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Call For Questions For DF Direct Weekly #235 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-09 16:16:37
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Yessssssss Supporters - it's Thursday, and I've just caught my breath after putting Oliver's excellent Battlefield 5 video live, so let's get straight down to it. We'll be "taping" DF Direct Weekly #235 tomorrow and while topics for discussion are still brewing, we'll be talking about Microsoft's need to shoot down the rumours behind it completely pulling out of next-gen console hardware. I stress "console" hardware as I've got a feeling that the SoCs Microsoft creates will be seen across a range of PC hardware.

Other topics? We'll be talking about the new Project Amethyst ML disclosures from Mark Cerny and AMD's Jack Huynh, along with the drip-feed of hints about the arrival date for the PlayStation 6 console that continue into this video.

We're still considering other discussion points for inclusion - such as a new round of rumours on current-gen Red Dead Redemption 2 ports, including Switch 2, now corroborated by especially accurate leaker, Nate The Hate. John's looking to share his joy about a standalone VR emulated version of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Anything else you'd like to see us discuss? And beyond that, any questions to ask of the team. It'll be Rich (ie me), Oliver and John on the panel and the deadline for your inputs is 8am BST on Friday. Thanks!

Files

Oliver Mackenzie yes rich compilation (@DigitalFoundry)

Lots of "hey rich"s in there too All credit goes to @DigitalFoundry for the source clips

Comments

Pol Kallamata

Is the era of head-to-head next generation launches between the major console makers over, and what effects could this have on the future cadence of hardware? For many generations we’ve seen new console launches that have been either simultaneous (within a few weeks of each other) or within the span of a year. Nintendo broke away from this trend in 2017 with the launch of the Switch and has since followed an offset cycle to Sony and Microsoft. Given what has transpired with the Xbox business recently there is reason to believe that Microsoft may be bowing out of console hardware or pivoting to a living room PC market where it is no longer competing with Sony directly. Could the result be that console makers no longer base their timelines for successive hardware on a need to compete with when they expect rival hardware to launch? And could this in turn result in lengthier cycles that allow the hardware makers to extract the maximum value from a larger install base? Nintendo waited over eight years to follow up on the original Switch knowing that there was no direct threat to their lane that they had to contend with.

Spoggi99

Hi DF Team, I really enjoyed Oliver‘s recent video on modern AAA games running on the iPhone 17 Pro. I’ve always wondered why publishers keep trying to bring these cutting-edge titles to smartphones instead of following Feral Interactive’s model of porting older games. Feral’s approach seems far more sustainable and well-suited to mobile hardware. For example, Hitman Blood Money runs beautifully on my 15 Pro Max at a locked 60 FPS and higher resolution than the Xbox 360 version ever did. Do you think there’s a particular reason more publishers don’t adopt that “classic-game port” strategy for mobile, or is it simply a matter of cost and market demand? Thanks as always for the great work and have a nice rest of the week!

Buzz Bee Spoke

Hey computer game detectives, how much non work related gaming do you guys do? Do you feel your work negativly Impacts your enthusiam for computer playing game time?

Pavel Iakovenko

I’m really impressed with the image quality of Ghost of Yotei, it’s really good 😍 Can we say that the “cross-gene” state is finally over and we now get the games that are significantly more technically advanced than the games of the pre generation? Or we need to wait for GTA6? 😄

Lexxington87

Question: What do the DF crew play out of hours when not for work? What’s your chill time gaming?

VeryProfessionalDodo

Greetings, foundrymen! When actually playing games, how do you switch off the "Digital Foundry mindset", and just enjoy the game itself? I feel like I sometimes prefer inferior console experiences, just because I can't tinker in case the hair aliasing bothers me, making me switch the upscaling program for the 3rd time in an hour.

CABBAC

Good morrow Digital Foundry peeps! Delayed question but a question nevertheless, with Lobotomy Softwares epic SlaveDriver engine code being dropped online do you think video game developers should be obliged to release code for defunct engines for historical and archival purposes particularly so homebrew communities can attempt to unleash the unlimited power outside of the limited life these engines originally have?

PizzaGuyFrank

Given the spotty adoption of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) so far—such as Dying Light being late to adding, Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater not using it well, and Borderlands 4 skipping it entirely—do you think Rockstar will implement PSSR in GTA 6 (and if so, to what degree of effectiveness)? What about the rumored Red Dead Redemption 2 remaster? And do you think the usage will ramp up when PSSR 2 comes out and even being added to existing titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 or Expedition 33?

