Is this the least exciting 'new' video game gen?

[Sumez | 2,929]

15 hours ago, Shmup said:

For those who fear change or new things, don’t worry the old games will still be there and you probably won’t get through them all anyway.

This sounds like a blanket statement that doesn't really apply to the arguments made here, or at least not the original take, at all.

The "issue" with this new generation for most people, or at least for me, isn't an objection to new stuff, but exactly that there really isn't much change or "new things", if any at all. It just feels pointless, like it's happening only because it's "supposed" to happen, and allows console publishers to wrestle a bit more money out of us.

And the SSD argument really sounds like grabbing straws to me. Of course it's great, but it also feels like something that should have been a part of the previous generation either way. I don't see getting rid of long loading times as a big step forward, but as best it's dealing with something that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
This technology has been standard on PCs for ages now, so it doesn't really feel like much of an exciting new movement (though being able to design games around a hardware profile expected to have it is at least an improvement), and at the end of the day, most examples of obnoxious loading times out there really feel like they are the result of lazy design moreso than straight up hardware limitations.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

Was a PS2 exciting to people that were already playing Counter Strike on PC?  Can't that argument always be made?

[Sumez | 2,929]

I'm not sure what claim I made that comparison applies to. There was a huge step between PS1 and PS2. Either way I'm impressed if you were playing Counter-Strike when the PS2 came out. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Sumez

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

15 minutes ago, Sumez said:

I'm not sure what claim I made that comparison applies to. There was a huge step between PS1 and PS2. Either way I'm impressed if you were playing Counter-Strike when the PS2 came out. 

As in, what exciting movement has any console made anytime recently that PCs weren't already doing?  Other than maybe the Wii's gimmicks or the Switch's mobility.

And yes, we were playing CS right from the beginning.  It didn't take long to take off.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

54 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Was a PS2 exciting to people that were already playing Counter Strike on PC?  Can't that argument always be made?

Well at least when the PS2 came out, you knew there'd be true console exclusives. Outside of Nintendo, those don't really exist anymore.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

10 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

Well at least when the PS2 came out, you knew there'd be true console exclusives. Outside of Nintendo, those don't really exist anymore.

Is that a good thing?  Don't we just have more options now?

[Gloves | 11,759]

23 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

As in, what exciting movement has any console made anytime recently that PCs weren't already doing?  Other than maybe the Wii's gimmicks or the Switch's mobility.

And yes, we were playing CS right from the beginning.  It didn't take long to take off.

I was playing exclusively against bots for the first year or so. T_T

[Gloves | 11,759]

I don't see console exclusives as a good thing at all, ever. Options are consumer-friendly, restrictions and gating are not.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

13 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I was playing exclusively against bots for the first year or so. T_T

LAN parties yo

[Gloves | 11,759]

2 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

LAN parties yo

Friends.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

38 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Is that a good thing?  Don't we just have more options now?

 

31 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I don't see console exclusives as a good thing at all, ever. Options are consumer-friendly, restrictions and gating are not.

I'm not saying they're good or bad, but in the past a new console generation definitely brought more of them. That influx of new games used to be a pretty solid reason to get excited for new consoles. With the death of exclusives, as well as all the other reasons I've mentioned previously in the thread, this generation is less interesting than many of the previous ones.

[Brickman | 3,978]

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

This sounds like a blanket statement that doesn't really apply to the arguments made here, or at least not the original take, at all.

The "issue" with this new generation for most people, or at least for me, isn't an objection to new stuff, but exactly that there really isn't much change or "new things", if any at all. It just feels pointless, like it's happening only because it's "supposed" to happen, and allows console publishers to wrestle a bit more money out of us.

And the SSD argument really sounds like grabbing straws to me. Of course it's great, but it also feels like something that should have been a part of the previous generation either way. I don't see getting rid of long loading times as a big step forward, but as best it's dealing with something that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
This technology has been standard on PCs for ages now, so it doesn't really feel like much of an exciting new movement (though being able to design games around a hardware profile expected to have it is at least an improvement), and at the end of the day, most examples of obnoxious loading times out there really feel like they are the result of lazy design moreso than straight up hardware limitations.

This gen has only just begun. Sure it’s not a huge start but the PS4 was slow and now everyone loves it. Also Covid has messed some things up.

New gen consoles are more powerful so better things will be done, especially in the VR space.

Faster load times for consoles alone is a great upgrade. 

Also graphic improvements, ray tracing and more stable frame rates were much needed upgrades to consoles that the new gen offers.

Let’s see what a late ps5 game looks like vs a late ps4 title. I’m betting the update will be worth it.

If you don’t personally see a point in upgrading, that’s fine, but I don’t think they spent all that money just for the sake of upgrading and getting more out of consumers. In fact it’s probably the opposite, they would lose people to PC. Consoles need to start keeping up with PCs or they will lose customers. 

With that said, I have personally switched from PS to a PC but will definitely grab a new gen console if there are exclusives worth owning on ps5.

