Halo’s Slipspace Engine is being Swapped

Microsoft Studio Behind Halo Faces a Reboot on Years of Turmoil by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg via The Verge

Chief among them is a pivot to a new gaming engine, the suite of tools and technology used to make video games. The studio’s own engine, known publicly as Slipspace, has been one of the biggest points of contention over the past two decades. Based largely on old code from the 1990s and early 2000s, it’s buggy and difficult to use and has been the source of headaches for some developers on Halo Infinite, people familiar with the development said. Several multiplayer modes that are nearly finished, such as Extraction and Assault, both popular in previous Halo games, have yet to be released in part because of issues involving the engine, they said.

…it wasn’t until late last year, when previous studio head Bonnie Ross and engine lead David Berger departed and Pierre Hintze took over, that the firm finally decided to pivot to Unreal. This switch will start with a new game code-named Tatanka

RIP to the dopest game engine name out there.

I was surprised to read Slipspace is based of code from 20 years ago. Quick searching on Halopedia indicates that Slipspace entered development in 2015~2018, but is derived off Bungie’s older Blam engine. That entered development in 1997, so that’s where the cruft lies.

Unreal started development in 1995.

I’ll never forget the public name reveal of the Slipspace engine and Halo Infinite. What a shame that game was in such disarray. I still haven’t played the campaign, due to the lack of co-op at launch. I think it’s fixed now, but it feels too late now.

Splinter Cell Conviction is being Delisted on Xbox

Microsoft announces plans to delist various games from the Xbox 360 marketplace by Tom Ivan for Video Games Chronicle

Microsoft has announced plans to delist various games and associated DLC from the Xbox 360 marketplace next month…

…Removals will begin on February 7, 2023. Microsoft also noted that once purchased, players can always redownload games from their Xbox 360 Download History.

This is why I stand by purchasing my games physically. At least Microsoft is keeping downloads available for those that have bought the games. For now.

Splinter Cell Conviction is sublime action-stealth. The black and white visuals combined with the mark and execute commands created a bodacious game.

Other notable games I see are the Left 4 Dead games, Limbo, Peggle 2, Dark Souls Spelunky, and The Orange Box.

Xbox’s Game Awards No-Show Is a Slap in the Face to Players – IGN

Xbox’s Game Awards No-Show Is a Slap in the Face to Players by Ryan McCaffery for IGN

It’s a bad sign when there were more Muppets at The Game Awards than Xbox world premieres. As someone who’s been playing and covering Xbox for 20 years, I’m not sure I’ve ever been more baffled by the console-maker’s decision-making. I tweeted my frustration as soon as the industry’s glitziest event of the year came to its awkward end, and if the hundreds of responses to that tweet told me anything, it’s that this was no hot take. How could it be? Microsoft literally showed nothing for the year to come, despite promising us a huge 2023 at last summer’s Xbox Showcase.

In June last year I foolishly declared the years-long exclusives drought over ahead of Microsoft’s fantastic Fall 2021. In hindsight, that period has been an exception rather than the new rule. Xbox fans suffered through an exceptionally dry year (shout-out to Obsidian’s fantastic, if niche, Pentiment, though!) and also had to watch PlayStation exclusives delight PS5 owners at The Game Awards all night long, from Forspoken to Final Fantasy XVI to Death Stranding 2.

Microsoft may have the defacto subscription service, but without their own new exclusives to beef up said catalog, what to fans have to look forward to? I haven’t touched my Xbox since we played Banjo-Kazooie for Chapter Select earlier this year. I wish that wasn’t the case.

xCloud is Coming to Xbox One

Xbox Unveils its Biggest Exclusive Games Lineup Ever by Will Tuttle for Xbox Wire via Tom Warren at The Verge

For the millions of people who play on Xbox One consoles today, we are looking forward to sharing more about how we will bring many of these next-gen games, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, to your console through Xbox Cloud Gaming, just like we do with mobile devices, tablets, and browsers.

Yours truly with my own 2021 predictions:

I think Microsoft will announce that an xCloud app will come to Xbox One consoles. Most likely the One S and One X, since they both can output 4K video. If my phone can “run” The Master Chief Collection, I think the One S and One X can stream some games. Not only would this technically mean that you can play these games on your older hardware, but it also helps bolster Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, which is what Microsoft and Xbox really want their customers to sign up for.

