IWe will be officially two years, 24 month into the new generation in just a few short days. This new generation consoles are extremely expensive and promise to change the way we play games. Two years later, what are we left with?
The truth is, not much.
It’s time to come out and say it – this generation has kind of been a bust so far. Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 are fantastic machines. Both machines are extremely well-designed, highly capable, and easy to use. Both share similar strengths and weaknesses, as well as being priced at a comparable price. This gen is simply the best. should be the one where we see great next gen only titles that truly leverage some of the promised game changing tech in those consoles (such as the aforementioned SSD) coming out quicker than the generation transitions usually take… right?
The Dreamcast is now available for the sixth generation. launched With Sonic Adventure SoulCaliburThe PS2 took over a year to arrive. Grand Theft Auto III Final Fantasy X Metal Gear Solid 2The Xbox was launched with Halo: Combat Evolved, and that the GameCube had Star Wars Rogue Squadron Rogue Leader, and many more It was available within a few weeks of its launch. In the HD era, we’d had Gears of War The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, both major next gen showcases, out within a year of the Xbox 360’s launch. In the PS4 and Xbox One era, it took slightly longer – eighteen months to be specific – but by early 2015, several major next-gen only titles were available, including The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Fallout 4.And Batman: Arkham Knight. Two years later, this generation? We’ve got nothing equivalent.
Don’t get me wrong, there You can find it here be next-generation only games. Demon’s Souls, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, and a few others To be fair, they are all next-gen exclusive titles. The majority of the major games are? The ones the industry stops looking for, the ones most people want to play. Let’s take a look at the last two years of those, and see what we find. Cyberpunk 2077 It was cross-gen. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla It was cross-gen. Tales of Arise It was cross-gen. Resident Evil Village It was cross-gen. Yakuza: The Lost Judgment of a DragonAnd Soul Hackers 2 were all cross-gen. Elden Ring, this generation’s The Witcher 3 Equal (in terms of timing and impact) You can also do cross-gen.
It’s not just third parties either, even the platform holders Sony and Microsoft seem awfully reticent to actually leave their older consoles behind. While Sony and Microsoft have been fine making some of their smaller properties and games next-gen only, they’re Big games, the “system selling” ones so to say? They are all cross-gen. Spider-Man: Miles Morales? Cross-gen. Horizon: Forbidden West? Cross-gen. Halo Infinite? Cross-gen. Forza Horizon 5? Cross-gen. Gran Turismo 7? Cross-gen. Even the future God of War Ragnarok is cross-gen. As far as the big, mainstream friendly titles go, even Sony and Microsoft aren’t really willing to leave the PS4 and Xbox One behind.
To a degree, this makes sense. The cost of game development is higher than ever. This means that games must be sold more than ever to make development sustainable and profitable. Despite record-breaking demand, the PS5 Series and Xbox Series have not been in a position to build an install base large enough to justify some next-gen games. One major reason for this is the disruption of supply and production chain that has afflicted almost every major industry in 2020. COVID-19 made it impossible to go into a shop and pick up a next generation console even two years after the event. At this point, if most people can’t even buy a PS5 or an Xbox Series console, then how would they be able to buy and play any game that’s exclusive to just those systems? They obviously cannot, meaning the addressable market for next generation is minuscule – especially in relation to where it would need to be for next-gen only mass-market AAA games to really be viable.
Financial considerations aside, it is why so many major games are cross-gen after more than two years. Next year, you can expect to see. Resident Evil 4, Street Fighter 6, Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo 4And Assassin’s Creed MirageThe following are some of the most popular. Many Cross-generational. As many people who complained about delays in the 2021 and 22 years of the industry have likely realized, a lot these games were intended to launch much earlier than they actually will. The last two-and-a-half years have been a disaster. tumultuous COVID-19, in particular, disrupted game development worldwide. These games may have been in development for cross-gen or last-gen games, and were intended to be released in 2021. at worst 2022 was the final option, but that was canceled by COVID for a few months.
Even Without COVID is a game development cycle that has been getting longer. Between 2005-2010, Sony Santa Monica released Three console God of War games. Naughty Dog published one game between 2007-2014. The Last of Us Three Uncharted games. BioWare has released three games between 2007 and 2013. Mass Effect Games, three Dragon Age Games, and also Star Wars: The Old Republic. Meanwhile, it took Sony Santa Monica four and a half years to get a (largely iterative – not meant as a criticism, mind you, just an observation on something that should have It was helpful development) sequel to God of War 2018 out. BioWare hasn’t released a new game since 2019 (which was Anthem). BioWare hasn’t released a new Singleplayer Since 2017 (which is Mass Effect Andromeda). BioWare hasn’t released a Good game since – you know what, this topic is depressing, the point is they’ve been taking a very long time to get games out. Naughty Dog, you ask? They had to wait for four years before they could go from Uncharted 4 To The Last of Us 2 We did, however, have to admit that we had. The Lost Legacy: Uncharted There are many other versions. And two and a half years after their release, the most they have put out is a remake of the original Last of Us Game, which was in large part worked on by another studio. Their next game isn’t even formally announced.
The average game takes over a decade to develop. This means that many of the games you see now were developed between 2017 and 2019, when the last gen was still in full swing. It’s just, those games took forever to come out – in one part because that’s just how things are now, but then we also throw COVID on top.
All this is to say that the reasons games are cross-gen in two years are understandable. These games make sense. If the development pipeline wasn’t ready, why would we buy these consoles now? I said this back in 2020, before the PS5 and Xbox Series were out, that it felt like they were being rushed to the market out of an obligation to… who, exactly? Shareholders? It definitely wasn’t developers, who have yet to convincingly move to these new systems en masse. It wasn’t for the players, because no player wants $500 consoles They have nothing to show for it. Who were they to serve?
Two years into this generation, we’re yet to get a convincing signature showpiece title. Two years in, we’re yet to get anything that feels technically more impressive than Red Dead Redemption 2, 2018 Game It runs on the base Xbox One toaster oven. Two years in, we’re yet to see the promises of new design paradigms powered by these new consoles bear out in the handful of next-gen only games we did get.
Maybe this changes next year – at long last, next year will finally introduce several next-gen only titles. Redfall and Starfield are Final Fantasy 16’s Dead Space, Redfall and Starfield. Forspoken, Alan Wake 2, Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Suicide Squad 2, Forza Motorsport, Spider-Man 2, Tekken 8 STALKER 2. Star Wars Jedi are all confirmed to be next generation only games, and while it is vanishingly unlikely that all (or even most) of them do come out in 2023, at the very least it seems like we are finally moving into a period where major projects from first and third party publishers are willing to leave the older generation consoles behind (for now, anyway – I remember when several games were announced as “next gen only” before getting last generation versions revealed. I’m mostly looking at Sony and Capcom here, who’ve been the worst offenders of this kind of misleading marketing). Maybe all this will change soon. Even Nintendo will soon release new hardware, as the Switch is now six years old and rumors of a successor growing louder. They can revive the industry with new hardware, new design paradigms and new hardware like they did with the Switch and the two-two whammy in 2017. Breathe in the Wild Super Mario Odyssey.
As of right now? 500 plastic boxes are available. Their greatest claim to fame is the ability to play games in cheaper plastic boxes, but with a little more. The following are the top-rated games for this year. Elden Ring Persona 5 RoyalBoth use PS3-level tech. The promise of a new game design revolution was false.
This last part may never change. But if nothing else, maybe we can finally start getting games that weren’t designed around low-end 2012 tablet CPUs. Right?
Note: GamingBolt is not responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
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