instead aiming for a reasonable profit on each unit manufactured - rather than losing money or breaking even (as having a $50-100 lower price point doesn’t seem to drive sales beyond historical levels). Perhaps they’ve also realised that console gamers are ‘sticky’ and won’t switch en masse to budget gaming PCs - even if they can get better bang for their buck? (Maybe the often frustrating PC experience is a ploy by MS to sell more overpriced Xboxes!)

beer chugger 209

I think it’s very interesting that a 2 TB Xbox series X now cost more than a ps5 pro. also, good day, lads. And hello from the states. One other question with the prices of games and consoles going up would it be possible for them to come back down or this is just the new permanent price

Peter Vrba

Hi DF team! Some time ago Phil Spencer said that Xbox Series S is an advantage because all games are optimised for low spec hardware and therefore better for a handheld. However, how useful are those versions gonna be when the handheld is Windows-based? Isn’t Series S version of a game irrelevant at that point? Shouldn’t PC version optimisation matter more in this case?

Eric Benoit

Would a viable, proven Steam Desktop OS be a death knell for future Xbox Hardware?

FrametimeSommelier

Considering the lively debates over Microsoft's decision to equip the Series S with only 10GB of RAM, an alleged bottleneck holding back game development, how concerned are you that the Switch 2’s 12GB of LPDDR5 might cause similar headaches in the near future? The Series S launched five years ago, and today’s handhelds are sporting 16GB, 24GB, or even 32GB. Given Nintendo’s track record of prioritizing efficiency over raw power, do you think their choice to cap the RAM at 12GB is a stroke of genius, or is it something that might eventually come back to bite them in their stubborn rear end?

RealTime Shade Thrower

A bit of an oldie, so I’ll understand if you ignore it: I recently started replaying Horizon: Forbidden West on my PS5Pro. Performance mode is unplayable for me as there seems to be a complete refresh blackout for long enough that it’s jarring. Could it just be my setup? 30fps mode is unpleasant to me… but gets rid of the issue.

Yellow Ledbetter

Are Switch 1 cartridge games going to load slower than digital ones on Switch 2? Assuming unpatched games in backwards compat mode, Switch 2 will only be able to read S1 cartridges at their S1 speeds, while installed digital games will probably have faster loading times because they will be read from the much faster ssd. Is this likely to be the case? Could Nintendo let us use S1 cartirdges as "game key" cartridges optionally??

RealTime Shade Thrower

Also: I seem to be incapable of viewing/downloading from your site (even though I’m a paid-up Retro supporter; I did triple check, just in case)

FrametimeSommelier

With the new price increase for Xbox consoles and the announcement that some new games will now be priced at $80, there has been no mention of adjustments to Game Pass pricing. Do you think Microsoft will follow suit and raise subscription costs, or will they keep Game Pass pricing unchanged for now to continue attracting more users into the ecosystem?

Someguyperson

It's been a while since Nvidia released some drivers that supposedly fixed a lot of issues. Are you guys still seeing issues with 50 series GPUs? Has anything improved?

Someguyperson

With Nintendo clearly using a more dynamic game price point going forward, do you see a potential decline of AAA games and resurgence of the B game? Everyone has know for some time now that the cost to make AAA games has grown to unsustainable levels. Do you think the answer is what Nintendo is doing; raising the price of a AAA game to cover the extra cost, while lowering the cost of other games made with smaller budgets? Indie games have kind of replaced the "B" tier of games, but it would be nice to see an experienced team work on something smaller as well.

Someguyperson

In last week's DF episode while discussing who you decide to bring on to host DF Weekly, John said, "Anybody is always welcome on I think." Does that mean I could come on? I'm sure there would be other good supporters to have on as well. Is that anything you've considered?