And while talking about the cross-generation bottleneck in September 2020:

Xbox could and probably will back out of this two year promise with some games. It’s already had questions pop up around it. Frankly, I think Xbox needs to cut ties with hardware support for Xbox One and somehow transition those consoles (Xbox One S and One X specifically) to xCloud boxes. Then, their hardware cap is mostly removed freeing up developers.

Also in July 2020, when Phil Spencer said you were the future of gaming:

Speaking of xCloud, an official public launch window has finally been given. I wonder if older Xbox One consoles will support xCloud streaming. Say you own an OG Xbox One (like I do) and Halo Infinite runs below 1080p when natively installed. What if you could stream the 1080p version via xCloud? I know that the Xbox One S has 4K video output capabilities. Why not allow users to stream the native 4K version of Halo Infinite to their Xbox One S? Microsoft may lose the initial sale of the shiny new box, but they could be gaining a new monthly subscriber to Game Pass Ultimate. At $15 a month, that may seem like the more appealing choice to folks hesitant to upgrading their box, especially if it can run the newer games through streaming.

I do love it when I am right.

Cross-Generation Games are like Movies at the Theater

It’s vital Sony maintains its PlayStation 4 support | Opinion by Christopher Dring for GamesIndustry.biz

In reality, people will want the best version of these games. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is more popular on PS5 than PS4, and that will be true of Horizon: Frozen West, Gran Turismo 7 and God of War. It’s the difference between watching the new Marvel movie at the cinema compared to getting it on Disney Plus. The hardcore fans will want the big screen experience. But as the film industry also discovered during the pandemic, there’s a huge opportunity in the TV space.

I like this analogy. Movies have totally shifted in the last year, bringing the direct-to-digital future to living rooms sooner than big theater chains ever wanted. I certainly rented my fair share in the last year. Heck, Warner Bros. bringing their movies to HBO Max on day one made me keep my subscription.

And Dring is right about people wanting the best versions. Movie theaters are opening back up. People will buy the PS5 version of Spider-Man or God of War, if they can. They may even opt to wait until they get a PS5 to buy those games (or, as I’m sure Sony hopes, double dip).

I’ve always agreed that cross-generation support makes sense, as a business, especially with an install base of 120+ million PS4 consoles.

In the bloody confusing aftermath of the PlayStation 5 stream, Sony confirmed that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Horizon Forbidden West are also launching on PS4. After believing in generations it seems that Sony also believes in its PS4 install base.
It’s no secret that I have voiced concerns about Xbox’s own public promise to support cross generational support for its Xbox consoles. The wider the range of supported hardware, the more work it is for the developers and the more it can limit the upward potential of the game. Now Sony has promised three major first party titles are cross generational.
This is great (just like it is for Xbox) for those consumers that don’y want to or can’t upgrade to the next gen consoles. You aren’t left behind. Nintendo has done this before with popular Zelda titles. It is definitely a win for consumers.

I guess they should have just confirmed Gran Turismo 7 and God of War were cross-gen too.

My stance is firmly rooted in limited development potential. With such technological strides in next-gen with the SSDs, native 4K, and so on, developing games for nearly decade old hardware has to cut off forward progress and new, previously impossible ideas.

Colin Moriarty pointed out yesterday that the only first-party PS5 exclusive we know about is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and that is out in one week. Hopefully, E3 2021 changes that soon, but man that is weird for Sony to have all these games close to the chest after the open-book that was the PS4 catalog.

I’m starting to get a little whiplash from Sony talking out of both sides of their mouth. They need to communicate a clear message. If that message is “We are supporting PS4 and PS5,” then they ought to embrace it, clearly share which games will do that, and incentivize the upgrade to PS5 beyond being new and shiny. Eventually, first-party development will leave PS4 behind and wholly focus on PS5. Sony needs to be better about communicating when that change will happen.