Ian

Has Alex recovered from using his switch 2? What cleansing rituals has he had to perform since?

AMH

Hey gents Do you guys have any idea how much the Switch 2’s T239 chip is underclocked compared to the Tegra X1 in the original Switch? I’m curious about how far Nintendo dialed things back from the chip’s full potential — especially since the X1 was already running way below its max clocks for heat and battery reasons.

Litchford Bedwetter

After having played Yotei and AC Shadows, I've been thinking about graphics of the year. These two games are a great example of tech vs art, Yotei looks way better to my eyes, but the simulation and rendering is easily better in AC. What are your personal priorities when judging 'best graphics'? And which of these two has the best graphics for you.

Fowler is God

Hi gents. Like us all, I have a fair few ways to play games. From consoles to handhelds to PC. I've realised that I often find myself restricting my play to 'dedicated devices' even when I can use something for multiple things. I've even considered buying a ps portal even though I have a steam deck that can do the same thing better! Have any of you similar / weird querks that end up costing you more than life should!?!

VeryProfessionalDodo

Just chiming in, man do I agree with you! I've honestly grown a bit tired of "buy a PC for gaming, because you can do so much, like work on it!" argument. I prefer having a good machine for work, and a good machine for gaming, and in a lot of instances, dedicated gaming devices just offer a better overall UX. Regarding the Portal, I've bought it and ended up returning JUST because of the panel itself. Too smeary, and I'm not an OLED elitist. If they released a Portal with a better screen, I would 100% buy it, even having a Steam Deck OLED.

Engin Cetin

Hi. Why no coverage of the new multiplatform sonic racing game? I remember you covering team sonic racing.

VeryProfessionalDodo

In theory, couldn't Sony give a manual toggle to the user to disable V-Sync and give unlocked frame rates for older games? I'm not saying they want to, but could they? I recall the Lance McDonald Bloodborne video that there's a specific PlayStation API call to do frame-rate caps with proper frame-pacing. Couldn't PlayStation itself modify this function in the back-end, disabling v-sync? I'm sure there would be a tremendous amount of issues in a lot of games, but I would love to have an experimental mode for this, as well as forcefully using the latest version of PSSR. Thoughts?

AfreemTheDream

Greetings, Foundrymen! Microsoft released 4 generations of Xbox console and, in terms of sales, the only true success was the X360. Even Sony's worst (PS3) outsold Microsoft's best. Are we looking back at the Xbox brand through rose-tinted glasses, considering 3 out of 4 generations were fairly awful? Do you gents believe 3 out of 4 of their consoles were fairly awful? Cheers!

Stutters Scott

Hi DF guys and Rich (exclamation point!) Leadbetter, I've been thinking about how you get updates to games and it's always annoying when you start a game and it has to update. Microsoft is the only console maker that gets it right - you just go into the settings and choose to update all the games that need updating and then you're fine. What do you think? Also has Will gone to The Dark Side (IGN) as I saw him in one of their videos yet he's still in your DF fighters poster that's behind Alex's head?

Steven Thomas

Hi chaps, I'm in need of some expert advice!. I'm hearing a lot of good things about the Legion Go S. I'm in the market for a handheld, and being in the UK, and unable to go to a shop and just look at the dam thing. It's a toss up between the Go S and the Steamdeck OLED. It's mostly for indie games and I'd like to try some emulation. Do you have any thoughts between the two? Thanks, and keep up the excellent work :)

Someguyperson

After 3-4 months of use, my Switch 2 has some weird charging behavior. The setting to force the console to only charge up to 90% battery causes my console to only charge up to 80% and if I disable that setting the thing only charges up to 90%. Is Nintendo limiting how much the Switch 2 can charge 100% of the time? Have you guys needed to boot into recovery mode to reset the Switch 2's battery meter?

FlowEffect

Greetings to the honourable association of distinguished foundrymen – please hear my request to learn more about electronic entertainment technology: The latest information about Magnus sound extremely promising – but also very expensive. I would love to hear, what clock frequency, RAM config and lastly price you would consider a realistic sweetspot for a Magnus-Powered Reference Design from MS as a template for others. And I am still wondering how cooling and form factor will fit into the picture - as much as I liked the Xbox Series X design, I would love a return of the Xbox One X form factor or something alike, in terms of a console-like device. Keep up the amazing work and stay bespoke!