[NZCollector | 107]

To me yes, but I'd say that's only because I've got into PC games since I got a computer capable of running things like DiRT Rally and Forza really well. I reckon give it two years and there'll be a lot of people excited about this new gen as more games come out that innovate the hardware. 

[Estil | 1,261]

4 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Was a PS2 exciting to people that were already playing Counter Strike on PC?  Can't that argument always be made?

Console gaming =/= PC gaming

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

1 hour ago, Estil said:

Console gaming =/= PC gaming

Why?

Especially now.

[Sumez | 2,929]

11 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

As in, what exciting movement has any console made anytime recently that PCs weren't already doing?

The PS2 was plenty exciting on release compared to PC games at the time. Hell, everyone I knew who were exclusively playing PC games at the time were still excited for it. But it's really besides the point - I said SSDs aren't really enough to qualify an entirely new generation as a brand new thing, but I never made the claim that the reason the new generation isn't exciting is because PCs can do the same thing. You're mincing words.

11 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

And yes, we were playing CS right from the beginning.  It didn't take long to take off.

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Sumez

[Sumez | 2,929]

9 hours ago, Shmup said:

New gen consoles are more powerful so better things will be done, especially in the VR space.

Though the more power the consoles get, the higher budgets are required to make full use of them. I think the fact that the upcoming PS5 Final Fantasy game of all things looks not even like a PS4 game, but like a straight up PS3 one.
I don't think that's a bad thing, I think it's great that even large developers aren't always giving into the pressure of AAA, and that consumers recognize the best games aren't always the ones with the most bells and whistles, but it really begs the question of how large a role each new incremental step in console technology really plays.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,504]

@Sumez It was a mod long before it was an official release.

And isn't that anecdotal?  That you and all your friends were excited for it.  Young kids and all their friends are excited for the PS5.

Which circles back to my original claim: we're all just grumpy old men 

[MegaMan52 | 2,439]

Probably. GameCube was the last console and era I got really excited about. The Switch is a fun online system and is definitely an improvement over both the Wii and Wii U, but the NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube will always be the best Nintendo systems for offline gaming.

PS2, similarly, was the last PlayStation console I got excited about. There isn't much for PS4 or PS5 that I'm interested in, other than maybe Resident Evil Village and the upcoming Gran Turismo game.

Edited September 27, 2021 by MegaMan52

[Brickman | 3,978]

6 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

@Sumez It was a mod long before it was an official release.

And isn't that anecdotal?  That you and all your friends were excited for it.  Young kids and all their friends are excited for the PS5.

Which circles back to my original claim: we're all just grumpy old men 

Agreed, too many grumpy people here haha. The PS5 is selling faster than the PS4 and is Sony’s fastest selling console, even with shortages! 

I can’t disagree that the gen has started very meh with the games on offer, but to me the console itself is great.

[ICrappedMyPants | 302]

15 hours ago, Shmup said:

Agreed, too many grumpy people here haha. The PS5 is selling faster than the PS4 and is Sony’s fastest selling console, even with shortages! 

I can’t disagree that the gen has started very meh with the games on offer, but to me the console itself is great.

The PS3 was a huge disappointment for many, so PS4 was in a worse place market wise than the PS5. PS4 was an incredibly successful console, putting PS5 in a much better position for higher sales. Personally, it would take significantly better VR or AI, especially adaptive AI to excite me because the graphics jumps are no longer so drastic at this point.

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

Hot take: even with upgraded iterations of home consoles, we remain in the same generation.

[Estil | 1,261]

2 hours ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

The PS3 was a huge disappointment for many...

In what way?  Besides the high price it started with.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

The PS3 had a target on its back at least as far back as Sony's 2006 E3 press conference that got memed to hell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRqKffIjCDU but if you were in gaming sites around then you probably know the most relevant lines by heart anyways) Aside from the price that was indeed a big issue (and most people really weren't that excited about Blu-Ray to make it sorta worth the price regardless), there was a perceived drought of really good games at the beginning. "PS3 has no games" was a meme for a couple years until MGS4 started turning things around. Which is kind of funny in retrospect given MGS4's reputation definitely isn't what it once was but it worked at the time. It was also behind the Xbox 360 in terms of online features. (Cheaper for what you got, granted, but when you're leading with FIVE HUNDRED NINETY NINE U.S. DOLLARS anyways it barely helps.)

The PS3 ended up in a pretty good place and by the end it probably had better overall exclusives than the Xbox 360 (might be arguable depending on taste). Though despite it not really being weaker than the 360 AFAIK, western multiplatform games probably run worse on it in general because they targeted the 360 as the lead platform.

I'd be skeptical of PS3 disappointment having carried forward much to the next generation though, since outside the data breach the biggest issues were mostly concentrated to the beginning of the console and by the time the PS4 was on the horizon people were more pissed at what Microsoft was planning with the One than silly things Sony had done a decade ago.

 

[TDIRunner | 2,721]

3 hours ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

The PS3 was a huge disappointment for many, 

In the first year, sure.  But once they dropped the price it took off and eventually beat out the 360 in sales.  Hell, even when you figure in the poor reliability (which was shared with the 360), most people remember the PS3 fondly.