The Cross-Generational Bottleneck: Cyberpunk Edition

Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 Review by Destin Legaire for IGN

While I had just as much fun playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PC as Tom did playing for his review, on the base PlayStation 4 or Xbox One it is a different game entirely. It fails to hit even the lowest bar of technical quality one should expect even when playing on lower-end hardware. It performs so poorly that it makes combat, driving, and what is otherwise a master craft of storytelling legitimately difficult to look at. It is not an exaggeration to say that I’ve felt nauseated after playing because of the terrible frame rate. It really is that bad, and it’s very suspicious that CD Projekt Red refused to provide console review copies ahead of launch.

I’d say it is more than suspicious. It was downright intentional. They knew the state the console version of the game was in, deliberately showed PC-only footage, and took people’s money anyway. CD Projekt Red figured it would be easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

Seeing is believing though.

This is the type of bottleneck I feared for cross-generational games. Cypberpunk 2077 “runs” on 11 different platforms (PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PC, and Stadia). From a business perspective, I understand wanting to launch on last generation consoles. There are 165+ million PS4 and Xbox One consoles out in the world. I think it is safe to say the vast majority of purchases this past week were for those platforms. CD Projekt Red spent a lot of goodwill this past week.

Halo Infinite is supposed to run on nine different consoles. I think Xbox will slowly kill off their cross-generation support by running out the clock for the promised two years of support. Sony may have made the right call by not promising all their games will be cross-generational and instead announcing them as they see fit.

I bought Cyberpunk for a couple of my friends for Christmas and now I’m starting to think coal would’ve been a better present.

– Logan Moore via Twitter

I was one of the friends. If he bought me coal, at least it’d work as intended. Thankfully, I can wait until the proper PS5 version is released in 2077.

Xbox Series X at First Blush

The next generation of console gaming has begun today with the Xbox Series X | S. I picked up my Series X this morning at Best Buy at 6:00 AM. Despite each customer requiring an appointment before 9:00 AM, Best Buy was not prepared for the 20+ folks that were there this morning. After buckling up and making it home, I was able to set up the Tower of Power before needing to start work. Here are some of my first impressions with the latest and most powerful from Microsoft.

The Console

It may not be as tall as the PS5, but the Series X was far more dense than I expected. It fits well next to my TV and I imagine once the new factor wears off, the console will just fade into the background in my mind.

The Controller

The matte black finish is much nicer to my eye than the Xbox One controller’s more glossy accents. I am curious how oils from my hands will look over the years. The textured grip feels great in my hands, although not as grippy as the rubber grips on Elite Series controllers. The nicest surprise is the D-Pad. Delightfully clicky and comfortable. I’ll have to test a 2D platformer for the accuracy, but it feels like a real treat.

Speed

Coming from an OG Xbox One, I cannot believe how fast the Series X boots. Gone are the 30~ second boot times from “Instant On” mode. Hello blink-of-an-eye start times.

Set-Up

Microsoft wants you to use the Xbox app to set up the console, so I did. The process is slick. While the console updates its firmware, you are logging in, establishing preferences, and deciding if you want to transfer games/info from an Xbox One. I did a clean set up and just downloaded the few games I wanted to play.

I do wish that the app allowed me to see the download status of the games. It simply shows what is installed, which left me to pop into the living room every couple hours to check the status of my installs. I also could not figure out some sort of rest mode, so I left the console on most of the day for the downloads to do their thing. Even though I left it on, the console was dead silent. I’m curious what it will sound like when running a game.

One fun tidbit is that the console identifies itself as “SCARLETT” to the network. A nice little easter egg to the product codename.

Games

The absence of Halo Infinite is a major blow. The only “new” game I am going to play is Tetris Effect Connected and that is simply adding 4K60 support and multiplayer. I am stoked to finally play Forza Horizon 4 for the first time. The updates to the Halo: Master Chief collection sound dope, but those will be released next week. As cool as the hardware side of a launch is, I am feeling an emptiness for games to play on the Series X. Thankfully, the PS5 and its launch lineup will fill that hole later this week.

Now it’s time to go play some games!

Next-Gen SSD Storage Options and Pricing

Best Buy went ahead and listed the custom 1TB SSD memory card for the Xbox Series consoles for pre-order at $219.99. The hardcore gamers will have to pay nearly half the console’s price (or nearly the whole console if buying a Xbox Series S) to double their storage. It’s a steep price to pay to manage your solid state drive less often.