BespokeEP

Hello the league of extraordinary DF gentlemen!!!!! "Yessssssss Rich" and "I spend too much time on DF" ~knack creator T-shirts, WHEN???!!

Dude Man McBrosef

Esteemed foundrymen and expert explainers, can you please explain what Mark Cery and Jack Huynh are talking about in their PlayStation/AMD video? It sounds fancy but is any of this really revolutionary? I don’t understand a bit of it and would appreciate your explanation of it. Thank you, sirs! Reference link: https://youtu.be/1LCMzw-_dMw?si=kTf9GMrChq5CBn-N

Jagster

In your gents' opinions, where does Microsoft stand now? It seems like there's been an almost kind of frivolity on their part in torching good will, between all their lay-offs, the Asus handhelds pricing, and the recent GamePass price increases among other things I'm maybe forgetting. Even if their next gen hardware offerings are especially impressive, will it be enough to balance out the ill-will they've otherwise recently garnered? Maybe this all isn't Matrick-level catastrophe, but boy does it feel close

Fowler is God

That's interesting - hadn't considered the screen could be that off-putting. In fact I love my PlayStation experience on my deck (oled), but it takes a minute to get to the app and open it and then remind myself of my shortcut buttons...oh and maybe I should play a GameCube game or the new Shinobi while I'm here instead of PlayStation. 🤦 Think I need to work on my inability to move past vast choice!

Rolodzeo

Now that we all agree that the likes of "Yesssss Rich", "Bespoke", "Porsfoken", "Full Fat Experience" and the not least important "Auf Wiedersehen", among many others nuggets of verbal art are ingrained into the mass cultural landscape of this day and age (of our lord), don't you think it's time for some new merchandise featuring those golden expressions of joy? Thanks!

speedlemur

Frametime forebears - with Microsoft giving up on direct competition with Sony, do we have concerns about how the playstation will fair long term in a less competitive environment?

Mr Bespoke

Heeeyyy Rich, Yesss Rich 3 bags full Rich. (A slightly modified version of Baa Baa black sheep if anyone was wondering).

Pomps

"frametime forebears" LMAOOO

NixonLives

Hallo DF Crew Will videogame release cadences ever go back to what they were? Raising an entire family in between GTA and Elder Scrolls releases has me pondering my mortality. Would everyone being on a unified engine make this possible? Cheers!

Mr.Pirotech

Hello gentlemen, I would be interested in your opinion on FSR 4, specifically the INT8 version. Do you think it could be a usable technology for the current console generation? According to the available benchmarks, the performance increase is smaller than with FSR 3, but the resulting image quality seems to be much better.

Captain Hero

Gentlemen. Huge fan of the show. Congrats on your new found independence. Now that you are a 'fully armed and operational' independent podcast, have you firmed up your thinking on new retro gaming topics to explore? I was excited to hear this is one of the areas you are looking to focus on. I really enjoyed the Sega Saturn vs PlayStation racing video that John did. One of the things that was so interesting in previous generations was the willingness by console manufacturers to explore new architectures, or new approaches to handling challenges - such as the shift from 2d to 3d. While there are innovations happening with AI/LLMs today, it feels like fundamentally the various consoles out there are increasingly uniform when it comes to architecture. Would you consider doing deep dive retro analysis of past consoles - e.g. deep dives on the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Saturn etc? You could also look at key games for each system and how some games leveraged the architecture in interesting ways. Just to give an example - I always enjoyed the example of the Panzer Dragoon series on Saturn - and how it leverage the Saturn's architecture to do tricks (clever background scaling etc) that simply weren't possible with the PlayStation's architecture. I'd love to hear more about Aliens VS predator on the Jag, or Need for Speed on the 3DO, Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3 and the whole cell architecture. And how about the Xbox 360s architecture? Yes we all know it was simpler to code for, but what else did it do differently vs the competition? We don't see much of this type of analysis online, and I'd love to see the definitive deep dives on old architectures courtesy of the digital foundry crew. :) Cheers CaptainHero

Kirkland Spector

What’s up DF :) First time asker, long time fan (since pre VO on Youtube)! Do you guys have concern that PC games will have compatibility issues into the long term future? The past few weeks I've been on a ps3 gen kick and many of those games on my PC have issues. Most you can fix with config tweaks, require running at 720 or 1080, or mods but it strikes concern that in only 15 or so years, the games are already having compatibility issues. Do you think PC games of the ps4 and 5 generation will have similar issues running in a few decades time? I'd hate to see my steam library become unplayable without keeping around "period piece" machines. Much love from San Francisco!

