DF Direct Q+A: PS5 Emulation on PC, Will Halo Move To COD Tech, Will PCs Replace Consoles?

Rich (0:02)

Hello there, and the warmest of welcomes to this latest edition of the DF Direct Q&A show. And as usual, you have questions, we have answers, or answers to the pest of our knowledge at this point in time. Joining me first of all to discuss all of this stuff that we've got lined up.

Hello, Will Chad. Hello.

Will Chad (0:22)

Nice to be here once again. It's been a little while, but yeah, happy to make my triumphant return, if it is indeed triumphant.

Rich (0:30)

We shall see. Of course, Oliver McKenzie. Hello.

Oliver McKenzie (0:34)

Yes, you have questions, we have answers. Hopefully, usually.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Rich (0:40)

Indeed.

Our first topic for this particular show, not so much of a question as such, but booted up a PC this morning only to discover that Marvel's Wolverine is seemingly running, or at least getting to the title screen on PlayStation 5 emulator for PC, which is quite remarkable when you think about it. We've not really discussed it to this point, but there's been a growing array of projects that are competing to get as many games running and playable as possible. I think I saw something over the weekend where the game Dead Cells is basically running on PC at the moment. The PlayStation 5 version running on PC, which again is quite remarkable stuff. I guess the question is the extent to which it's actually going to become something usable in the medium to longer term and the extent to which Sony might be concerned about this. Oliver, should we get down to brass tacks here? Because the way PlayStation emulators work, PlayStation 5 emulators, I guess, it's more similar to Shad PS4 in that it's not quite as a comprehensive task as maybe emulating the cell or something like that. Fundamentally, we are looking at the base level PC parts, like the Zen 2 CPU and an RDNA 2 GPU. So it seems that the task of getting things up and running isn't quite as onerous as it was in the past.

Oliver McKenzie (2:07)

Yeah, it does seem to be considerably easier.

But one key element that's changed recently is just the explosion of these new LMs in terms of getting OV for editing code. Like it's just crazy. There's been very rapid progress over the past few months or even few weeks with these tools because they just dramatically lower the software engineering bar for producing this kind of work.

Which is interesting because it does suggest a world in which certain kinds of proprietary technologies that are designed to be locked into certain platforms, like your console platforms or your PC upscalers or whatever, they're being democratized in this very fast way. That's interesting. We're seeing it too with technologies like DLSS 5 and DLSS FG getting ported to all kinds of architectures all of a sudden, again, with the advent of these kinds of tools. Obviously, there are very skilled people working in these projects, but it just makes the whole process go really fast relative to the kind of progress you would have seen previously and makes some things feasible. But I kind of think this is an issue more broadly for the landscape of this proprietary vendor technology expressed broadly here because it's an issue that everyone's going to have to face in one form or another. I'm not sure exactly how people are going to approach it in terms of making defenses or making things that are more difficult to reverse engineer, but it does seem to be an issue for all kinds of vendors in this space, just democratizing this technology, moving this technology, these software projects away from closed platforms.

In terms of its impact on Sony, I don't think it's going to have much impact in the short term. In the long term, I could see it becoming more of an issue. I don't know, but there are some elements of the PS5 platform that presumably are going to remain constant. Like it's still going to be a plug and play experience. It's still going to be an experience that's very tightly optimized for the console. There are some elements that are going to make the console still appealing, even in a world where you can employ these kinds of projects. And also, ultimately, if this does take off on PC, it's going to be basically a piracy problem in my view. Not that piracy is necessary for these projects, but if this is going to take off in a big manner and become widespread on PC, it is going to be a piracy issue. And piracy is something that the PC industry has dealt with for a long time, and it turns out the way that you combat piracy is by offering a really good experience through official channels. So it could be a case where Sony just needs to, you know, put their PC releases, put their titles back on PC, I don't know. Maybe there are alternatives for Sony to navigate this landscape that don't just involve shutting down the core technology. I'm really curious to see how this develops, but I don't think it's a near term issue for Sony, but it could become a longer term issue for Sony if this arms race is not something that they can really compete with with regards to some of these technologies.