Spodlude

Hello DF team. I buy all my PS5 games on disc, mainly because it's cheaper with various retailers competing vs Sony's walled online store, I can also sell the games if I don't like them. I'm starting to wonder if this is a mug's move on my part given that any future playstation is unlikely to support discs and thus I'll forever be leaving behind these games on the older platform. What do you think? Will Sony present us with a way to digitise our physical copies should the day ever come when discs are dead or is that just not their style?

Spodlude

Is John hoping for Starfox adventures for the GameCube emulator on switch 2?

Someguyperson

Regarding the 5080 Super, do you think that everyone should hold off buying a 16 GB 5080 if a 24 GB card is coming within 12 months? Is the 16 GB of memory capacity that much of a hindrance for this card at 4k settings with ray tracing?

[PLACEHOLDER]

[Insert convivial greeting], do you think that the enormously favorable reception to the Oblivion remaster is going to lead studios to do more shadow drops of games that have existing sentimental value to gamers? Performance-wise Oblivion Remastered seems to be a bit of a mess, but there was almost zero discourse about that online anywhere in the crucial first few days post-release, and it's my belief that had outlets like DF had a day-one technical review available to consumers the reception might have been quite a bit cooler. If that's true then shadow dropping seems like the less-risky prospect for other games where the brand name or nostalgia factor is high. Curious to hear your thoughts there.

Helvetica Bold

Hey Gents! Arc Raiders looks like it could be something special and might give Marathon a run for it’s money. Did you guys take a look at the most recent test? Also, how’s Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s FSR 4 update? There’s so few games with FSR 4 support that’s a big one.

HelenX

Hello gentlemen. Bit of an odd one here but I worry that its just me. Have any of you ever been sitting in car or a train looking at the beautiful hills rolling past and thought to themselves "The volumetrics on those clouds are incredible" ? It isn't just me is it ? :) I was once laughed at at a wedding when 'programmer vernacular' slipped through and because the pub-lunch had forgotten to give me cutlery I described my problem as of "Being unable to access my chicken" . There must surely be some incidents where thought-processes created by your work life have amusingly intruded into ‘normal’ life

David Gorra

Hi DF gentlemen ! I have not so much a question but some complements. I first saw you guys when I wanted to get into pc gaming during the 40 series launch and ever since, I haven't missed a single video or DF Direct! You guys really gave me an appreciation for this media that I wouldn't have if not for you. And I like to think that I have learned a lot along the way, I mean, I didnt even know games used anti aliasing or different engines or raytracing ! I just played games and never thought about the underlying machinery. Anyways, first time here but long time supporter. Keep your bespoke and knowledgeable video coming 🫡

Will Cooling

Given the constant console price increases this cycle, do you think both sony and microsoft will charge a greater premium at the start of the next console generation to bank profits from FOMO-blinded early adopters? If so, could we see a console break the record set by 3DO/PS5 Pro of $699? Maybe even get alarmingly close to a sale price of $1000.

Will Cooling

Do you think there's a possibility that Nintendo has made a mistake with trying to mirror the Switch design, and it should have gone for a non-handled device this cycle, and sought a software solution for playing on the go i.e. you could play your Switch 2 games through your tablet, phone or original Switch through a special app? It feels that trying to cram everything into a hybrid has left the offer confused and compromised.

(Don’t be a) Richard

Do you think the price rises internationally are to spread out the pain as a result of US tariffs, or would we have seen the price increase anyway? Both Sony and MS have already increased prices this generation, so while a lot of the blame is being levelled at the US economy, there’s a part of me that feels that other markets would have got an increase anyway as a general indication that manufacturing costs continue to be a problem.

(Don’t be a) Richard

Suddenly Switch 2 doesn’t seem quite so expensive but. Fortuitous for Nintendo.