James

Hi folks. With 'digital permanence' of games collections becoming increasingly questionable on many platforms as many storefront eek towards digital landlord-ism, where are the other market contenders to stop this capture? Could there be market space for a Gog.com style console that keeps store prices reasonable, keeps classics alive, and acts as a healthier financial model for consumers and game developers alike?

eggsfordays

Hi DF! If Microsoft releases a PC-like Xbox device that runs PC games but also games from the Xbox console library, how would this affect licensing and exclusivity? Some PC games are bound to specific stores through exclusivity contracts, e.g. Alan Wake 2 to Epic Games Store. Would an Xbox-PC have to exclude Alan Wake 2 specifically in the ‘Xbox layer’ to honour that exclusivity? Would new releases on the Xbox platform be forced to have Play Anywhere functionality to prevent customer confusion?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey DF Crew! Do you think the “Universal Compression” feature mentioned in the Project Amethyst presentation could help the PS6 Portable stand out from other handhelds when it launches? Cheers!

VeryProfessionalDodo

At this point, I genuinely classify this as a Don Mattrick catastrophe. It didn’t happen in one go (as was that dreaded E3), but these last two years have been overwhelmingly tumultuous. I don’t think they can recover the amount of good will they lost.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Dear Gentlemen! Given that it’s the year of our Lord 2025, it would be great to hear your thoughts on the best games from the first quarter of this century — and why you think they’ve stood the test of time as timeless classics. If that’s too big a topic for DF Direct, perhaps it could make for a special video later in the year, if you have time. Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Dear DF Crew! GOG reported a financial loss for 2024 — why do you think that happened? Do you think gamers value having all games available on day one more than they appreciate DRM-free content? Cheers!

Jagster

That's a good way to put it, it has achieved Mattrick levels but did so more slow burn

RAVE_DAM0S

Gentlemen of the Foundry Digital de Freedom Given all the testing you’ve done across games and hardware, I’m curious, how do you feel about the current direction of ML acceleration? Do you prefer setups with a dedicated NPU, or ones that embed acceleration logic directly into the GPU’s shader cores? Did the research into FSR4/RDNA2 video yield any tidbits on the topic? I ask as the current rumor is Xbox "MAGNUS" is set to have a dedicated NPU whereas rumors of the PS6 suggest the alternative. So, it looks like we'll yet again have a proper comparison for the years to come. Fine day to you all!

FlowEffect

And because of the AMD x PS6 Video, I have a second question: Greetings to the honourable association of distinguished foundrymen – please hear my request to learn more about electronic entertainment technology: I really like the bold and promising Vision that AMD and Sony Interactive Entertainment shared in their newly released video - but I am a bit confused, why so many people think that these will already be part in a first PS6 iteration. If the Tape-Out really happens this year, as rumored, then the silicon (perhaps Orion) should be set and the upgrade will be much more "conservative", right? The tech mentioned in the video, which is just delivering early promising results, can still be considered "experimental" as of now, like Mark Cerny said. Therefore it will most likely not be part of PS6 Hardware - more like PS6 Pro, the earliest, I guess. Am I wrong or misunderstanding something here? If so, PS6 is still very VERY far away... Keep up the amazing work and stay bespoke!

DudleyTheGentleman

Hello Digital Foundrymen! The latest Project Amethyst video appears to explain that AMD is finally moving towards dedicated RT Cores in the same vein as Nvidia and Intel. Though this technical evolution is exciting for future consoles, I can't help but feel confused as to why it's taken so long for AMD to come to the same conclusions about how RT acceleration should be handled in hardware that Nvidia already made back in 2018? In terms of leading the direction of future GPU hardware innovation, do you see AMD becoming competitive with Nvidia again in the near future?

