Where Is All The Next-Gen?
Like every other gamer with a bad spending habit, I jumped on the hype train for the next-gen consoles, pre-ordering my PlayStation 4 not too long after it was officially announced and available on Amazon for purchase. I couldn’t contain my excitement for the games we had seen at E3 and at the console’s announcement. They all looked so great, so brilliant and beautiful... so new. The reality, it turns out, was far from that truth.
It’s been a few months since the official release of both consoles; both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launched in November, and we’ve yet to see any real “next-gen” games. My recent purchase of Thief over the weekend has confirmed this. Next-Gen is not truly upon us quite yet. So far we are receiving games rehashed for the new consoles, with marginally updated graphics and some novel features that make use of…nothing spectacular at all.
Where are the new next-gen games and all their brilliance?
I ask myself this question nearly every day. My PS4 sits on my stand under my television right beside my work desk. It is literally eyeing me every moment of the day. To my left is a bookshelf, which is home to my numerous games across a multitude of consoles, handhelds, and PC.
Sadly, there is nothing in that row of blue-colored game cases that offers me anything truly new and genuine for my expensive, shiny black console.
I look towards the future, deep within 2014 and the coming months. I see a couple of truly incredible games and I can’t help but wonder, would these have fared better if they were released alongside the console? Would the console have fared better with more exclusives at its launch?
It’s still early in the development cycle for the new consoles, this is true. Developers need time to learn the ins and outs of the system to make a truly next-gen game to utilize the power of the consoles. So, perhaps launching a couple more exclusives at the console launches would have been a bad idea. We won’t know, however. It couldn’t have hurt and could have brought about more console sales overall.
Games like Destiny and The Division look truly next-gen.
I am overly excited for inFamous: Second Son, but even that looks as if it could have worked on the PlayStation 3 without any problems. Perhaps gamers just want bigger and more of everything as time goes on. Larger open-world environments, better character development and more enthralling stories.
I eagerly await the day when I see a truly next-gen game loaded up on my PlayStation 4, just as I sit down with a controller in hand to enjoy it for endless hours. Once work is completed of course.
[Related Article] The Curious Mystery of The Order: 1886 - Where's the Hype Train?
Brandon Morgan
Plasmid Addict. Zombie Survivalist. XCOM Operative. Vault Dweller. Writer. Editor.
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jb226March 4, 2014, 5:16 pmI totally get the feelings in this article, and these are the reasons I am personally holding off, the hardware will work out any potential bugs and most importantly, there will be games to play. What I totally don't get is the feeling that Infamous: Second Son could be done on the ps3…have you seen the gameplay footage? There is no possible way that anything near that would be possible for the ps3, especially not in an open world setting. Granted, we don't know the constraints of Sucker Punch's Seattle, we don't know the length of the game or much at all about the possible powers, but no one with gaming experience w/ the previous generation would look at Second Son & not see a vast difference in visual fidelity.
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I think you've answered your own question here - the optimisation of games just isn't there yet, and even with new tech, people will need time to settle into how best the hardware can be utilised.
When you look at games from around 2005 for the 360, and then releases in 2012/13, there is an astonishing difference in terms of graphics, as they've somehow managed to best squeeze out what they can from the near redundant software.
I think it'll be a couple of years yet before we see the true potential of the new generation of consoles. -
One thing to remember, though-
Developers usually do need some extra time to get a better handle on new systems. That's evident in every generation; last time around, I think it was even more evident with the PS3 (comparing launch titles to games like The Last Of Us, which blows anything on the 360 out of the water).
But this generation, the entire purpose of these new machines is to give developers a console they can really grasp almost immediately. The accessibility of these machines is what devs have been praising for a while, which means two things: A. better-looking games up-front, and B. but not the same graphical leap over time. -
This generation is typical. We usually have to wait 6-12 months before we start seeing games that make us say, "glad we've got the new system!" They almost never arrive in the first 6 months.
I think inFamous: Second Son has a chance at dropping people's jaws, though. -
The stuff you've talked about in this article is exactly why I've held off from purchasing any next-gen consoles for the time being. Did you play Killzone Shadowfall though? I've heard that it's pretty stunning graphically.
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Shadow Fall is pretty great, graphically, the gameplay, unfortunately, has not been able to capture my attention for long periods of time. I've yet to beat the campaign and have only completed maybe 5 rounds of multiplayer so far.