PaperMartin

Hi, I've been asking myself what nintendo's reason for including RT cores in the switch GPU was. I don't know the exact details, but I doubt they're enough for anything more than RT reflections and shadows, let alone for path tracing. Going by what little footage we've seen of SW Outlaws, seems that it's gonna be pretty rough for any game that relies heavily on hardware RT. Is nintendo gambling on RT and RT related techniques getting more efficient on the software side? Are they hoping 3rd parties might keep their reliance on RT light so they can port their games to switch? Do they themselves have plans to use RT in future switch 2 projects that we haven't seen yet? Do they want gamefreak to take a crack at it and see if the next pokémon game can drop down to 10fps or less? For what it's worth, I think not including RT reflections and/or shadows in some kind of quality mode in BOTW/TOTK is a bit of a missed opportunity

Joe Esposito

Hey gents, not a question but just a note of appreciation. Seeing the news about the Polygon layoffs, I'm really grateful to be a supporter of all you do. Thanks for all your hard work over the years!

狐のケイ - Cae the Kitsune

Hi folks! Obligatory "Long time watcher, first time question asker." I found some of your resolution numbers for Switch 2 Edition games last week odd given they conflict with what Nintendo themselves claim: 1440p instead of 4K for Metroid Prime 4 in docked quality mode and 1080p instead of 1440p (as stated during Treehouse Live) for Kirby and the Forgotten Land in docked mode. Is it more likely there's something off about the footage you have access to, or is Nintendo straight up lying about their games' resolutions? Could these games perhaps be using DLLS up to the resolutions Nintendo states while rendering internally at the numbers you counted? Is there some other explanation for this discrepancy? Thank you all for your hard work. :)

PaperMartin

I don't see the switch 1 card as game key thing happening if only because they have no way of tying an account or license to a switch 1 card, they don't hold one right now and afaik the console can't write to one

PaperMartin

UE5's reputation is kinda caused by confirmation bias A lot of UE5 issues also exist in in-house engines (ie shader compilation stutter exists in basically any ambitious game), it's just that less games using them get released, often by teams with in-house engine devs who can advise them on how to best use the engine (or modify the engine to fit their needs), and UE5 is the only AAA engine that non-developpers actually know the name of Add to that with those issues being slightly more common in UE5 because it just does more things than most if not all other engines & the teams using them often not having the technical expertise to make good use of it (often for the same reason they don't have their own engine) Basically UE problems are either present everywhere else too or not actually caused by the engine itself

[PLACEHOLDER]

Glad to know I'm not alone, although mine tends to be accidental admiration of the "ray tracing" on puddles before I remember I'm looking at real life.

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Nintendo gave us price rises with upgraded hardware and new exclusives. Microsoft follows up with price rises for 5 year old hardware and non-exclusive games. Neither are particularly welcome, although one seems a bit more rational. Is AAA gaming going to end up a hobby solely for the middle-aged salaryman? Will we be left with the only accessible gaming being free-to-play gacha on mobiles? I fear that the industry is eating itself.

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Consoles used to see continuous improvement over their lifecycle as developers got to grips with the hardware. Ridge Racer to Gran Turismo on PS1 for example. Do you feel that we have seen that kind of incremental improvement over the life of PS5, Xbox Series and Switch? And what games represent the best examples of that progress (if any)?

AfreemTheDream

Greetings, Foundrymen! Do you think the new price increases on the Microsoft side are to drive more people to Game Pass? Also, if the prices keep going up, won't people just buy less games per year, or (worse for MS) won't the used market explode? Cheers!

Spodlude

You stole my nickname, I used to be Richard Bedwetter!

FrametimeSommelier

yeah, I caught myself a lot to inspect puddles and real-reflections recently and fall into deep ray-tracing thoughts. I also pay more attention to real-life lighting physics, like how indirect lighting looks in certain situations, or how bounce lighting colors change depending on where the light bounced off from. LOL.....that's probably how it looked like in John Carmack's brain around 1993 ;-)

Hunter

I'm curious. I remember a lot of skepticism from the DF crew about UE5 being too heavy even for now-current-then-next-gen consoles. Now that we have a pretty decent crop of them, how has that borne out? There's clearly been some heavily compromised games, but is there reason to be optimistic in the future as the engine has evolved and developers have gotten the hang of it?