Kaveh PG

Hello Digital Foundry, as a PS5 Pro owner (gta6) I feel like it's been eerily quiet a year on, but I'm excited to see how the cross gen generation pans out. If the PS6 is a 2x multiplier on the Pro, there can't be much the PS6 could handle that you couldn't pair back for the Pro. I don't think the same could be said for the Base PS5. What are your thoughts on the Pro's capability for cross gen?

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Gents, the rumoured next gen Xbox APU sounds pretty amazing, but if the next gen Xbox was cancelled, would anything really have been lost? Nintendo shows us that gamers buy games not teraflops and it's been made clear that nothing will ever again be made to be 'only on Xbox'.

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

How would you feel if the 7090 was an incredible uplift on the (hypothetical) 6090, but was also a purely cloud based product (at a reasonable subscription price and unlimited usage, of course). The insane amount of money going into datacentres makes me think this could be a reality to eat up spare cloud capacity.

goregutz

Can you please discuss xess 4 and panther lake

Sean Eppel

All these advancements from Sony and AMD going to RDNA5 and PS6, what aspects of this work will also end up in the RDNA implementation of the next Xbox and PC graphics cards? Because I'm expecting Xbox to have these features as well. Is this PS6 marketing, otherwise what's in it for Playstation? Also interested in your thoughts on the current rumored CPU arrangement for PS6 Orion and Xbox Magnus.

Obex

Hello my fellow Digimen, since supporting you on Patreon, I've been thinking about how I can provide you with additional help. My solution was to click on each of your videos on YouTube, have it liked using an Auto-Like browser addon, and then close it again after a second. I thought it would be helpful for the algorithm if you got additional views and likes. Now I've researched this and found information that suggests this behavior is actually detrimental to the content creator, because watch time seems to play a greater role for the visibility of the videos. Do you have any insights on this topic? Can you tell us about other ways we can support you further?

Lux

Hello Free Diigital Founders, Could we have John's Sonic Racing Crossworld impressions if he has had the chance to play it? Thanks!

BespokeEP

From the sounds of it, universal compression is for future architecture (perhaps RDNA6). Now I don't think PS6 will be RDNA6, but it will likely borrow some elements from tech beyond RDNA5. I mean the point of doing a collaboration like this is to get early access to future tech. Also the fact that Mark very specifically said "a few" years time, screams 2028 for PS6

Adam

Hi Team - Have your heard anything about G’AIM’E: Plug & Play TIME CRISIS Gun for Modern TVs (GAIME) by Tassei Denki Co.,Ltd.? I saw it was at TGS and I backed it on Kickstarter a few months ago. Just wondering if it delivers on its promise.

Someguyperson

It sure seems that the PS6 GPU looks a whole lot like a, well, Nvidia GPU. Do you think Sony is the one really pushing AMD in this direction? Will AMD's future GPUs only be competitive with Nvidia due to Sony's influence?

Someguyperson

It might not seem like that big of a deal to most people, but the compression hardware unit on the PS6 is actually a huge deal. It gives effectively more memory bandwidth & capacity for a miniscule amount of increased latency and power consumption. It seems like all positive and no negative, so why has it taken so long for them to fully compress everything going to memory? Well, I can tell you from personal experience that all the engineers actually working on this stuff absolutely hate when everything in memory is compressed. It makes debugging issues so much more difficult when something crashes and you want a RAM dump to figure out what went wrong. Compressing everything in memory effectively puts a light layer of encryption over everything, which helps from a security perspective (particularly in data center applications), but it makes debugging much more difficult. I fully expect devkits to have a lot more memory than retail units so devs can run everything without compression, or at least some extra memory to save off the bookkeeping data so you can make sense of everything after a crash. If you see rumors of a PS6 with a weird amount of memory capacity, it could just be the devkit and not the actual retail specification.

