well we're getting something a little bit

different than what I expected.

Of course there's the standard booths from Sony,

from Microsoft, from Nintendo and there's all

the new games that you would expect.

What I did not expect is talk about

the next generation of consoles.

It has been a full five years since the PlayStation 4

and Xbox One were launched here at E3 2013.

Now there've been a lot of things

that have changed since then.

Both consoles have seen a slim revision,

we've seen stuff like the PlayStation VR on the Sony side

as well as the death of Kinect on the Microsoft side.

But really one of the most important changes over the last

few years has been the addition of the mid-cycle console

refreshes, that's not a great way of putting that but we've

got an Xbox One X and a PlayStation 4 Pro now.

Now sure there have been improved consoles in the past,

stuff like the Sega 32X add on for the Genesis

or the Nintendo 64 expansion pack are cool

but they don't come anywhere close to this same

sort of level of functionality and extra performance

that we've gotten out of the One X and the PS4 Pro.

That led a lot of people, myself included,

to assume that this current generation of consoles

that have quite a bit of life left.

However, here at E3 the next generation has actually

been mentioned a couple times already.

It started on Sunday night with the Bethesda conference

where they showed off not only one but two brand new

IPs that are meant for next gen.

So they very briefly teased The Elder Scrolls VI which

was really just a tiny, little trailer but more

impressively they also talked about Starfield.

- We have also been working on a brand new

next generation single player game.

- Now the trailer for Starfield didn't exactly

give us a ton of game play but what it did do is show

off a game that as far as I know is going

to be meant only for the next generation.

So that's actually sort of not really what I was expecting

out of this E3, sure there are going to be of course

new consoles at some point in the future but the idea

the developers are already showing off games that are meant

to be running on that means that it can't be that far off.

Or can it?

Unless Bethesda is in the business of teasing a game

that won't be out for four or five years,

which I guess I can't actually rule out,

odds are we are going to be able to see the next generation

consoles in two or three years and that was further backed

up by what Microsoft said on stage on their event on Sunday.

- [Phil] The same team that delivered unprecedented

performance with Xbox One X is deep

into architecting the next Xbox consoles.

- Now Phil Spencer didn't just say there's going

to be a new Xbox, he said that there were going

to be new Xboxes, as in like plural.

Not only is this going to be a pretty smart marketing

move to get people talking about the next generation

of Xbox but this combined with the fact that Microsoft

is actually purchasing several major studios to sort

of juice up the Xbox game development means

that they're actually doing a good job of putting

a lot of resources, a lot of money, and more importantly

a lot of hype behind the next generation.

Still though it's really interesting to think that a year

ago at E3 they were talking about the Xbox One X

and how it was about to come out and now they've already

moved on to the next generation.

The rumor mill has gone into

overdrive since the announcement.

So supposedly Microsoft is working on code name Scarlett

which is the series of next generation Xboxes.

Now what these actually will look like is kind of hard

to say but we can take some educated guesses.

On the other hand, it seems like Sony is perfectly

content to ride out their sales lead

with the PlayStation 4 for a little while.

So in our recent interview with The Wall Street Journal,

the head of PlayStation, John Kodera,

was quoted as saying that the next PlayStation

is three years away which would put it in 2021.

So not exactly around the corner but it is very clear

at this point that both Sony and Microsoft are well

under way developing the next generation of consoles.

The real question is,

what do those consoles actually look like?

So if you look at the current generation of consoles,

they are both based on very, very similar tech.

So both the PS4 and Xbox One have an eight core AMD Jaguar

based CPU as well as Radeon graphics.

Sure there are some key differences.

So not only does the PS4 utilize the much faster GDDR5

memory, something that's also shared now with the One X

but the PS4 also does have a more powerful GPU.

However, at their core they are sharing

the exact same AMD based fundamentals.

The same holds true for the enhanced

versions of the consoles.

So both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X are using very

similar layouts but with more memory bandwidth,

bigger GPUs and higher clock speeds.

So realistically what we're looking at

is another x86 processor that is very likely

going to be based on AMD tech.

So sure there are lots of other options.

I'll get into those in just a minute but I think the main

take away here is that by sticking with x86,

not only do you keep backwards compatibility

with previous generation games, something important

for both the One and the PS4, but importantly it also

makes developers lives much easier when it

comes to porting games from the PC.