Pol Kallamata

Given Xbox's deteriorating market position, do the justifications that are brought up for price increases make any sense? The hardware has seen multiple years of compounding sales declines, and Xbox has shifted to a multi-platform publishing strategy where exclusive software is no longer part of the sales pitch. If they're not even going to be able to stake out the market position of being the budget / lower entry point brand, then what are they even left with to appeal to consumers? It seems to me this could be the nail in the coffin for their hardware.

hobx

Hi team! Do you think that high end CPU's are necessary for 4K / 60 gaming? I currently have a 13600k / 4080 setup and with the price volatility at the moment I'm thinking now might be time for a CPU upgrade. That said, for 60 fps is it necessary? The advantage of higher end CPU's seems to be higher FPS in the hundreds. The games that tax the CPU, Dragons Dogma, Star Wars Outlaws seem to tax even the highest CPU's to sub 60 results! Can you help with some clarity in this often contentious subject?

tod weitzel

Can you think of a solid reason why a cloud transfer from a Switch OLED can only be canceled and retrieved from another Switch OLED, but this restriction doesn't apply to Switch and Switch Lite cloud transfers?

Peter

Whilst I think there is some truth to this, the fact that it is so widely used should predicate the need to resolve these problems. We have seen games like KCD2, Indiana Jones, Cyberpunk that are big AAA games and don't have this inherent shader comp problem associated with UE5 and then something like Days Gone that IS fine in UE5. To your point about the dev expertise, I can see this being a cause, but shouldn't Epic be able to have an engine based solution for something like shade compilation, or at least precompile shaders in a similar way to the Steam OS?

Full House's John SteamOS

Why is the GCN app on the Switch 2 only coming out at 900p? Why can't they use DLSS to scale higher? I assume you can't get motion vectors through emulation, but nonetheless early versions of DLSS did upscaling without motion vectors, did they not? Am I missing something?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello gentlemen, ClairObscur: Expedition 33 is a great game and the fact it was developed by a small team makes it even greater. However, it’s got some image quality issues which can be easily fixed by swapping DLSS for the Transformer model and applying a mod that takes care of the sharpening, FPS cap in cut-scenes and solves some ultra-wide shenanigans. Again, it’s a small developer team so they might have not had enough time and money for extra Q&A but why do you think games are still released with older versions of DLSS? And I don’t necessarily mean the Transformer but even the latest CNN? Swapping DLSD takes a moment and the difference in quality can immediately be seen. Cheers

Jellyment

Greetings DFentlemen, do you think that switch 1 games will see any performance improvement on switch 2 unpatched? I'm led to believe that Wii games ran the same on Wii U, albeit upscaled, but that was not software emulation. Do you think there will be some wiggle room for switch 1 games to see an improvement with an aspect of software emulation? Maybe more stable frame rate? Or are we doomed to pay the switch 2 tax to see an uplift?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello DF crew, Microsoft raising prices of their consoles while at the same time releasing most of its games on other consoles makes me wonder who would now decide to buy XSX for $599 if for a $100 they can get a PS5 Pro which would play more and more games from Phil & Co. Also, all of a sudden the price for Switch 2 seems more ok. Microsoft strategy is a total mistery to me, to be honest. Cheers

zurce

Hello DF Folks! With the recent coverage of Clair Obscur I was surprised to see very little outlets mention the issues the game have with performance and resolution, while it is to a point understandable due the size of the team and doesn't diminish the merit of the gameplay or story, it seems a lot of press and even gamers turn a blind eye because they want to see the game succeed How do you feel about these situations, does it make it hard to cover a game with clear issues that everyone else is loving?

