Should ESO Stop Supporting Last Generation Consoles? (discussion)

merpins · July 2022

It's the question, right? It's the main excuse the devs use when stating that they can't make more complicated content in this game, other than the limitations of the engine. I know it's not an excuse, really. The previous generation of consoles doesn't have the same power as the new generation.

The new generation of consoles has been out for nearly 2 years now. Microsoft and Sony are both still supporting old consoles, probably in part due to the shortage of consoles for the first year and a half of release due to Covid. Old generation consoles are still being supported to this day, at least the online servers. Just look at PS3 and Xbox 360: you can still play your games online on those systems if you hook them up to the internet! And many of the games are still very popular.
Perhaps this is something that should be considered in a year or two. I do not know the statistics of players that are playing on last generation consoles as opposed to the new generation. I'd wager at least half the console playerbase does, since the PS5 and newest Xbox has only relatively recently become available without a problem in most places. But it's expensive, at over 600 dollars, it might be cheaper than building your own computer, but that doesn't change the fact that it costs a pretty penny.

Maybe not now, but in the next year or so, should ZoS stop supporting last gen consoles for ESO? The new generation of consoles' hardware is strong enough for content ZoS has been saying old consoles are unable to perform. And they could see about offering account transfers (characters and items included) from console to PC for players that can't switch to the new generation of consoles.

It sucks. It really does. But I believe this is a discussion that we as the playerbase should have, because I presume it's inevitably going to happen. It's really a question of when.

Kisakee · July 2022

Not going to happen before PS6 and XBoxwhatevernamenext.

merpins · July 2022

Kisakee wrote: »

Not going to happen before PS6 and XBoxwhatevernamenext.

Very possible. Though that's at least 5 years out, and with the current hardware of this generation of consoles... Both new generation of consoles support up to 4k video, I'm sure there's room for improvement on both consoles, but it might take more than 5 years for technology to get ahead enough to justify anything more than upgraded versions of the current consoles. Though I'm not an expert on that front.

Vilhone · July 2022

Game look and play amazing on series x. But they need to add somekind of app for to enable people messaging with phones ingame. Writing with controller is something no1 wanna do and wont if not absolute must. If there was an eso app which would allow using phone keyboard for ingame messaging. I know xbox support keyboard and all but still.

LukosCreyden · July 2022

Down the road, maybe a couple years or so, I think they will have to if they wish to keep the game going. The FFXIV devs did the same thing and it worked out well.

merpins · July 2022

LukosCreyden wrote: »

Down the road, maybe a couple years or so, I think they will have to if they wish to keep the game going. The FFXIV devs did the same thing and it worked out well.

Agreed, that's why I brought up the discussion. I think it will put the game in a healthier place, even if they did it sooner than in a year or two. But due to the issues with the launch of next generation consoles, not enough players have made the transition yet, so giving time for that and obviously an announcement at least 6 months in advance, if not at the beginning of the year when they announce the road map for the coming year showing when it's happening, would probably be the proper way to go about it. So I just wanted to see what people thought.

Hapexamendios · July 2022

New consoles would need to be widely available before that could happen.

FluffWit · July 2022

It's easy to get a ps5 now? It sure wasn't when I tried last week. I looked around. They weren't available anywhere in my country.

gronoxvx · July 2022

Eventually they need to, but If they did before the new gen consoles are more widely available it would be the final nail in the coffin for eso. Hardly think zos could continue to make money purely off pc players, especially with how theyre going at the moment.

gronoxvx · July 2022

Losing xbox would be a huge kick in the teeth since they have no real competition on that platform. Its not like we have anything like FFXIV to go to like playstation has.

Aardappelboom · July 2022

They didn't really say that, Rich even said: "nothing is impossible" concerning older consoles in a recent interview on the release of high isle, that interview was posted a lot in the overland content difficulty discussion if you want to look it up.

Tbh, there's more than enough systems in place for the older consoles to circumvent these restrictions in terms of new content.

Biggest problem is memory, but thanks to smart delivery, devs can target specific consoles with gameclients particulary targeted for those consoles, freeing up memory for a new skill line, while tricky, could be achieved by, for example, cutting down on memory usage in other places in the game, like graphics or whatever.

This is one argument I've seen being bounced around and as far as I know it's from an interview with Matt, where he kind of just said that we should take into account that older consoles are around and that provides a challenge for them in terms of performance and graphics.

As for the discussion, I have a new console so I wouldn't mind but there's a lot of people on older consoles so I think it wouldn't be the best idea.

BahometZ · July 2022

My understanding is that its not last gen consoles holding them back (ps4 and one x), it's the gen before that (ps3 and xbox one), which are nearly 10 years old. Someone correct me otherwise.

I don't think console users can expect to play a current live game 10 years later without issue. Most gamers would surely be expected to upgrade their hardware in that time frame.

It seems unfair to hold back the game on account of that.

merpins · July 2022

BahometZ wrote: »

My understanding is that its not last gen consoles holding them back (ps4 and one x), it's the gen before that (ps3 and xbox one), which are nearly 10 years old. Someone correct me otherwise.

