Was going next-gen necessary?

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Dreadnought10

CAG Veteran
Back in the last generation of gaming people and companies made the same claims they make today, that this generation may very well be the last generation of consoles since we have reached such a high level of technology. However, as it turns out there was a new generation, since we now have the seventh generation with PS3, Wii, 360, and OnLive. But was the jump really necessary? Last generation we really reached a level where for the first time high-end graphics and RAM were available. And aside from HD and 3D, it's not all that much different from the current generation.

In this generation we saw an increased use of HD and online play. Compare a current generation game's graphics to a last generation game's graphics on a SDTV, and (depending on the games compared), the difference in graphics is either non-existent or only different on a minuscule level. I may be slightly wrong in this statement, since the only last generation console I am really familiar with is the Nintendo GameCube (and Dreamcast), which was praised as being "eons" ahead of it's competitors in terms of graphics last generation.

Of course, online was only starting to become popular for consoles last generation, and now online is simply a must for all games. Last generation the Dreamcast's online service (Dreamarena, and the second iteration of SegaNet) was shutdown, along with most of it's games, the GameCube's online service only met with limited success (namely Phantasy Star Online), and neither the PS2 or Xbox had online capabilities at launch.

Sure now we can watch Netflix, listen to Last.fm, download updates to games that were half-broken to begin with due to lazy developers, and browse the internet on our consoles, but in terms of actual gaming, was the leap to next-gen really necessary? And more importantly, how would gaming be different today if we were still in the sixth generation, with PlayStation 2, GameCube, Dreamcast, and Xbox?
 
[quote name='Dreadnought10'] PlayStation 2, GameCube, Dreamcast, and Xbox?[/QUOTE]

Online play would still be relatively rare, with no great set-ups like XBL or PSN.

Sub-full price games wouldn't exist. No Castle Crashers, no Scott Pilgrim, no Bionic Commando Re-armed, no Episodes of Liberty City or Shivering Isles.

Most of the AAA titles we have either wouldn't exist, or would exist in shitty, gimped-ass versions.

Graphics would be way worse. If you don't think this generation has a graphical improvement over the last, you don't have eyes.

In other words: EVERYTHING would be worse, but games would cost 50 bucks.
 
In terms of game design not much has changed, in fact in the area of shooters we've actually taken a step backwards this generation.

But visual upgrades are important, and many great games couldn't have been done on last gen consoles. I think this gen is necessary, and I'm glad it came -- but it definitely wasn't worth the money to upgrade until recently IMO.
 
Graphical improvements aside, the games of this gen don't mean shit if they're glitched and broken to begin with.

You can shine a turd as much as you want. It may gleam and look pretty, but it's still a fuckin' turd.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Graphical improvements aside, the games of this gen don't mean shit if they're glitched and broken to begin with.

You can shine a turd as much as you want. It may gleam and look pretty, but it's still a fuckin' turd.[/QUOTE]
New Vegas
 
I wonder what games would still be around if not for this gen. For example I loveed Suikoden, Persona & Wild Arms, which all thrived on the PS2 but fizzled away with the appearance of the PS3 & 360.

Just an un-scientific observation but Japan has had a difficult time getting on board with this gen. Their attention is going away from consoles and more towards handhelds.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']Graphical improvements aside, the games of this gen don't mean shit if they're glitched and broken to begin with.

You can shine a turd as much as you want. It may gleam and look pretty, but it's still a fuckin' turd.[/QUOTE]

As gaming hardware becomes more complicated, stuff like glitches are going to be more common.

What I really hate about this generation is the DLC.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']I wonder what games would still be around if not for this gen. For example I loveed Suikoden, Persona & Wild Arms, which all thrived on the PS2 but fizzled away with the appearance of the PS3 & 360.

Just an un-scientific observation but Japan has had a difficult time getting on board with this gen. Their attention is going away from consoles and more towards handhelds.[/QUOTE]

True. All the JRPGs have been on PSP or DS, with only the low-rent next gen RPGs by NIS on PS3.

What's the deal with Atlus only making games for PSP?
 
[quote name='2DMention']True. All the JRPGs have been on PSP or DS, with only the low-rent next gen RPGs by NIS on PS3.

What's the deal with Atlus only making games for PSP?[/QUOTE]

Atlus can't afford to make games on the 360 / PS3 for a variety of reasons. The cost of entry on the PSP is far lower, they need to sell less copies to make a profit, and if their game bombs they aren't out tons and tons of money.

Look at NIS - they went for games on the PS3, they mostly bombed, and now the company isn't doing that hot.
 
Pretty dang big jump from last gen to this gen I think with getting the HD consoles out and running games smoothly in HD etc.