Alan

Hi guys, Regarding the next-gen AMD gaming technologies announced in the Mark Cerny-AMD video, what will they actually allow and enable for next-gen gaming? Could this technology put AMD ahead of Nvidia on PC, or is it already too late? This technology will also be for PC and Xbox, but what about the Sony "secret sauce" for the PS6? What does Mark Cerny have up his sleeve?

earthb

Hello Gents, What do you think are the implications of OpenAI potentially owning 10% of AMD and their new partnership in terms of gaming? Is there is a potential for some innovative AI-driven technologies being born out of it? And chance that Gaming would be greatly deprioritized given the relatively low revenue?

fully fallible

Hello Founders! Recent ""data"" from Circana has been making the rounds on social media and outlets, making the claim that more than half of all "gamers" purchase less than 2 games a year. With a sample size smaller than 3,000, can this study truly be considered accurate? I personally don't buy it, and think this claim is shaky at best, but would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Eirik M.Jenssen

Hello gents! A question I have been wondering for some time. Why do some games allow access to ray-reconstruction with regular raytracing (eg. CP2077), while some games don't (eg. Doom the dark ages). One would think ray-reconstruction would benefit most raytraced games, especially if that game uses several raytraced effects at the same time as seen in doom the dark ages. One additional question if allowed. How hard would it be to add ray-reconstruction to ex. Control? Feel that game would benefit majorly from a higher quality denoiser. Cheers!

CottonBird

From older console memory cards, to mechanical HDDs, to the huge volumes of games and videos you move around flash memory that has limited writes, do you have any stories to share regarding loss of data?

(Don’t be a) Richard

Hey Rich, now that it’s been a few months, hope the madness of going independent has calmed down a bit and you’ve been able to catch your breath and are enjoying the fruits of that undertaking and your newfound independence. You and the team have handled it magnificently!

Stephen Heim

Attention my analog-gents! Let's cross off the check list together: Mark and Jack on a nice set with gaming themes? Check. Multiple camera angles with teleprompters? Check. New-age industry gaming terms that 99.99% of console gamers have never heard of unless they watch DF? Check!! Last to check off. A potential PS6/Pro with Path Tracing and Ray Reconstruction at 30/40 fps? Hopeful? At least from what Jack implied but what an amazing 9 minute video that I was not expecting to go in such great technical detail about the project. Way too much to cover in text right now but i know we can't wait for the longer video from the DF crew to cover in great detail and explain it to us. Thank you for everything you do for the community. Cheers!

shedi1982

Good morning, afternoon, and evening gents! With the interview between marc Cerny and the head of AMD discussing the new technology that will be inside the ps6 does that mean that they have basically given up on the ps5 pro thanks in advance

(Don’t be a) Richard

I saw the article title but didn’t explore it. How did they account for free to play or subscription services (such as GamePass) where you don’t buy a title, but may still pay to play? Also, how do they define gamer? I occasionally cook but I don’t consider myself a chef.

fully fallible

I tried finding the actual study all these articles are citing, because I had similar questions, but it seems the singular source for all of this news coverage is...a Bluesky post from Mat Piscatella, Senior Director & Video Game Industry Thought Leader at Circana. So, your guess is as good as mine (or until the whole survey is publicly available)

Snorlax cat

I think that the compression thing that amethyst is pushing is good for a handheld as well, thoughts?

Eric Benoit

Does anyone think, if Microsoft gets out of the console market, another company will fill the space like xbox did with Sega? Has it kinda happened already with Meta Quest?

DudleyTheGentleman

Good day fellow Stutter Strugglers! What features, or performance, do "Neural Arrays" unlock that dedicated tensor cores don't? Are these technologies complementary, the same, or orthogonal in functional usage?

ConcreteLlama

'ello there Foundry folk. I switched over to PC gaming a few months ago. I'm running an RTX 5080 and game entirely on the TV. My TV can do 120hz and VRR which is great, but it pretty much means that I have zero use for multi frame gen. How long will it be before TVs catch up and we start to see ridiculous refresh rates monitors are getting now? You'd think TV manufacturers would be all over this, they love slapping big numbers on boxes.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey gents! Since we’re probably in for one of the longest console generations yet — and we shouldn’t expect many big, ‘Crysis-like’ leaps in visuals — do you think developers will start focusing on other ways to make their games stand out? Maybe more advanced physics, unique mechanics, or other innovations? One can hope, right? Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Gentlemen, you’ve already discussed which gaming system you’d take to a deserted island — but if you could only bring one game, which would it be, and why? Thank you!

Spodlude

Hi Gents, ive been loving the content this week. If you could go back to a single year in gaming, what year would it be?

