Last Gen Consoles Holding the Game Back - An Idea For Dropping Them

DerethDawnblade · December 19

The Devs have stated before that memory limitations for last gen consoles are something that they have to work around for future content, and part of that seems to be reworking old systems to require less memory in order to make more space for newer stuff. Ultimately I, and seemingly many other players, believe it would be better long term to drop support for these consoles eventually, as they are ultimately holding the game back from a lot of much needed improvements, such as higher detail character models, more expansive Scribing and Spell Customization, and extended furnishing slots for houses, among other things.

While it would not be satisfactory for anyone to suddenly just be dropped from the game they've been playing on PS4 or XBox One for all these years, the companies who made those consoles are already beginning to phase out support for them, such as the case with Sony and the PS4 currently. I think there are ways to do this without just one day instantly ending the game on those systems, but it would likely require a little bit of setup to work.
1) Implement Crossplay. This is something the Devs have said for quite a while is something they originally wanted to do, and they have even relatively recently spoken of moving in that direction, and would go a long way toward step 2.
2) Allow players on those older systems the option of transferring their accounts to other systems, such as the newest version of those consoles (PS5 & XBox Series X/S) or to PC.
3) Leave behind a legacy version of the game on those older systems. For those who don't transfer, maintain a final version of the game which can reasonably function on those consoles, and allow everyone else to move forward in a new direction unburdened by the limitations of those consoles. This would be similar to what CD Project Red did for Cyberpunk 2077, where PS4 and XBox One did not receive any of the game updates past version 1.6, while PS5, XBox Series X/S, and PC were patched to 2.0 and beyond.

None of this is ideal in any way, but if they really want this to be a 30 year game, at some point dropping those older systems is going to have to happen, because the game simply will not survive being held back given that it is already hemorrhaging players due to what many assume is the result of hitting those last gen memory limitations.

Radiate77 · December 19

Another great example of this.

Destiny 1: The Taken King

When this expansion was announced, it came with the news that it would not be coming to Xbox 360 and PS3, but rather, only Xbox One and PS4. Even before Crossplay, games had figured out cross-save and moving up a generation allowed you to keep everything, if ESO were to make a second version of the game only playable on Series S/X & PS5, similar to what Black Desert Online did, and we just carried our characters forward, it would solve this problem.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just to learn from our competition and adapt.

LootAllTheStuff · December 19

Anyone currently on PS4 can move over to PS5 already; same with the XB1 to current gen. Although having the option to switch platform while upgrading would be awesome, most console users probably have too much invested in their platform of choice (especially given backwards compatibility).

The bigger issue this brings up is $$$. Both for players (can they afford new hardware?) and ZOS (can the afford to maintain separate servers for a steadily declining pool of legacy consoles?). I don't have the answers for either of those questions, but that would be the real sticking point.

ThoraxtheDark · December 19

Are you forgetting things like mac and Linux? There are player bases on there. Its not as simple as " old consoles make eso bad " . I'd rather have them just try cross play before dismantling platform servers

DenverRalphy · December 19

ThoraxtheDark wrote: »

Are you forgetting things like mac and Linux? There are player bases on there. Its not as simple as " old consoles make eso bad " . I'd rather have them just try cross play before dismantling platform servers

And potato rig PC's. There's a lotta those too.

Four_Fingers · December 19

Yep, I wonder how many are playing on 8GB laptops out there.
Would need to raise the minimum ram spec from 8GB to 16GB for all devices then.
PS4 has 8GB DDR5 ram for reference.

DerethDawnblade · December 19

ThoraxtheDark wrote: »

Are you forgetting things like mac and Linux? There are player bases on there. Its not as simple as " old consoles make eso bad " . I'd rather have them just try cross play before dismantling platform servers

Aren't those in the same boat as PC, since they're home computers rather than video game consoles? I'd wager they're even the exact same servers as PC, because I don't think they have any server types outside of PC, PS, and XBox. In theory you can just upgrade components for those just like a regular PC. Consoles can't upgrade components without hacking them and therefore violating the terms of service. Home computers don't have the same sort of hard limitations as consoles, because they only have soft limitations. It's not the operating systems that are holding things back, but the unchangeable memory limitations of last gen consoles.
Last gen console support is also being phased out by the companies that produced them. Sony is already starting to drop support for PS4 for instance.
And if you actually take the time to read my original post, you'll see Crossplay as the very first thing I mention before an option to transfer to other servers.