I mainly play FPS and WRPGs and those have benefitted a lot from the graphics leap, more focus on online play, getting good DLC (expansions, new maps etc.).

That said, I'm in no hurry for these consoles to go away as I'm pretty happy with graphics and gameplay right now--much more so than I was at the end of last gen.
 
Atlus is making Catherine for Xbox 360 and PS3. Yes the first game they make will be expensive, but they can reuse a lot of the code so their next game will be a lot cheaper to make.
 
[quote name='Dreadnought10']
Sure now we can watch Netflix, listen to Last.fm, download updates to games that were half-broken to begin with due to lazy developers,[/QUOTE]
Oh STFU. These people give up 3 years of their life and work 100-hour weeks to entertain us, and you're going to shit on them for not being perfect?
 
I think in general, this generation is better than the last. I didn't have to relive the death of SEGA. :p

I think the better question to ask is are we ready to jump into the NEXT generation as quickly. What kind of benefits can we see with emerging hardware technology? Its coming, inevitably, and probably sooner than we may like but I do wonder. If I had to make a prediction, I'm willing to bet we will see a major evolution when it comes to input devices. This generation has been pretty amazing in that regard and its often ignored how important and pivotal of a move that is.

Like it or not, but the Kinect and Move is selling and selling well. That means Sony and Microsoft are going to sink more money into that technology and I wouldn't be shocked at all if it becomes a "standard feature" shipped with every console next generation, ala Wii.

Of course, if anyone has the best shot in doing it really well, its Nintendo. They have had a five year head start with plenty of research behind it by now. I'm really curious in what they are going to bring out next altogether.

I digress though!
 
[quote name='M-PG71C']
Like it or not, but the Kinect and Move is selling and selling well. That means Sony and Microsoft are going to sink more money into that technology and I wouldn't be shocked at all if it becomes a "standard feature" shipped with every console next generation, ala Wii.
[/QUOTE]

You're probably right. And that's a big reason I want this generation to last as long as possible. I hate motion controls, and loathe the day they're standard in all consoles and get shoe horned into most games like we've seen on the Wii with Zelda, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy etc. that added motion and/or pointer controls that I found added nothing to games and made them play worse than their prior generation counter parts (well other than Galaxy).
 
I think part of it is that consoles have to compete at some level with the PC, by the end of the PS2 lifetime it was a dinosaur compared to modern PCs and the quality difference between games was becoming very apparent. Since the last gen. graphics are better, load times are often shorter, AI is improved, FPS is up.
 
@ dmaul

Well, I think motion controls just need to find their place still. The Wii did it well but it was limited in its use. But, Nintendo did get the ball rolling and it was NECESSARY for growth in the industry. I mean, this industry needs casual gamers, but I think how we "define" casual gamers needs changing. I believe they want the same experience that we have but without the complex controls and craptastic HUDs. There's a lot of unexplored potential there and the first company to unlock it, will win.

I actually think there can be a compromise medium between the two technologies though (Conventional and Motion). I think Move and Wii are more of a realistic answer to that solution than Kinect, but all three have some "evolving" to do. I'm looking towards some future Move games and Nintendo's Zelda Skyward Sword for a more...future kind of implementation. Red Steel 2 even made it there too, its one of the best FPSs I've played this generation, bar none.
 
I have to say this generation is fine except for a few things:

1. It came too early. I didn't even pick up a 360 until 2009.

2. DLC that isn't free. Unless it's a mod (like Counterstrike which was free) or something developed after the game itself, I don't like it.

3. Instruction manuals. I wish we still had full color manuals that explained everything about the game. This is arguably a problem from last generation.

4. Shipping games that were rushed to meet a deadline. There is a reason for video game testers.
 
[quote name='M-PG71C']@ dmaul

Well, I think motion controls just need to find their place still. The Wii did it well but it was limited in its use. But, Nintendo did get the ball rolling and it was NECESSARY for growth in the industry. I mean, this industry needs casual gamers, but I think how we "define" casual gamers needs changing. I believe they want the same experience that we have but without the complex controls and craptastic HUDs. There's a lot of unexplored potential there and the first company to unlock it, will win.

I actually think there can be a compromise medium between the two technologies though (Conventional and Motion). I think Move and Wii are more of a realistic answer to that solution than Kinect, but all three have some "evolving" to do. I'm looking towards some future Move games and Nintendo's Zelda Skyward Sword for a more...future kind of implementation. Red Steel 2 even made it there too, its one of the best FPSs I've played this generation, bar none.[/QUOTE]


I've been over it too many times to go into detail, but I just hate motion controls. I want to veg on the couch and push buttons. Not have to move around.