Horselle

Hello DF Team!!! The first question is for Rich, why are you surprised that the RTX 4060 is the most popular gpu for gamers? I mean a 4060 laptop without a sales can be between €2000 and €2500 this is quite expensive and I already have a work laptop so any such investment would be for my hobby! When you have kids in school then it might make sense. Second question the DF team constantly say that today’s games are made for the hardware of tomorrow, what games from yesteryears take advantage of the RTX 5000 series and could you do a video on comparing the game at the time of release on the console and high end pc of the time against the 5060 or would you recommend a different gpu? I’m super excited that Microsoft will be developing a new console that will be based on PC architecture. I think that this could be a unique selling point for their next console, I would be super excited to be able to play retro games on it and having access to other gaming stores but where would the money come from for Microsoft?

goregutz

Hi DF team! The PS5 and Xbox series consoles introduced us to HDMI 2.1, giving us all the lovely eye candy of 4K 120 hz. We often love to talk about performance but forget about these underdog quality of life improvements which help us enjoy the visual spectacle of graphics. Is there anything any new HDMI standard on the horizon for next gen and how would it benefit us? What other quality of life improvements would you like to see. Perhaps wifi 7 for (hopefully) better streaming to a (future) PlayStation portal 2?

Someguyperson

This past week, Sony announced they will stop making 8k TVs. Do you think there's any value to increasing spatial resolutions beyond 4k? Is the only way to meaningfully improve displays today by increasing the temporal resolution (framerate)?

Someguyperson

A bunch of games that struggled to hit a stable 30 FPS (Monster Hunter, Pokémon, Zelda: Link's Awakening, etc.) and those will almost assuredly hit a stable 30 FPS now, unless they didn't implement a good 30 FPS cap. Some Switch 1 games used double buffered Vsync, so some might just work at 60 FPS, but that's probably hoping a bit too much. Games with DRS will also improve dramatically.

Someguyperson

DLSS 1.0 didn't use motion vectors and was generally panned by everyone as being not great. DLSS only became a good upscaler after they added motion vector input data. You can use DLSS 1.0, but the results are generally poor.

tod weitzel

Hi, Rich. As the main business type, can we get a tutorial in why all the games journalism sites are being hollowed out and sold to guide mills? Isn't the market saturated by this point?

Someguyperson

I've also done the same. For me, it's driving at night in damp conditions where you see the specular from all the different headlights and the material properties of the road fully reflect in some parts while others are completely diffuse, leaving a very high amount of contrast, all without artifacting! Also, staring at trees moving in the wind and seeing how the leaves have an aliasing pattern in real life, which makes me think if rendering is trying to actually approximate real life, or if it's only trying to go for a filmic look with more blur than real life.

sj33 (Jake)

Hi all, I’d recently been thinking that the Series S badly needs a price cut to £199 since it’s seemingly saturated the audience it can appeal to appeal to at that price point. Instead, we’re looking at hike to £299. At the other end, who exactly is buying a $729 2TB Series X instead of a cheaper PS5 Pro (and would play those Microsoft titles much better!)? Obviously the new market reality is making pricing challenging, but what case can Microsoft now make for these when they were struggling to sell consoles anyway?

Mario Rosa

Hello, team. After watching Oliver's video on Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, he mentioned that the game probably wouldn't have been able to look as good as it does had it been it not been running on UE5 due to that engine's feature being a great help to a small team. That touches upon a question I've been wondering for a while now: how much credit do you give to a developer and how much credit do you give an engine to a game's performance and visual fidelity? I am by no means someone well versed in gaming tech, I only have a basic rudimentary knowledge on such things thanks to you guys and other outlets, so this is something I've been curious for a while as I find myself being less impressed by a game if it's running on UE5 (and by extension other versions of UE) due to it's reputation for high fidelity visuals. However, games running on other engines, especially proprietary ones, leave an overall better impression on me even if the visuals are not of the same caliber. I recognize this is a semi-unconscious bias I have against UE due to everything running on it and feeling like the engine does a lot of the heavy lifting so I was wondering if you could provide some clarity. I asked a friend who's more familiar with the subject and he compared it to cooking food: Epic provides you with a fully stocked kitchen with quality ingredients to make a good meal but you still need a talented chef to prepare it.