LootAllTheStuff · December 19

DerethDawnblade wrote: »

ThoraxtheDark wrote: »

Are you forgetting things like mac and Linux? There are player bases on there. Its not as simple as " old consoles make eso bad " . I'd rather have them just try cross play before dismantling platform servers

Aren't those in the same boat as PC, since they're home computers rather than video game consoles? I'd wager they're even the exact same servers as PC, because I don't think they have any server types outside of PC, PS, and XBox. In theory you can just upgrade components for those just like a regular PC. Consoles can't upgrade components without hacking them and therefore violating the terms of service. Home computers don't have the same sort of hard limitations as consoles, because they only have soft limitations. It's not the operating systems that are holding things back, but the unchangeable memory limitations of last gen consoles.
Last gen console support is also being phased out by the companies that produced them. Sony is already starting to drop support for PS4 for instance.
And if you actually take the time to read my original post, you'll see Crossplay as the very first thing I mention before an option to transfer to other servers.

Macs are a lot harder to upgrade, especially the latest Apple Silicon ones, but I doubt they're a big fraction of the overall "PC" player base. More to the point, how many people playing on PC are able to upgrade anyway? Someone up above mentioned potato rigs, but there are also people in certain parts of the world trying to keep ESO running on Windows 7 of all things.

It would actually be really interesting to get a breakdown of how many players use what generation hardware and OS across the whole lot. ZOS probably has a better idea of that information than anybody; wonder if they'd be willing to share? Much better than us all prognosticating and making statistical inferences*

* AKA wild-***-guesses...

Tariq9898 · December 19

Unfortunately, I don’t think ZOS’s goal of achieving better class balance and identity will be fully realized as long as they support the XONE and PS4.

And that’s not even counting all the new content and updates they plan to release.

LootAllTheStuff · December 19

Tariq9898 wrote: »

Unfortunately, I don’t think ZOS’s goal of achieving better class balance and identity will be fully realized as long as they support the XONE and PS4.

And that’s not even counting all the new content and updates they plan to release.

How so? Class balance and identity is mostly about the numbers, where passives are in the skill tree, etc. If a skill is changed dramatically, then it's old animation would be swapped out for the new one. The big memory demand would come from new content in addition to what's already there, such as new zones, enemies, game modes, maybe a new character or companion. Or to use a slightly different metaphor, rearranging the furniture doesn't change the size of the house, but adding a whole new room would.

Danikat · December 20

It's nice to imagine everyone on an older PC can just add some more memory (although thanks to AI shills RAM is absurdly expensive right now), but it's not necessarily that simple. It has to be compatible with the rest of your setup so a memory upgrade can easily turn into needing a new motherboard and CPU, and a new PSU to run it, and a new case to fit it in...basically a whole new PC.

My PC is 3 years old and I still think of it as relatively new and I have no intention to upgrade any time soon. I'd be willing to bet there's a lot more PC players on older machines "holding the game back" than console players on the previous generation. For one thing PC gamers don't have the same incentive to upgrade every few years because there's all kinds of things you can do to get newer games to run on older PC hardware but absolutely nothing can make a PS5 game run on PS4.

DenverRalphy · December 20

Danikat wrote: »

It's nice to imagine everyone on an older PC can just add some more memory (although thanks to AI shills RAM is absurdly expensive right now), but it's not necessarily that simple. It has to be compatible with the rest of your setup so a memory upgrade can easily turn into needing a new motherboard and CPU, and a new PSU to run it, and a new case to fit it in...basically a whole new PC.
<snip>

I know sooo many PC gamers on rigs old enough that they've already upgraded to the maximum memory capacity. Tweaked down every game setting possible. And they're constantly opening their task manager to kill processes that aren't important because it's stretched to the limit.

There's a reason so many ESO players make such a big deal about Vivec City's outdoor banker.

katanagirl1 · December 20

At least the PS4s are running a different version of code than the PS5s, but I don’t know of many differences besides having 30 fps on PS4 and 60 fps on PS5, and the HDR of course on PS5. The draw distance is so short on PS5 I wonder if more options for differentiation between the two platforms might be beneficial for both.