Spodlude

Hey gents, you know when the gamecube was first revealed it had that little window you could see the disc spin through, why do you think they got rid of that?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! So Cerny opened his secret lab door, and the amethyst special sauce will have "radiance cores", "universal compression", and let's not forget last week's news that RDNA 5 will have hardware acceleration for DGF.. I'm getting confused, is this redstone, an amethyst stone.. or even, a green stone? Will we soon be basking in the radiance of these seemingly about-face decisions?

DaJaCo (Dan)

They probably found that it encouraged kids to open the disk drive mid game and frisbee it about like magpies.

Niko

Hi all! Do you think the PS6 will be a tougher sell for Sony due to the limited number of PS5 exclusive first party games released this gen? There was the prolonged cross-gen period and now, due to ever increasing development times, we seem to only get one or at most two PS5 only titles from a given first party studio this gen. With PS6 also expected to be more expensive, I find it increasingly difficult to justify spending so much money on a console when the number of first party releases is that low. In my opinion, the duration of a generation should also significantly increase when development times are as long as they are at the moment. Thanks and all the best!

digitalfoundry

That's very kind. We have a lot to disclose, a new website to launch and a retro podcast in the pipeline. More coming soon - by month's end.

digitalfoundry

Well, Mark Cerny said that PS6 is a few years away. RDNA 5 is not, right?

digitalfoundry

We have a video coming on that and the answer to your specific question is "well, maybe - but only on Xbox Series X".

DaJaCo (Dan)

I hinted as much in my question this week, i.e. "is this redstone, an amethyst stone, or even a green stone".. It certainly seems like AMD has totally changed their stance on hardware acceleration / fixed function units for RDNA 5. There was word last week on AMD's blog that DGF will be hardware accelerated too..

Matt_Rant

Do you think that Valve’s incoming Steam Frame device will apply automatic stereoscope to legacy games to goose more spatial gameplay from people’s existing Steam libraries? NVIDIAused to have this feature in drivers, and there are community projects that do it as well, and it seems like the Proton layer is a perfect place to do this.

DaJaCo (Dan)

By the time GTA 6 releases, the FSR4 INT8 version should have been adapted and optimised for the PS5 Pro, and so it would be very odd if they did not take advantage of it (assuming it is more performant than current versions).

VeryProfessionalDodo

I've seen the video, and I don't think that means they've "given up" on the Pro. We'll still see PSSR improvements during this gen, they've said so already. We won't be getting any more transformative improvements, because the hardware is already final, so it should be only software that improves. The video was more directed to the future of PlayStation in general

Simplex

What was your reaction to the abomination/corpse desecration that was Deus Ex Remastered?

JakeTheJake

Howdy Gents! Arm Chair CEO Time: If you're Valve and you’re seriously considering making a TV focused console style box again, what do you think Steam OS is currently missing that should be added for that to be competitive, and what price range and performance are we targeting to ensure that it’s competitive with Sony and whatever the hell Xbox is doing. Valve is as always mysterious so I’m not even sure if this will ever come to pass, but I’d like it to! I don’t like PC gaming as much as I like Steam, and I’m sure plenty of people feel the same. I’d gladly replace my PS5 as my tv box with a steam machine if it’s feature matched and reasonably priced.

DaJaCo (Dan)

How do you feel about Dodo's being resurrected soon.. there are some big companies working on it apparently.. ?

DaJaCo (Dan)

The big question for me, is how much all of these new hardware features will simply be part of RDNA 5 - and therefore also Magnus.. and how much of it will be customised for the PS6.. there's the possibility that if magnus comes sooner, it will miss out on some of these developments - but also perhaps the impact can be offset by brute force; because they're going wider/bigger with the chip.. assuming people will be prepared to pay for it. There is also the question of - even if both microsoft and sony's architectures are very similar, perhaps the fact that sony seems to have been working so closely with them will bear fruits for the various development environment softwares that lead to much better hardware utilisation.. a bit like how the PS5's SSD has far better throughput due to their software solutions. Personally i think Microsoft is looking to go big soon, but ultimately sony will win with something smarter, more bespoke, with more fixed function hardware units - and ultimately a much more accessible price point. A lean mean path tracing machine.