Expanding the PS5 SSD storage is a different story. Mark Cerny revealed that users could expand the storage themselves with NVMe SSDs. The catch was, they’d have to wait until consumer NVMe SSDs caught up with the speed of the PS5’s own SSD. Cerny said that Sony would provide a list of recommended drives when they become available.

It sounds like Samsung’s NVMe M.2 drive that uses PCIe 4.0 has the speed, according to The Verge back in September 2020, with read/write speeds of 7,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s. Those particular drives have 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB (the 2TB model is supposed to release later this year). Those are currently priced at $89.99, $149.99, $229.99, and the 2TB doesn’t have a price yet.

Leaving upgrades to the user definitely gives them more options, but can lead to confusion, especially if the installation is tricky. Swapping the PS4 or PS4 Pro hard drive was simple, but we have no idea how easy that will be on PS5. Xbox users can use traditional hard drives, if they are USB 3.1 or USB 3.2, but they will only run and play older games. Xbox Series console games and features require the custom SSD.

It reminds me of SD cards for cameras or the Nintendo Switch. I buy the size I want for the price I am willing to spend. 1TB SD cards run roughly $350~, but a 128GB micro SD card is roughly $20~ and is perfect for my Switch.

I could also see the cost of the NVMe drives going down sooner, since they serve a wider market. More competition to drive the prices down. The Xbox 1TB drive is currently made solely by Seagate and is a proprietary drive, which could lead to it keeping its current price for longer. Either way, upgrading the storage on these next-gen consoles is going to be a tough pill to swallow for the first year or two.

Inside Microsoft’s design of the new Xbox Series S and X – Fast Company

Inside Microsoft’s design of the new Xbox Series S and X by Mark Wilson for Fast Company

“We think about our console as part of the environment you live in as our customer,” says Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming at Microsoft. “While there’s an opening of the box and you want that to be fantastic, once you put that console wherever you put it, we hope you never have to touch it again, hope you never have to hear from it again, and it just plays great games. . . . It’s not the center of attention.”

As if to prove this point, Spencer conducted an interview in July, from his home office, before the Xbox Series S design was made public. Look into the background, and you can see the S peeking out between a stack of books. And no one noticed until Microsoft revealed the ruse last week.

I love interviews exploring hardware design and Mark Wilson delivers for the two new Xbox consoles. It’s easy to look at the new Xbox systems and forget their look, which is precisely what Xbox wants. They clearly went function over form, while still sprinkling in some flourishes. My favorite touch is on the Xbox Series X with its green plastic beneath the upper ventilation holes. Gives just the right amount of that iconic Xbox shade of green. Reminds me of the Xbox goo that was apart of the origianl Xbox console’s OS.

On the flipside with the PS5, Sony definitely put more flare out there. It’s unclear the form vs function ratio going on with the PS5, but it certainly does not fade from memory. It is very Sony in its design, which is a positive point to me.

I do enjoy the PS5’s look more than the Xbox Series consoles. I am also excited that we got such widely different looks to pair with the different approach the consoles all seem to be taking technically. Makes for a far more exciting launch and generation than similar specs inside similar boxes.

Will the Xbox Series S hold back next-gen gaming? – The Verge

Will the Xbox Series S hold back next-gen gaming? by Tom Warren for The Verge

Ever since the official announcement of the Xbox Series S, I have been trying to comprehend how it will limit developers and consumers going forward into the next console generation. Tom Warren of The Verge seemed to have the same thoughts.

Microsoft revealed its Xbox Series S console last week, aiming to offer more budget-friendly next-gen gaming for $299. The console is specifically targeted at 1440p resolution rather than 4K, leading to some lingering questions and confusion around just how well it will play next-gen games. There are concerns around the GPU performance, memory, and whether the Series S could hold back next-gen gaming. I got a chance to speak with Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s director of Xbox program management, to dig into what’s really going on with the Xbox Series S.