Motion controls have their place, but just don't design traditional games like Halo, Call of Duty, Metroid, Zelda etc. around them. I'd like to see traditional games stick with traditional controls, and leave motion controls for new types of games and casual games like Wii Sports etc.

If the Xbox 720 and PS4 come with motion controls standard and they're being forced into most games in genres like FPS and WRPG as they have on the Wii I won't be buying a next-gen console.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I've been over it too many times to go into detail, but I just hate motion controls. I want to veg on the couch and push buttons. Not have to move around.

Motion controls have their place, but just don't design traditional games like Halo, Call of Duty, Metroid, Zelda etc. around them. I'd like to see traditional games stick with traditional controls, and leave motion controls for new types of games and casual games like Wii Sports etc.

If the Xbox 720 and PS4 come with motion controls standard and they're being forced into most games in genres like FPS and WRPG as they have on the Wii I won't be buying a next-gen console.[/QUOTE]

I don't think you'll ever have to worry about that though. At least not permanently. It's obvious that there is a market for both traditional controllers and motion controllers. The whole reason motion controls started was to expand the market, not switch markets. As long as there are enough people that want traditional controllers, there will be at least one console with traditional controllers. Having only motion controllers would exclude such a huge market that it just wouldn't make sense from a business point of view. The reason the Wii is so successful is because it's the only console that had motion controls from the start, not because motion controls will always lead to higher profits (as Kinect and Move will most likely show, they don't).
 
Said it before, and I'll say it again...Motion Controls are kind of like the "gateway drug" of gaming...to the common non-gamer, motion controls are easier to understand and therefore allows them to get into the game faster. There's no memorizing which button swings a bat, they just have to swing the bat. Therein lies the true appeal of motion controls - to drastically increase the audience interested in a console. Right now, they're still new, so people are trying to shoehorn them in everywhere, but they won't become the de facto standard.

As for the OP's question...the easiest way to answer would be to look at games that either couldn't exist or would need something significant extracted from it in order to be made last generation.

For example, Dead Rising. Without the resources of the current gen, there's no way they could render that many independently thinking zombies on the screen. Take a look at the Wii port to see what a current-gen DR looks like vs a previous-gen DR.

More examples...without standard hard drives and online capabilities, LittleBigPlanet would just be another platformer. No level editing (no where to save it), no level sharing, only same screen co-op. Call of Duties would still be largely constrained to only local multiplayer as well. Good DLC (such as for Mass Effect 2) probably wouldn't exist. Games like Fallout 3 and Borderlands would have a bit more limitations in their entire "wide open world" thing, if they could even do one.
 
For me Ease of usage on stuff I'd like to do anyways .. well

It's just a Win Win

Put all the goodies in an easy to access spot for me please
Gives me more time to eat Cookies and become Heavy
 
[quote name='Vinny']As gaming hardware becomes more complicated, stuff like glitches are going to be more common.

What I really hate about this generation is the DLC.[/QUOTE]
That's the other thing that annoys me about this gen thus far is all of the DLC that feels like it should've been in the game from release in the first place.
[quote name='pete5883']Oh STFU. These people give up 3 years of their life and work 100-hour weeks to entertain us, and you're going to shit on them for not being perfect?[/QUOTE]
So you like paying for broken games and then waiting weeks or months for the devs to put out patch after patch to fix shit that should've been caught in the beta testing process?

I don't.

If I'm going to pay anywhere near MSRP for a game I want something I can play and enjoy without having it crash every other second. If a developer can't create games and make them right without using a shitton of band-aids on it to fix what they screwed up, then they don't belong in the gaming business.
 
I don't like the overpricing of downloadable games this generation. last generation there were compilation discs like Midway Arcade Treasures, 20 games for $19.99. Now those games are around $5 each to download. I also think XBox didn't reach it's full potential and was killed off too fast. At least PS2 is still around with some new games
 
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[quote name='YoshiFan1']I don't like the overpricing of downloadable games thisfeneration. last generation there were compilation discs like Midway Arcade Treasures, 20 games for $19.99. Now those games are around $5 each to download. I also think XBox didn't reach it's full potential and was killed off too fast. At least PS2 is still around with some new games[/QUOTE]
:applause::applause::applause: I really liked the fact that on the Xbox you could load up your own music and make a custom soundtrack if you wanted to. Moreover, if you have a memory card and a copy of MechAssault, you can make yourself a Media Center if you want to.;)

It was also really nice not to have to buy memory cards for $15-25 apiece like you did with the PS2 because the Xbox had a standard HDD built in. Unfortunately though, once that HDD failed you were SOL unless you were a tech geek, since those HDD's were locked to that specific console with some programming apparently, which my one buddy and his brother just found out when his nephews' old school Xbox HDD went kablooie.:cry:
 
[quote name='YoshiFan1']I don't like the overpricing of downloadable games thisfeneration. last generation there were compilation discs like Midway Arcade Treasures, 20 games for $19.99. Now those games are around $5 each to download. I also think XBox didn't reach it's full potential and was killed off too fast. At least PS2 is still around with some new games[/QUOTE]

The only compilation discs I have seen this gen is Sonics Utilimate Gensis Collection and some Namco one. (sorry for any grammer mistakes....I hate typing on my iPod)
 
[quote name='RawrrSlayer']SNES ftw :D[/QUOTE]

I agree. I always thought of the 16-bit generation as the Renaissance of gaming.
 