DaJaCo (Dan)

It depends how heavily the PS6 leans into path tracing as it's primary differentiator, there's talk that the PS6 will have around 12x the RT performance as the PS5, and it will also have a much more hardware accelerated version of FSR4, or FSR5 by then; customised into a PS6 version of PSSR.. once a console has a very competent hardware upscaler out of the door, it will get broader adoption (much like is happening with DLSS on the switch 2, allowing it to punch quite a bit above its weight!). Also, heavy effects like RT and Path tracing, are much cheaper when they are applied to lower resolution frames BEFORE an upscaling process takes place - so this compounds the advantage effect in favour of the PS6.. which as of yesterday (cerny's new video), looks to have even more hardware accelerated features than first expected.. there's the radiance cores for path tracing and RT, the "universal compression" system to save massive amounts of memory bandwidth, and even news recently of hardware accelerated DGF, which makes RT and PT cheaper by making the BVH structure less expensive. All in all, I think games with lots of path tracing would basically have to have most of it turned off for PS5 Pro, but games that have relatively light ray tracing would be ok to pare back - it just depends how much work that would involve - especially when you consider that a developer can't "just release on Pro" - they have to release on all PS5 platforms.. so it could be a scenario where weaker PS6 games don't get backported to Pro, because the base PS5 exists. Having said all of this.. the upcoming PSP throws a spanner in the works in all of it.. as it's conceivable that the handheld build of the games would be more easily ported to last gen PS5 at that point.. so it'll be interesting times!

William Johnson

"Hey! Whatsup!?" That's how we greet "gents" here in Southern California/Northern Baja California. Man, Xbox has really pooped the bed a few times the past few months with these announcements. I started planning this 2-part question way before they announced the Gamepass price hike, so I'll try to incorporate that. Q1) Xbox says I can play Xbox anywhere, yet I can't put my Red Dead 1 disc into my computer and play my cloud save from the 360 days. Until I can do that I consider Microsoft calling my computer an "Xbox" to be plain-old false advertising. How do you think they should fix this? Q2) Here's how I think they should fix this and their whole reputation: #1 Allow users to download the official 360/OGXbox Emulator and open it up for tweaking, and allow us to use our own DVD and BluRay drives to play our games on our computers. #2 Allow Windows PCs and Xbox Series and Handhelds to Dual Boot into either Windows or Xbox OS, and then eventually streamline it into one OS (Maybe a reformat into a ZFS file system might be a good idea to ensure you can install whatever you want on the SSD without having separate pools of data for your OSs, games, and programs). For a game console $800 is a lot of money, but for a powerful Media Center PC that can game, the price suddenly makes a lot more sense. Xbox has been trying to make Media Center PCs a thing for decades, and with all these powerful mini PCs coming out it seems like there's finally a shift. Making that Xbox a Windows PC on your TV makes it a much more worthwhile buy. #3 Drop the GamePass requirement for Xbox Online Play. When your competition on the Windows Platform doesn't charge for online play (Steam, Epic, GOG, etc.) it doesn't make sense to continue to charge. Let that be part of the price calculation when comparing to Sony too (If Xbox doesn't require you to pay for online play, but Sony makes you spend $80 a year, that inherently increases the value of Xbox for a new consumer) . And #4 Add Game Pass to other products, and other products to Game Pass. I don't see any reason why Game Pass essential shouldn't be included with a Microsoft 365 subscription, or Gamepass Premium shouldn't be included with MS 365 Premium, and then upsell to Ultimate. They may need to change the way they price adding family members to these plans, but If they want to increase the amount of people playing Xbox and Gamepass, and they want people to be downloading and using MS Word instead of Google Docs, then they need to broaden their offerings and try to bring the customers that they already have from their other consumer-facing products into the fold of the other, and upsell them on their other offerings (Xbox games, cloud storage, seats on the family plan, Apps on the MS Store, etc.) My question is do you also think Xbox and Microsoft should do this, and do you think it will repair their overall reputation and increase Microsoft's non-enterprise consumer-based revenue?

Mike M

Hi guys, Will future hardware fix #StutterStruggle ? As an older gamer, due to the infinite struggles of work and family, I don't get much time to game so I'm currently stuck in the past!.... The dog and I curated a list of games we wanted to play through and sorted by release date. We're currently in 2017. I believe around this time was the onset of stutter struggle? Is near future high end hardware likely to alleviate this problem? By the time we get around to playing some of the more problematic games there will be at least a couple of new CPU generations and an Rtx 6090. And by the time we reach current date (2025) it will probably be at least 2030 on everyone else's calendar.