10 Watts Raytracing

Hi DF crew! Do you think we'll see a lot of Unreal Engine 5 games with Nanite, VSM and most importantly Lumen running on Switch 2 in the coming years? The fact that Star Wards Outlaws will have dynamic GI and ray traced reflections allows for some optimism. But as a counterpoint, the comparably powerful Steam Deck runs the Matrix Awaken demo very poorly, despite the rumor that this demo was running on a Switch 2 prototype at Gamescom 2023.

Michael Pearn

Hi team, the Minecraft team have announced their Vibrant Visuals graphic upgrade for unannounced platforms. Their blog post does not mention real time ray tracing. Could someone review the screenshots and video and outline what the upgrade might be? It appears to be some sort of global GI / shadowing / pixel shader solution.

Alan

Hi guys, These Switch2 virtual cards are getting more confusing to me, I don't know who they are for? IMO certain games like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing are better digital as they will last the life of the system and a game you will always pick up and play, everything else first party is physical all the way for me! I know you can sell the virtual cards but you can also sell the proper physical cards, it doesn't make any sense to me, what am I not understanding?

Michael Pearn

I’m in the same boat. Maybe they charge a small fee to convert a physical license to a digital license. Sony tends to not give anything away for free.

FrametimeSommelier

I don’t know the answer to your question. The only thing I can say is that in my opinion UE5 games with all the bells and whistles run particular poor on SteamDeck and ROG Ally handhelds. So I am not very optimistic but who knows. Maybe the DF crew can chime in.

FrametimeSommelier

I personally are very interested in 5k gaming monitors for the future. Because half of that resolution is 1440p, which means you should be able to run those possible in 5k or 1440p mode. That is very appealing to me.

Pomps

It also seems to be quite heavy even on XBSX

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! It seems that a new 4K video has been released of cyberpunk on Switch 2 - and there seem to be significant texture and resolution upgrades since the launch trailer, as well as ample use of screen space reflections - does anything else catch your eyes between the trailers?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! (2) It looks like Finnish devs Housemarque weren't finished, because they've returned to Returnal for a timely PS5 PRO patch! Any initial thoughts on the upgrades, is it just a res bump /changed upscale method - or is there more to it?

Dort

Hello DF crew. With Nintendo debuting the glorious $80 game, and Xbox raising their prices across the board, do you think it’s only a matter of time before GamePass has to cost more as well? It seems like the big companies have realized gamers love to spend more, so they will very likely provide us with more exciting price hikes.

VeryProfessionalDodo

Could it be because of the cable itself not being capable of handling that amount of bandwidth?

Peter

With the different tiers now and the newest games only being available in the top tier, I think this is kind of already started in a sense. I do think we will absolutely see increases as well mind you

Stop the Spread

Is the game good? How many people REALLY care about these small issues? Only we do, and for me, it’s just genuine curiosity about how a game works. Most people do not care. There. I answered it for you. DF, I want my check on Monday. 😛

Centralperkin

GTA6 Delayed! “The hugely-awaited sequel will now arrive on 26th May 2026, Rockstar announced today.” - too late to include this week?

Centralperkin

What games will fill the gap? Ghost of Yōtei? A “yet to be announced” new Mario game on Switch 2 (🤞🏻)?

Sam Ecorners

Good time of day, fine people of DF(including those not on the panel) I have a bespoke question for John. John, DF Retro content on 5th generation of consoles is some of the best content there is and the recent Wreckless video scratches the same itch for 6th generation, thank you! My question is, are there any plans for further 6th generation content? I find that period in gaming fascinating and your take on it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all your amazing work lads. Cheers!

andre surles

Business Question : With consoles and game prices on the move and subscriptions being the norm, could we see the phone/contract model becoming the way forward?

Yellow Ledbetter

I thought they had a serial because of the whole discussion around duplicate dumped games played on MIG Switch?

RealTime Shade Thrower

my goodness would that be something! I'm using the PS5Pro pack in cable...