I don't think console users can expect to play a current live game 10 years later without issue. Most gamers would surely be expected to upgrade their hardware in that time frame.

It seems unfair to hold back the game on account of that.

No, ESO is not on xBox 360 or the PS3.

The dev team just gives different reasons as to why they can't do this or that. Flavor of the week is sometimes "due to last gen consoles" or the classic "due to the limitations of the engine." I'm sure sometimes that's completely true, but I'd imagine in many cases, it's due to communication between the player management and the dev team. Player management and those that handle communications only know what they've been told, otherwise they probably have a short list of things they can say. They cannot say "I don't know, I'd have to ask the dev team" and either say nothing, or give a generic answer or excuse in the interim.

etchedpixels · July 2022

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

It's the question, right? It's the main excuse the devs use when stating that they can't make more complicated content in this game, other than the limitations of the engine. I know it's not an excuse, really. The previous generation of consoles doesn't have the same power as the new generation.

I am sure Zenimax is sitting on detailed analytical data for who plays on what. These are business decisions that Microsoft will make when the graphs say so.

There are other limits too - the size of the game is already a barrier to people on slower PC connections, and older PCs and laptop graphics are not that dissimilar to a console. Right now turned down a bit most of the content is actually quite acceptable on lower end PC or decent laptops, or steam deck.

Ratzkifal · July 2022

It's easy for me to say "drop them" from the comfort of my PC. It would probably suck very much for the people affected. But at the same time, if this is truly the reason why we cannot have new classes and weapons added to the game, as was implied by the devs, then it was a mistake to have released the game on console in the first place. If I remember correctly the release on Stadia for example permanently took one week of PTS away from us because that time is now used for verification every update. If the release to new platforms diminishing the experience of other users is acceptable, then by that logic ESO should really release on mobile next.
The real problem here is parity I think. There is no reason for the PC and console versions of the game to be the same if these platforms are not capable of the same things. Why does my house on PC need a furnishing limit of 700 because a console wouldn't be able to handle that? I didn't buy a console, if I wanted to be limited by console capabilities I would have bought a console. It makes sense for games like Minecraft to try and make all of its versions the same, but the experience in ESO on PC is already much different from consoles thanks to addons and it always will be, so we might as well give the PC version all the things it could handle.

SickleCider · July 2022

Vilhone wrote: »

Game look and play amazing on series x. But they need to add somekind of app for to enable people messaging with phones ingame. Writing with controller is something no1 wanna do and wont if not absolute must. If there was an eso app which would allow using phone keyboard for ingame messaging. I know xbox support keyboard and all but still.

Bluetooth keyboard is supported on PS as well.

To the OP: no. New gen consoles are not widely available enough to even start having the conversation about how unfriendly that is to the customer.

Kiralyn2000 · July 2022

There's two statistics you'd need to see in order to make that decision:
1) how many people are still logging in on those systems, and
2) how much they're spending

ZOS knows those two things. We never will. I suspect that they're both pretty high. Definitely high enough the keep supporting that gen.

(googling a bit, there's 115mil+ PS4's that have been sold, and 20mil PS5's. Sure, not all of those PS4's still run, and not all of them are playing ESO. But it's a lot of systems. Until the PS5 number gets much higher, there's little reason for games like ESO to stop running on them.)

...and even if they dropped PS4/XBone support tomorrow, they wouldn't suddenly go nuts on a patch that'd up system requirements and visuals by 50%. It wouldn't make the servers run better. Etc.

Stanx · July 2022

I'd be happy to do this in a world where next gen consoles were widely and readily available. As an xbox owner, I would hate to be the cause of stagnating the game, but I don't have any other option if I want to play at the moment.

I do worry problems would persist and fingers would begin pointing elsewhere, but that's completely hypothetical and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ingenon · July 2022

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

It's the question, right? It's the main excuse the devs use when stating that they can't make more complicated content in this game, other than the limitations of the engine. I know it's not an excuse, really. The previous generation of consoles doesn't have the same power as the new generation.

The new generation of consoles has been out for nearly 2 years now. Microsoft and Sony are both still supporting old consoles, probably in part due to the shortage of consoles for the first year and a half of release due to Covid. Old generation consoles are still being supported to this day, at least the online servers. Just look at PS3 and Xbox 360: you can still play your games online on those systems if you hook them up to the internet! And many of the games are still very popular.
Perhaps this is something that should be considered in a year or two. I do not know the statistics of players that are playing on last generation consoles as opposed to the new generation. I'd wager at least half the console playerbase does, since the PS5 and newest Xbox has only relatively recently become available without a problem in most places. But it's expensive, at over 600 dollars, it might be cheaper than building your own computer, but that doesn't change the fact that it costs a pretty penny.

