The next generation of consoles arrives in around four months, with both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X launching this holiday season. One of the biggest talking points remains the blurring of the console generations, as gamers consider which consoles to buy at launch or whether it’s worth waiting for mid-gen refreshes. Ex-Xbox marketing lead Albert Penello recently spoke publicly about the concept of mid-gen refreshes, and whether or not they’ll even be a thing going forward.
Penello recently made a post on ResetEra where he reconfirmed his belief that mid-gen consoles may not be returning going forward. In his post, Penello explains that a mid-gen refresh in the foreseeable future is simply “less necessary.” He’s referring specifically to the necessity of providing 4K-capable consoles due to the push for 4K televisions and PC monitors over the past several years. 8K televisions and monitors seem much less likely to be pushed toward, and much less likely to be a focus for gaming specifically regardless of the television market.
As such, with gaming consoles comfortably targeting 1080p and 4K resolutions, there’s no need for a quicker hardware improvement. It’s not that hardware manufacturers wouldn’t be interested in providing improvements, but more that without a big push it’s less likely to be a financially viable option regardless of whether it makes sense technologically.
But Penello does see room for certain technological improvements in the relatively near future. He says “we’re more likely to see improvements in NITS (to drive better HDR) or better framerates to support greater than 60fps on TVs.” Clearly, Penello doesn’t envision those being persuasive reasons for a mid-gen refresh, however.
While Penello focuses on the “necessity” of a mid-gen console refresh in this post, he’s previously gone over the technical limitations, too. He’s mentioned the slow down of Moore’s Law and how mid-gen refreshes that can’t cheaply provide significantly improve performance aren’t going to be made.
It’s still very early to even be thinking of console mid-gen refreshes, of course. The PS5 and the Xbox Series X don’t even have price points, after all. Still, it’s interesting to consider both platforms’ direction going forward. For example, the PS5’s continued focus on exclusives seems like a strategy less likely to revolve around constant hardware refreshes. Xbox, however, shows a clear embrace of scalability between platforms and generations. A mid-gen refresh would fit in that strategy, even if the hardware improvements weren’t huge. Time will tell.
The PS5 and the Xbox Series X launch later this year.
Source: ResetEra