Billy Khan, a lead engine programmer at id Software, shared Gneiting’s concerns. “The memory situation is a big issue on the S,” said Khan in another deleted tweet. “The much lower amount of memory and the split memory banks with drastically slower speeds will be a major issue. Aggressively lowering the render resolutions will marginally help but will not completely counteract the deficiencies.”

Sasan Sepehr, a senior technical producer at Remedy Entertainment, also shared a brief concern. “As a consumer, I love this,” said Sepher on Twitter. “As a Technical Producer, I see trouble.”

It is ironic that some of the quotes from this article were from id Software developers, which were just purchased by Microsoft this week. These concerns don’t seem to phase Microsoft though, at least on the surface.

“We did a lot of analysis of what it would really mean to run a game at 4K with 60fps and then to scale that down to 1440p at 60fps,” says Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s director of Xbox program management, in an interview with The Verge. “The reality is you don’t need as much memory bandwidth because you’re not loading the highest level MIP levels into memory. You don’t need the same amount of memory as well.”

While thinking about all the differences between the two new Xbox consoles, I kept switching tabs and sources to figure it all out. So to spare you the same fate, I whipped up a table below with all the specs for both the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X officially from their product pages on Xbox’s website. I also threw in the PlayStation 5 specs to put it all in one place.

	Xbox Series S	Xbox Series X	PlayStation 5
Processor – CPU	8X Cores @ 3.6 GHz (3.4 GHz w/SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU	8X Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.66 GHz w/SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU	x86-64-AMD Ryzen Zen 2 8 Cores / 16 Threads Variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz
Processor – GPU	4 TFLOPS, 20 CUs @1.565 GHz	12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU	10.3 TFLOPS, Variable frequency, up to 2.23 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU
System on a Chip (SOC) Size	197.05 mm	360.45 mm
Process		7nm Enhanced
Memory (RAM)	10GB GDDR6 128 bit-wide bus	16GB GDDR6 w/320 bit-wide bus	16GB GDDR6 w/256 bit¹
Memory Bandwidth	8GB @ 224 GB/s, 2GB @ 56 GB/s	10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s	448GB/s Bandwidth
Internal Storage	512GB Custom NVME SSD	1TB Custom NVME SSD	825GB Custom SSD
I/O Throughput	2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed, with custom hardware decompression block)	2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed, with custom hardware decompression block)	5.5GB/s (Raw), Typical 8-9GB/s (Compressed)²
Video Resolution	1440p	2160p (4K)	2160p (4K)
Framerate	Up to 120fps	Up to 120fps	Up to 120fps

1 & 2 – Taken from Eurogamer‘s report on PS5’s specs

I won’t pretend to know how each one of these differences measures up in game development. I’ll leave that to the people that actually make games. As someone with their ear to the ground regarding this industry though, I have a hard time hearing and believing the idea that native 4K gaming is a difference of 8 TFLOPS, 6 GB of RAM at significantly lower bandwidth. Xbox One X, which is both more and less powerful than the Xbox Series S, was capable of 4K gaming, a point Xbox used regularly in their marketing. Numbers don’t paint the whole picture, but I feel like they present a clear outline.

The Xbox Series S is the lowest common denominator for third party titles now. Not only do Xbox Game Studios have two SKUs to worry about, but third party developers like Activision and Ubisoft have to reign in their games for Xbox Series X and PS5 to make sure that the games run well on Xbox Series S. Maybe developers will build for the Xbox Series X and PS5, then figure out how to scale down to Xbox Series S, but that jeopardizes that lower-end version’s performance; both technically and possibly commercially.

We won’t really know how hamstrung design and development will be until we actually see the fruits of labor. Even then, it won’t necessarily be this year, especially with third party developers make cross-generational games, thus making the Xbox Series S actually a higher tier version of whatever game. We may get a taste of the restrictions, but probably won’t get a full, juicy comparison until a year or two into the generation. We are only 50 odd days out from the launch of the next-gen consoles, but I can’t help but feel like Xbox is already putting an arrow in the knee of next-gen development.

The Cross-Generational Bottleneck

In the bloody confusing aftermath of the PlayStation 5 stream, Sony confirmed that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Horizon Forbidden West are also launching on PS4. After believing in generations it seems that Sony also believes in its PS4 install base.

