AngryMob

The consoles are typically FSR2 upscaling from 1440p or lower. Plenty of games are down around 720p. Lets not pretend theyre doing 4k native on AAA titles. The pro isnt going to be native either, we need to see games and PSSR in action to see where it falls vs FSR, XESS, DLSS, and see what gpu is closest in performance. You can get a used RTX 3080 for 350-400 and i’ll be pleasantly surprised if PS5 Pro beats that level of performance.

Ray tracing is not a fad though, and reducing it to just reflections is ignorant. Reflections, shadows, bounce lighting/global illumination, etc. all get noticeable bumps in quality. They are definitely more subtle than previous bumps from new techniques because those old techniques have gotten so damn good. But at the same time, those previous techniques have reached their limits and have unfixable problems. Whether that is occlusion artifacts in reflections, light leaking from global illumination, non-interactive baked lighting, shadows with uncanny resolution and no penumbra, hacky ambient occlusion, etc. etc… the problems are all minor, sure, but they are there, noticable, and devs want to keep pushing.

And this is ignoring the benefits on the dev side as well. No more annoying rasterized light placement. And pulling your hair out trying to hack the engine to get the look youre after. “It just works” is an unfortunate comment but holds a lot of truth. Even non realistic looking games will use more and more ray tracing as time goes on because of that. And eventually every device and card will have performance for a full suite of effects. Its an inevitability, not a fad.

Only in single player though.

Multiplayer reload speed is a knob for balance.

Depth to movement mechanics is one of the differences between mediocre and great first person games. Look at counter strike movement over the years. Players have extracted everything from the quirks of that engine, the game is better for it, and the skill ceiling for movement alone is enormous. That skill ceiling is important. Crouch jumps in particular have been in pretty much every game i can think of since i learned halo on the og xbox. even if they aren’t explicitly used by the game designers, there is often tricks you can do to exploit campaigns in fun ways, or maneuver the multiplayer with a higher level of expertise than others. Thats fun. Competitive but fun.

Compared to games where every mechanic is dead simple and everyone can do it, its more just rock paper scissors at that point. The designer gave a specific movement ability, you counter it with some other ability they designed. Its boring to me.

It shouldn’t be ignored full stop. It depends entirely on the game. A purely arcade shooter should probably ignore it and most do (halo, overwatch), but a sim certainly shouldn’t (tarkov, arma). And a mixed game can decide for themselves (battlefield, cod).

Chess has been played for ages with no dlc. Competition against another person is engaging on its own. And chess is a good deep game on its own.

Combine competition with a good game and you get a successful infinite live service game in theory.

Only one or the other and you get a flash in the pan.