SNES and 360 are my two most played (and most enjoyed) consoles of my 25+ years of gaming.

The 16 bit era and this current era are the two I've been the most into gaming. I've always gamed but didn't game as much in the PSX/N64 era or last gen as I did in the 16 bit era and this current generation.

My resurgance of interest in gaming is really from getting into FPS games and WRPGs which were games I didn't play much prior to this generation. Just a tad at the end of last gen with picking up an Xbox for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and then playing the Halo games etc.

I spend too much of last gen playing games/genres I was sick of like platformers, JRPGs, fighting games, sports games etc.

But who knows, maybe by next gen I'll be sick of FPS and WRPG games!
 
[quote name='Vinny']As gaming hardware becomes more complicated, stuff like glitches are going to be more common.

What I really hate about this generation is the DLC.[/QUOTE]
Thank internet-enabled consoles for the broken games. Now just like with PC games, developers can simply release a patch later!

As for DLC, we used to call them "expansion packs". A lot of them are a bit more nickel-and-dimey than traditional PC expansion packs, though.

Those things said, the main thing about this console gen, IMO, is that it resembles PC gaming more than ever.

[quote name='dmaul1114']Motion controls have their place, but just don't design traditional games like Halo, Call of Duty, Metroid, Zelda etc. around them.[/QUOTE]
I would love Halo with Wiimote/Move-style motion controls. And Metroid Prime Trilogy was damn good with the Wiimote/nunchuck setup. I used to not like playing first-person games on consoles, but nowadays I'm starting to prefer Wii controls to keyboard and mouse.

I wouldn't be too worried, though. I see a lot of games having multiple controller options in the future (like several Wii games do): one traditional, one motion-based.
 
IMO, going "next gen" wasn't unnecessary. We have been going "next gen" since the Super Nintendo.

Going HD was completely unnecessary. The hardware they had in 2005 and 2006 isn't really enough for it, and since these are consoles, we're stuck with it. They would have been much better off using the same hardware to push out better visuals at lower resolutions than going HD. Compare PC graphics to PS3 and 360 graphics. Higher resolutions, more draw distance, and better graphics all around.

The best example of this current generation's HDness (or lack thereof) is Metal Gear Solid 4. It actually only runs at 1024x768. The very reason it looked so much better than everything else in 2008 and still holds up better today is because it actually runs at a rather low resolution and gets filtered to output at resolutions up to 1080p.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']:applause::applause::applause: I really liked the fact that on the Xbox you could load up your own music and make a custom soundtrack if you wanted to.
[/QUOTE]

On the 360 this feature is universal... Hell, you can even load up music from your mp3 player or from computers on your network. why bring this up?
 
[quote name='looploop']On the 360 this feature is universal... Hell, you can even load up music from your mp3 player or from computers on your network. why bring this up?[/QUOTE]
That's because MS supposedly owns a patent on it, which is why Sony can't put it in any of their games, but if a developer wanted to they should have no issues doing so.

I only brought it up since it was a feature I liked last gen.
 
[quote name='blueshinra']T
I would love Halo with Wiimote/Move-style motion controls. And Metroid Prime Trilogy was damn good with the Wiimote/nunchuck setup. I used to not like playing first-person games on consoles, but nowadays I'm starting to prefer Wii controls to keyboard and mouse.

I wouldn't be too worried, though. I see a lot of games having multiple controller options in the future (like several Wii games do): one traditional, one motion-based.[/QUOTE]

Just to each their own I guess. The metroid games only worked because of the lock on IMO. The aim isn't precise enough for to free aim with the Wiimote--but to each their own. I don't have steady hands.

And I hope you're right on that. I have no problem with games having motion controls as an option as long as traditional controls are an option (and the game is built around them and plays just as well as traditional games currently do).
 
I feel like this generation is a worthwhile upgrade over the previous one, in raw graphical power and in its other innovations (fully integrated online/social experience especially). It's the next generation that I think is unnecessary; I'll be perfectly happy to stick with my 360 for the foreseeable future.
 
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