Maybe not now, but in the next year or so, should ZoS stop supporting last gen consoles for ESO? The new generation of consoles' hardware is strong enough for content ZoS has been saying old consoles are unable to perform. And they could see about offering account transfers (characters and items included) from console to PC for players that can't switch to the new generation of consoles.

It sucks. It really does. But I believe this is a discussion that we as the playerbase should have, because I presume it's inevitably going to happen. It's really a question of when.

Two issues I have with this:

First issue: I play on a PS4. I cannot find a PS5 digital edition for sale at the list price today. I just checked, none available in stores, none available online. Except at scalper's pricing (double or triple the retail pricing).

Second issue: my PS4 is newer than the servers that most of us play on. Except for PC/NA, all the other platforms are running on server hardware that is older than my PS4. Do you think, maybe, that running on 7+ year old server hardware is limiting the game for PC/EU, PS4/NA, PS4/EU, XB/NA, and XB/EU?

Jarl_Ironheart · July 2022

No they should not. It came out on the Xbox One and PS4. Its not right to stop supporting the ones who were there first and started from the very beginning. Maybe eventually if it legitimately becomes a issue. But for now no, the series X and PS5 just came out and the Xbox One and PS4 are no one near obsolete. Plus alot of people don't have 500 dollars ro drop on a new console. It wouldn't be fair to force those people who really enjoy this game to go out and buy a new console if they want to keep playing ESO.

Geldauran · July 2022

I think they should eventually, but they should also increase PCs minimum specs as well.

Kiralyn2000 · July 2022

Geldauran wrote: »

I think they should eventually, but they should also increase PCs minimum specs as well.

Of course, depending on what % of the PC playerbase is running near the low end of specs, that wouldn't be something they want to do either.

Elsonso · July 2022

Kisakee wrote: »

Not going to happen before PS6 and XBoxwhatevernamenext.

Even if they do drop support for PS4 and the old XBoxes, it could take them many months before we see changes. Look at how long it took them to start taking real advantage of things after they dropped DX9.

Wolfpaw · July 2022

Yes, year or so sure.

TmzOS · July 2022

It will, eventually, but for now no. I'm curious about all the truth related to the said limitations of old platforms, but we will never get details of it.

IMO MMOs should NEVER be heavy, in any technical aspect, so even if they drop old consoles they still need to optimize and keep the game most lightweight possible. Things like better textures and whatever should be always optional, throwing dynamic upscaling and bloating the game with super high quality models/textures is like a hack for studios that don't want to optimize their games deeply.

I remember when Digital Extremes released its first "open world" map for Warframe, it was a nightmare. Terribly heavy, badly optmized for a general compact game context who was sold for years. Laptop users suffered most, and I'm not talking about the extra bugs. They had a "possible excuse" of working with a F2P game, but still a terrible result that BECAME THE MAINSTREAM PRODUCT.

tl;dr: MMOs must be light whatever the platform, devs should respect their customers and it's really important when dealing with long-term games.

Ringing_Nirnroot · July 2022

no

Nomadic_Atmoran · July 2022

Probably in a few more years. But there needs to be a large enough number of players moving onto the new consoles. Otherwise ZOS loses a ton of revenue.

Stamicka · July 2022

At this point I would like to see an ESO 2, but we keep our progress. If they made an ESO 2, I’d think it would only be supported on the next gen consoles.

shadyjane62 · July 2022

yes. Why are people still playing on a PS3? Why is our ability to play dependent on and obsolete gaming system? I haven't bought a house because the limit on furnishings is ridiculous.

I bought a new computer and wanted the Geek Squad to put Win7 on it because that's what I was used to. That would have been a wrong decision and thank god they refused to do it.

My new computer would not have functioned correctly on Win7. Altho games still support it it would have been sub optimal for and excluded me from a lot of things.

Dragonlord573 · July 2022

"We can't make new classes cause of animations, anyways plz buy our new crates that feature 5 new emotes and 4 new momentos with unique new animations and our new chapter where every NPC now has new animations. And don't forget to buy the new personality we've added to the game for 5000 crowns!" -ZOS, probably.

Elsonso · July 2022

TmzOS wrote: »

It will, eventually, but for now no. I'm curious about all the truth related to the said limitations of old platforms, but we will never get details of it.

IMO MMOs should NEVER be heavy, in any technical aspect, so even if they drop old consoles they still need to optimize and keep the game most lightweight possible. Things like better textures and whatever should be always optional, throwing dynamic upscaling and bloating the game with super high quality models/textures is like a hack for studios that don't want to optimize their games deeply.

tl;dr: MMOs must be light whatever the platform, devs should respect their customers and it's really important when dealing with long-term games.

"Light" is a relative term.

Graphics subsystems have limitations, and MMOs can push those limits. It isn't all about fidelity. Sometimes, it is just about volume. The last comment I heard about consoles was about hitting a wall where they could not add more animations. This is GPU management. Volume. They worked around this, but it took them 6 months to do it. It is the clear writing on the wall that limits are being hit and work is required to adapt to the older hardware.

MMO games grow, and they can easily outgrow what older hardware can handle.