Top 10 Changes to Expect From-Next Gen Consoles

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Changes to Expect From Next-Gen Consoles!

For this list, we’re looking at the biggest changes you can anticipate as the gaming industry heads into the next generation of home consoles.

Are you picking up a PS5 or a Series X/S? What are you looking forward to and what are you dreading? Let us know in the comments below.

Both Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles are said to support 4K resolution - and supposedly 8K as well. But then, who actually owns an 8K TV? The biggest change here might not be in how this support improves actual graphical fidelity, but in how it affects the TV business. Given that 1080p and UHD have been the standard for consumers for a long time, this support might be enough to create a small boom in sales of 4K TVs. It’s safe to assume that over the next couple of years, 4K resolution won’t be that fancy thing that makes pictures prettier - it’ll finally become the standard for consumers.

For the past couple of years, there’s been a lot of talk about the price point of AAA games. The industry has kept the standard price at sixty dollars for new games from high-profile companies ever since the days of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. However, publishers seem to be inching towards increasing the price tag from sixty dollars to seventy. For gamers, this is both understandable … and worrisome. Yes, game development has gotten more expensive. But every time we see overhyped collector’s editions, or cross-promotional marketing with food, well it’s hard to have faith. We also have to wonder if any of this increase will go towards underpaid developers forced into crunch time. Companies should proceed with caution to avoid alienating players.

Even with the PS4 and Xbox One, the overbearing file sizes of some AAA games can be a problem. In the last few years, we’ve seen games ranging from 80 to 100 gigabytes in size, sometimes more! And more often than not, these sizes are just for the BASE game! That’s only set to increase with next gen consoles. The problem is compounded by the fact that many people still have strict data caps, and internet connections in some parts of the world lag behind others. If studios are going to keep making massive games, players might have to gauge their data caps and/or pony up for bigger hard drives.

There’s been some contention in the industry when it comes to physical and digital copies of big-budget games, and one can see it just from how games are being marketed. “Pre-order the digital edition to get an exclusive set of armor!” “Pre-install and be the first to play at midnight!” More companies are pushing for digital sales, and Xbox and Sony are looking to adhere to that while also providing players with cheaper price tags. With PS5 Digital selling out within minutes, there may be more demand and support for digital-only content in the community than originally thought...or maybe that’s just the poor production and roll out on pre-orders. Regardless, we may well see the first AAA digital-only game over the next few years.

Of course, this has been a focus with each new console, but now, it’s practically become top priority. We’ve started seeing this improvement unfold as Sony and Microsoft have revealed their games. One glimpse that had us stunned was of the “Demon’s Souls” remake, a game loaded in details when it comes to environments and characters. Then, there’s “Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart” with its quick transitions between environments, and ability to render destructible objects without sacrificing performance. And that “Spider-Man” demo? Add in that Quick Resume feature from Xbox, and you’re gonna be able to jump in and out of games almost seamlessly! Or...at least we hope so.

Along with the desire to experience games with next gen performance, comes the focus on making players more immersed. You can expect more games to utilize the haptic feedback in the DualSense and Xbox controllers, allowing you to further interact with the game’s world. Thanks to each console’s improved performance, loading screens could be a thing of the past. Rendering could also become far less noticeable. These next-gen consoles want to make you feel become a part of the game, and the improved audio and raytracing certainly has our hopes up.

One thing that both companies will certainly be focusing on is shareability. This feature is still quite young, first implemented in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One back in 2013. It’s safe to assume neither Series X or PS5 will leave this feature out as streaming is bigger than it’s ever been. If anything, it’s most likely that sharing features have been improved and will support more social media platforms so you can share clips easier. We wouldn’t be surprised if that “Create” button on the DualSense was tied to some kind of in-console video editor.

We’ve been seeing this slowly come to fruition particularly when it comes to Xbox. Microsoft games that started out on XBox and Windows, such as “New Super Lucky’s Tale” and “Ori and the Blind Forest”, have made their way onto Nintendo Switch. The former even made it to PlayStation 4. Sony, on the other hand, has only just begun experimenting with PC releases, starting with “Horizon Zero Dawn”. Does this mean Master Chief could appear on a Nintendo console? Or Mario on the PS5? Could Kratos grace our computers with his glorious dad beard? Probably not, but don’t be surprised if you see more first-party games make their way to other platforms sometime after initial release.

During the leadup to the PS5’s release, a few titles have been marketed as console exclusives … but are also headed to PC. This felt fairly misleading, although releasing on PC makes sense, given that Sony reportedly spends over $100 million on each first-party game. With development getting more expensive for AAA games, we wouldn’t be surprised to see more titles get tagged as so-called “console exclusive”. This means we may not be seeing as many true exclusives as we have years prior. This isn’t just Sony either - remember that Xbox has begun (and will be) publishing games on Switch and PS4. Perhaps exclusives aren’t recouping costs as much as they used to?

In a way, we’ve already entered this phase of the industry. More and more companies are trying to get you to pay a monthly plan, and one can’t argue against some of the deals. Xbox is allowing players to pay for their new Series X and S with monthly plans, and Xbox Game Pass seems to be their core strategy for attracting new players. Sony’s got their own “Netflix for games” with PS Now, but - oof - it needs work! Then, you have online multiplayer games wanting players to pay ten bucks or so for every season of content. We bring this up not as criticism, but for concern and caution - this generation of consoles could also be the most expensive. For all of us.