rolling back the hardware standard so you have a broader customer base seems like the intelligent thing to do.

so they're gonna add double ray tracing or something

Pessimistic take: they will bank on cloud gaming. I hope I'm wrong.

Yeah, I’m hoping we see game devs actually focus on optimization again. Early game consoles forced devs to really focus on things like memory usage, pixel map storage, texture sizes, etc… Super Mario Bros reused pixel maps for clouds in the background and bushes in the foreground, and simply changed the colors.

Hell, the second gen Pokémon games actually pioneered brand new data compression methods, to the point that the devs managed to fit the entire first gen region in as a post-game Easter egg. So they managed to compress the entire first and second regions into a small enough space to fit both regions on a similarly sized card as the first game alone. They literally fit two games into a card that was only originally expected to hold one. It originally started because one dev was focused on eking out small performance improvements, by compressing the game code and assets more efficiently. And eventually they got it so well optimized that they realized they could fit the entire Kanto region on the game card too. And so they rebuilt the entire Kanto region and added a secret superboss at the end. All for an Easter egg that most casual players would never see, because reaching Kanto required completing the Johto Pokédex.

The first Crash Bandicoot game brought major innovations to classic game model design, because the character didn’t have a “skeleton” in the traditional sense. They wanted the character to be cartoony, and be able to squish or flex as he interacted with the environment. If he gets rolled over by a boulder, they wanted him to pancake like a cartoon would. And traditional skeleton models (where the character model is built around a rigid skeleton, then simply follows along as the skeleton is posed) wouldn’t allow for the flexibility that they needed. So they pioneered new modeling techniques where they tracked each individual facet of the character’s model, to be able to fit within the PS1’s hardware limitations.

Early game devs had a very specific target. They couldn’t just send it out the door and let the hardware catch up later. Imagine moving an entire 5 bedroom household across the country. Modern game devs will look at the amount they need to move, and go “eh, we’ll just get a bigger truck.” There will be lots of wasted space, because they’re not even bothering to stack boxes or furniture in the truck. But early game devs were forced to make everything fit into a single 20’ box truck, so they focused on what was truly essential, and packed everything as efficiently as possible. And we’re quickly reaching the point that players won’t be able to afford a bigger truck, so game devs may actually start packing their games efficiently again.

There's an ocean of hardware requirements between the upcoming PS6 and what it takes to run pixel graphics games. Many customers are still happy on PS4 level hardware, and third party titles like Madden still got PS4 versions until just last year.

AI and cloud gaming. Also, get way shittier.. you thought they were shitty in the 90s? In the 00s? Now? Just you wait until it's not "line must go up" and instead it's "line must not go down"