I know that PCs have more options for performance but maybe that is detrimental to PC in this case but could actually benefit console players if added.

couriersix · December 20

I have mixed feelings about this. Games tend to be so poorly optimized nowadays, it's hard to find multiplayer games that I can play with my friends because so many aren't designed with older hardware in mind since not all of them have good PCs and with rising PC prices + cost of living increasing, it's much more difficult to upgrade. But I can play ESO with pretty much anyone regardless of what they have, and I can also run it on my steam deck with relative ease when I travel.

jm42 · December 20

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Yep, I wonder how many are playing on 8GB laptops out there.
Would need to raise the minimum ram spec from 8GB to 16GB for all devices then.
PS4 has 8GB DDR5 ram for reference.

it's even worse because on consoles it is shared memory, on pc you have ram and vram, on ps4 you have 8gb for everything and system already eats about a half of that

HedgeHugger · December 20

Run 2 servers. One with the game going forward and one that has the game up to current limits.
Anyone upgrading their systems gets to log into the Grown up machine, with the majority of players.
All lower specs (pc and console) get a minimised version due to constraints. If you have 2 machines, and log into either, switch stuff off like not having ESO+ restricts access. Or get the full fat version on a more modern, capable, machine.

Gabriel_H · December 20

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Yep, I wonder how many are playing on 8GB laptops out there.
Would need to raise the minimum ram spec from 8GB to 16GB for all devices then.
PS4 has 8GB DDR5 ram for reference.

Minimum spec is 4GB. Just saying. Recommended is 8GB.

I have 32GB of Ram. My system processes use ~5GB, ESO at full whack doesn't even hit 4GB.

Gabriel_H · December 20

HedgeHugger wrote: »

Anyone upgrading their systems gets to log into the Grown up machine, with the majority of players.

Flawed premise. PS players are split about 50/50 between 4 and 5, same is true for XBox. PC players rigs are more spread out in age, but still trend toward older tech.

Steam do a regualr hardware survey. A not insignificant chunk are still running DX11 and DX10 for example.

Four_Fingers · December 20

Just waiting for the no longer support Windows 10 bomb.

Will go the way of my cherished Windows 7 machine collecting dust.

Northwold · December 20

I think people overestimate the penetration of the current generation. The PS5 only this year went past 50:50 with the number of PS4 users
(see eg https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sony-confirms-ps5-has-more-monthly-players-than-ps4-for-the-first-time/ ). So while it might be nice I'm not sure effectively removing them from full development would be commercially sensible.

robwolf666 · December 20

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

Apollosipod · December 20

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Gabriel_H · December 20

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Lets say you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable to your bosses.
You tell them you are going to make the game only playable on the more recent tech.
This will cost you 4,000 players, but gain you 1,000.
You now no longer have a game that will survive.

Edit: More than a few of you seem to think the game is funded by a magic money tree ...!

robwolf666 · December 20

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

I have a Series X... I just don't like the idea of abandoning a chunk of players just because they can't upgrade their console.

tomofhyrule · December 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Lets say you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable to your bosses.
You tell them you are going to make the game only playable on the more recent tech.
This will cost you 4,000 players, but gain you 1,000.
You now no longer have a game that will survive.

Edit: More than a few of you seem to think the game is funded by a magic money tree ...!

So, using your example...

It's assured that none of those 10000 players will leave if the game keeps needing to cannibalize itself?
It's assured that only 1000 players will return if hot-topic items like "Increased Housing Limits" is given?
It's assured that none of those 4000 players will upgrade once their favorite game does?

Yes, it's a balance that every game company works with. But I don't think there are too many new games that are still releasing in 2025 for outdated tech. And yes, this includes potato PCs.

One of the main factors behind a person wanting to upgrade their hardware is them needing it for a specific piece of content. Sure, you've got the fanbois who will buy the new tech instantly, but I know I personally am the kind of person who waits to get an upgrade until I have a reason to. Once games I want are being released for the next-gen, or games I like are no longer playable on old-gen, then I will consider upgrading. But of course I'm not going to upgrade for the sake of upgrading.
Have all of these surveys for console population taken into account the playstyles of the people and how many 'console seller' games there are?