Now backwards compatibility is something

that the Xbox already does really well.

So not only does the Xbox One support original Xbox games

and quite a few Xbox 360 titles but when you bump up

to the One X you're actually able to play some of those

games in a full 4K which is impressive considering

this all happened with emulation.

If you have the very, very similar sort

of features set and sort of similar hardware

in the next generation of consoles,

that makes all of this even easier to keep up to date.

You can imagine the next generation of Xbox having full

backwards compatibility and that being a huge selling point.

Sure you can still go buy an Xbox One but why bother

when you can play an Xbox Two that will play

all of the same games and then some.

Right now, the only company that can deliver

an experience like this is the same one

that did it on the last generation, AMD.

So of course they have modern GPU tech

and especially in the next couple years

you can imagine that you're only going to be able

to get access to better and better stuff.

But almost more importantly than that,

they also have some new high end x86 CPU cores.

So with the current generation using the very slow

mobile focus Jaguar cores, I can easily imagine

a scenario in which the next generation consoles

are going to be using AMD Ryzen.

Especially if we really are a couple of years away

from the next generation of consoles,

it's very easy to imagine a full eight core

Ryzen CPU set up inside a console APU.

There are already some whispers that Ryzen tech

is being implemented in the next gen of consoles.

So supposedly with the Sony software

that they're using on the PS4 and presumably PS5,

there is now going to be support for the timings

of the first generation Ryzen processors.

Now that's cool but it's maybe not the most exciting option.

Take one look at the Nintendo Switch and you can see

that the next generation can take several forms.

Now sure this is not going to be as powerful as something

like the PS4 or Xbox One but the portability really does

unlock it to be something that is very, very different.

Because Nintendo opted for a mobile focus processor

with the Nvidia Tegra X1, not only are you going to be

getting ARM CPUs which are typically shared with phones

and tablets but importantly, you're also still getting

a high end solution within video graphics.

Again, nothing that's going to be quite

as powerful as something like the current generation

of consoles but at the end of the day

graphics definitely aren't everything.

Sure, the Switch delivers a decent chunk of the performance

of the current generation consoles at a fraction

of the power budget but I don't think that means

it's going to be a good fit to go for this approach

for the PlayStation 5 as well as the Xbox Two.

Not only has Nvidia taken the Tegra line of processors

in a much more automotive focused area,

mostly because they make a lot of money there

but even with a couple years of upgrades

and sort of performance improvements,

you really can't still expect a mobile processor

to come anywhere close to the level of something

like the PlayStation 4 Pro or the Xbox One X.

Now sure at some point we might see a mobile PlayStation

or a mobile Xbox but I don't think that is going to be

what the proper next generation of consoles looks like.

On the other hand we have Intel.

Now sure they do have the CPU technology and they are

working on dedicated graphics but that's going to be

several years away and it is doubtful that they're

going to waste all those resources on trying to put

together some bespoke version of a console APU.

Now, yes there are lots of possibilities

but I think the smart money is definitely on another

fully AMD solution for both the PS5 as well as the Xbox Two.

I think it's very likely that Sony is telling the truth.

Well we'll probably see a glimpse of the PlayStation 5

a little bit earlier, it will likely go on sale in 2021.

Microsoft is more exciting.

The Xbox has been beaten and beaten badly this generation.

Now sure they've made some major strides in the last

couple years with stuff like backwards compatibility

as well as the Xbox One X but at the end of the day

most estimates put the PlayStation 4 out selling

the One roughly two to one and that is not easy to overcome.

My best bet is we're going to see the next

generation of Xbox at the next year's E3.

Now that would give us an early look at something

that would probably be launching in 2020.

A full year ahead of the PlayStation 5

if everything goes according to plan.

And by according to plan, I mean the plan

that I just totally made up on my head,

that is only vaguely substantiated with real rumors

and speculation but it sounds good so.

So between next gen Ryzen tech and stuff like game

streaming which is only going to be more and more

popular, I do think there's a lot of interesting

stuff that we're going to see over the next

couple years for the new consoles.

So I'm curious, what do you guys think about what you

expect to find in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Two?

Let me know in the comments below

and I will catch you in the next one.