Growth, Games and the Whys of PS5 Pro

gamesreviews.com:

Two things have come out of an understandably muted Game Developers Conference. The first is that the keyword is growth, and executives everywhere are trying to find it. The second is that this year’s PS5 Pro hasn’t done enough to sell itself.

Granted, it hasn’t been officially announced yet. But behind closed doors, developers are wondering exactly what it brings to the table. It’s a hard question to answer. From a consumer perspective, the answer is “more”. But more what? It’s certainly not going to lead to growth.

There are already games that are struggling on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth looks amazing, but only at 30fps. There is room, I suppose, for a console that takes 1440p 30fps (or whatever) and turns it into 1440p 60fps. What’s that worth? That’ll depend on the buyer.

What I’ll say is that according to that Metro article, only 15 per cent of the PS4 console base were pros. And that was a device that you pretty much had to own if you had a 4KTV and wanted to make the most of it. That leap will not be built into the PS5 Pro.

At least Sony are doing something. Everybody else is focussed on growth instead.

Growth is a dirty word, and rightly so. The “growth at all costs” has bled our planet dry and nothing is likely to change on that front.

But just because it sucks doesn’t mean it can just be disregarded. Investors want to see a return on their investments. Take their investments out of the industry and suddenly a lot of the money that funds games disappears. So you have to ensure growth. If the games are expensive to make or they bomb, then you cut costs. That means redundancies.

It’s an old problem, but one that’s come more sharply into focus due to the increasing costs of development. There are only so many console gamers in the world. Most of them don’t buy that many games. Thanks to the rise of Fortnite and the like, maybe they can last the entire generation without paying anything above the console itself.

It is that