Apollosipod · December 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Lets say you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable to your bosses.
You tell them you are going to make the game only playable on the more recent tech.
This will cost you 4,000 players, but gain you 1,000.
You now no longer have a game that will survive.

Edit: More than a few of you seem to think the game is funded by a magic money tree ...!

I never said they should be abandoned. What I DO think is future content could be limited to newer technology. There's no reason to hemorrhage players who are tired of the growing glitches and antiquated content for players on older systems. Eventually it comes down to ZOS wanting to keep this game around for 30 years like they say they own on. No old PC, PS4, or Xbox is going to last that long. Stop stop trying to bury the game alongside them

Apollosipod · December 20

robwolf666 wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

I have a Series X... I just don't like the idea of abandoning a chunk of players just because they can't upgrade their console.

And if it came down to "future development can't happen with such antiquated systems" where would your thoughts go? If you drop anchor on a boat it stops moving.

Gabriel_H · December 20

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It's assured that none of those 10000 players will leave if the game keeps needing to cannibalize itself?
It's assured that only 1000 players will return if hot-topic items like "Increased Housing Limits" is given?
It's assured that none of those 4000 players will upgrade once their favorite game does?

ZOS would seem to think:
Minimal loss
Yes
Minimal amount

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Yes, it's a balance that every game company works with. But I don't think there are too many new games that are still releasing in 2025 for outdated tech. And yes, this includes potato PCs.

A patently flawed premise. Plenty of new games are still playable on older tech. Will you get the best performance personally? No. But they are still playable.

Your notion of "out-dated" tech seems to be that out-dated = obsolete. Nobody is releasing games on 3.5" floppies because the tech is obsolete, plenty of AAA games are releasing that are still playable on older tech. And it's also worth noting ESO is not an outlier for MMOs, virtually all of them have minimum specs that are for 10 year old tech, heck WoW Classic is 15 year old tech and it was only released just over 5 years ago.

heaven13 · December 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Lets say you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable to your bosses.
You tell them you are going to make the game only playable on the more recent tech.
This will cost you 4,000 players, but gain you 1,000.
You now no longer have a game that will survive.

Edit: More than a few of you seem to think the game is funded by a magic money tree ...!

If you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable and you are sitting right at that 10,000, you're already in a really bad place. Any single tiny change/update/new release of some other game could drop you below 10,000 in a second and suddenly, poof, game over.

Any kind of tech-based company, including game dev, should constantly be operating and planning with forward thinking, growth, and scalability in mind. That includes eventually dropping support for older devices.

Gabriel_H · December 20

heaven13 wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

robwolf666 wrote: »

Yeah... I remember when CDPR stuck the middle finger up at last gen consoles too... the people who bought the game originally and gave it huge sales and money. Be great if ESO did same, right?

This is going to sound aggressive and I honestly don't mean it to be. But frankly, if it comes down to the game surviving and thriving going forward or people operating on older tech holding back because they can't/won't upgrade, I would choose the game every time. I've played multiple games that left older technology behind in order to move forward. I'd rather ESO keep working than hold everyone back for you

Lets say you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable to your bosses.
You tell them you are going to make the game only playable on the more recent tech.
This will cost you 4,000 players, but gain you 1,000.
You now no longer have a game that will survive.

Edit: More than a few of you seem to think the game is funded by a magic money tree ...!

If you need 10,000 daily players to be financially viable and you are sitting right at that 10,000, you're already in a really bad place. Any single tiny change/update/new release of some other game could drop you below 10,000 in a second and suddenly, poof, game over.

Any kind of tech-based company, including game dev, should constantly be operating and planning with forward thinking, growth, and scalability in mind. That includes eventually dropping support for older devices.

Never heard of an analogy?! And they will eventually drop support when it's financially viable.

Most MMO players only play one MMO at a time. That puts all MMOs in direct competition. Nearly all other MMOs have miniumum specs that are for 10 year old tech - and in 5 years time those minimum specs will still be 10 year old specs because that's where the industry standard falls.

jm42 · 10:18AM

Gabriel_H wrote: »

WoW Classic is 15 year old tech and it was only released just over 5 years ago.

Wow classic is a potato itself. Is current WoW constantly cutting it's parts to fit 15 yo tech stopping itself from moving forward until something is deleted, leaving the game in broken state for months? never heard of it. I will gladly accept if ESO will have classic version for old hardware