It’s no secret that I have voiced concerns about Xbox’s own public promise to support cross generational support for its Xbox consoles. The wider the range of supported hardware, the more work it is for the developers and the more it can limit the upward potential of the game. Now Sony has promised three major first party titles are cross generational.

This is great (just like it is for Xbox) for those consumers that don’y want to or can’t upgrade to the next gen consoles. You aren’t left behind. Nintendo has done this before with popular Zelda titles. It is definitely a win for consumers.

My concern stems from the development process. I may not know the ins and outs of making a video game, but I do know hardware is the determining factor in how far a game can go technically. When Xbox says that Halo Infinite will be playable across six different Xbox-focused platforms and then the practically infinite (heh) possibilities with PC, there has to be restrictions in the game’s design to make it work. It’s been like this in PC gaming forever.

Sony touted a belief in generations and making experiences only possible on new hardware. This gives devs the highest possible ceiling to shoot towards. Then after the PS5 price reveal, Sony announced that some of their new PS5 games would also be launching on PS4. I can just hear the cassette tape rewinding.

It would be entirely foolish for Sony to ignore their install base of 125+ million PS4 consoles. They never were just going to flip a switch and stop supporting their second best selling console when the PS5 launched. It’s the same as Nintendo with the DS, Wii, and 3DS.

Are these new games built on PS4 and crammed with PS5 enhancements or built PS5 and then scaled down for the PS4? It feels like to me that these have to be scaled up from the PS4 based off loading specifications of the PS5 SSD. The PS4 physically cannot match the performance there, creating a huge limitation.

Spider-Man makes sense to me. As I’ve previously pointed out, Insomniac and Spider-Man in particular have had a long lead time with the PS5 and its technology. It does strike me as odd to not announce this compatibility back when Miles Morales was announced. Either way, it’s a slight blow to the list of reasons to snag a PS5 at launch.

Sackboy also makes sense. I can’t imagine this cute platformer is really pegging the PS5 hardware for all it’s worth.

Horizon Forbidden West on the other hand; what a total surprise! I think this reveals quite a bit about Aloy’s next adventure. Right off the bat, I think that Forbidden West is a Spring 2021 game. Pair that with God of War in Holiday 2021 and Sony has a strong first year of PS5 titles. This also indicates that Forbidden West does not have game design and/or mechanics that require the PS5 hardware like a game like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and its instant world traveling mechanics.

This doesn’t mean Forbidden West is not goingn to take advantage of the PS5’s SSD or ridiculous I/O speeds or the 3D Audio Tempest Engine. I’m sure the game will run at 4K (possibly 60fps since it will be on PS4 too?). It’ll look and play great.

What it does mean is that Guerrilla is developing three versions (PS4, PS4 Pro, and PS5). They are automatically shackled by the restrictions of the eight-year-old PS4 in how far they can push their design. It also means more time for testing, optimization, and fixing bugs. They have to pour their time, energy, and focus into three versions instead of one. That is a developmental hurdle.

It still is a good transitional move for consumers, if the PS4 versions run and perform well. It would be a real mess if they PS4 versions ran poorly and weren’t even worth players’ time, but I highly doubt that’ll happen.

A key difference between Xbox and PlayStation here is the longevity of this cross-generational support. Xbox flat out promised first-party titles for two years. Sony has promised three launch window games. This gives Sony a blank check to fill in, either with more cross-gen titles or full-blown PS5 exclusives. God of War is a good option for the semi-near future. What check will they write Kratos?

Xbox could and probably will back out of this two year promise with some games. It’s already had questions pop up around it. Frankly, I think Xbox needs to cut ties with hardware support for Xbox One and somehow transition those consoles (Xbox One S and One X specifically) to xCloud boxes. Then, their hardware cap is mostly removed freeing up developers.

At some point, this bottleneck will naturally close. The PS4 will look at the rabbits by the river while the PS5 stands behind it and talks about the great farm where all the PlayStation consoles go. The same will happen for Xbox and the console cycles will go on. Heading into the next generation though, I’m not as confident of a shift transition as I was earlier this year. It was much easier when Cell architecture was involved.