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[crackajack]

Every new gen has been better than the one before. Still the stagnation this time is astounding. I currently play a mix of PS5, PS4 and PS3 games, nothing except the graphics and load times is different, the games' cores are exactly the same. PS4 at least offered the clarity of FHD, where the PS3 failed at mostly. PS5 only offers 4k which is just no important improvement that is actually mind blowing. If you had a Pro the incremental step must feel imperceiveable.
I'd rather have more CPU and GPU budget allocated to new game mechanics, physics, maybe AI chat, maybe even via microphone. All the games of the PS5 are possible on PS3 without much lost beside visuals. That uninspired just make everything bigger and cram stuff in every corner approach is just disappointing. Don't know Zelda, don't care for it since it reached its peak with OoT, but from what i read it sounds like the evolution of TES-like freedom in a different direction. This is what next gen should be about, not better monetisation, not better engagement numbers, not more MAUs. Heck, even though QTEs are mostly hated - I like them!- , something like that, something that tries something new, is better than just better, more flashy, more accurate visuals. At least play with visual styles if that is the only thing you focus on. Almost(?) only indies do that. Terrible that Dreams kinda failed.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

This is not the first time the topic came up.

The reality is that game output has seriously slowed for everyone. Even Nintendo, arguably best of them all, is barely keeping up with 2 Zelda games per console. Now there are still a lot of total games, but there are less games for any particular individual's personal tastes. if you only like ONE genre, and that genre wasn't lootbox GAAS, then you are struggling for content.

We don't just want games, we want games we personally like. And at this point indies might be the only choice for a starving gamer who has a less mainstream preference.

 

[Rickyiez]

Because there is no Bloodborne 2 yet .

 

[Sakura]

I think zelda proves that its the devs who no longer have the passion, the talent or the ambition to pull off these massive leaps we have come to expect. Everyone wondered why the PS4 gen was just an extension of the PS360 gen. People blamed jaguar CPUs. Devs blamed HDDs. Some blamed bigger budgets, open world and gaas trends for a lack of a meaningful upgrade in gameplay which saw little to no innovations gen on gen even last gen. Then zelda comes out with a way worse processor than the jaguar CPUs, no ssd, and a GPU even worse than the PS3, and showed everyone that anything is possible if you actually want to do it.

I always wondered why Far Cry 2 was far more physics based and interactive than anything that came after it. Same with Crysis and to a lesser extent Infamous, GTA4 and Mass Effect 1. We got a pretty decent GPU bump in the PS4 era (9x) and a massive VRAM jump (10-20x), and devs just kinda forgot about interactivity and went all in on graphics and vast (empty) open worlds with no real interactivity or simulations. Surely, some of that couldve been offloaded to the GPU but they didnt even try. Nintendo tried and got it all to run on PS3 era hardware.

No one will convince me that with the massive increase in CPU and SSD bandwidth, we should be expecting incremental upgrades. Some dev said that Nintendo was showing up AAA devs working on 10x more powerful hardware. It's actually 63x if you go by tflops and compare the handheld tflops 0.190 to xbox series x's 12.1 tflops. Just imagine what Nintendo could do with the 3.5 ghz 8 core 16 thread CPUs and then ask why we are getting such incremental upgrades this gen.

Again, not even talking about visual upgrades here. There is so much to do in terms of technological breakthroughs and innovation and so much power at their fingertips and they are just coasting. Thank God for Zelda.

I wonder if the engine the devs are using plays an impact. You might have a bunch of devs who are good at using say Unreal, but not really good at doing anything outside the box.
Where as something like Zelda might be using Havok for the physics engine, they are basically creating everything else their selves and not relying on an overall game engine that some other company has created. I imagine there is probably a pretty big skill gap between the devs that worked on Zelda and the devs that work at other companies.
I'm sure passion is a thing too though, but it is kind of hard to blame the individual devs for this as it is something that I think comes from the top.

 

[FunkMiller]

Look up how many highly rated, popular games were made per year over ten years ago. Then look at how many are made now.

There are still great games being made, but the amount is far less in a sea of shit.

 

[kyussman]

I was expecting a push forward in game design this gen......I was told the introduction of SSD's would allow devs to design games in exciting new ways.Now I understand every new gen they have to big up new features to get everyone to buy the new consoles,but I actually thought this tech would mean exciting new types of games.....we've been getting remakes of old games and 1.5 games like GOW Ragnarok and Horizon FW........I've been very underwhelmed and have not bothered with a next gen console yet.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Nobody said the games were bad. People who bought next gen consoles are understandably upset nothing substantial has come out to justify their purchase.

I dunno why the fuck this is SO HARD to understand lol. Jesus Christ.

Cross gen fuckery for the past few years.

Why do I need to buy a PS5 again? Oh so I can play PS4 games on it at higher resolutions and framerates.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

I was expecting a push forward in game design this gen......I was told the introduction of SSD's would allow devs to design games in exciting new ways.Now I understand every new gen they have to big up new features to get everyone to buy the new consoles,but I actually thought this tech would mean exciting new types of games.....we've been getting remakes of old games and 1.5 games like GOW Ragnarok and Horizon FW........I've been very underwhelmed and have not bothered with a next gen console yet.

Yeah that hasn't happened either and we're into year 3 of the current gen.

 

[jufonuk]

I think this generation is possible the best it’s been you have an abundance of choice. I’m a switch owner and the amount of choice I have is more than enough.

Nintendo first party
Impossible switch ports
Indies.
Digital games.
Free games that don’t require pay to win.

Ohh and the online expansion pack with older games. Yeah it’s no games pass but it has some nice nostalgia games.

I don’t really do the AAA third party games. So that’s fine by me.

 

[hyperbertha]

Because I don't want to play on hardware with 1 minute loading times while they fly off the shelves like jet engines? Also I'm not gonna buy 2k$ graphics cards to play digital only games, so it has to be consoles.

If you are ok with spending 500 just for 60 fps and quick loading times, that's fine. Most didn't buy these consoles for that.

 

[mdkirby]

No idea, I have played tons of great games in the last year from AAA to indie, and its only getting more packed as the year goes on. I own both consoles, and a steamDeck, which I guess helps. But i'm rare in being 40+ with a wife and job, yet STILL being able to play 3+ hrs most days, and more at weekends. I have no idea how most 40 yr olds with kids etc, or less accommodating partners would have time to even scratch the surface of the worthwhile games that have been releasing.

The only exceptions I guess might be kids who have way more time to do little but play games, or the unemployed. Tho I guess either are more likely than not to be limited to only one platform, which would reduce choice a fair bit. Even with all the trash GAAS there's just so so much to play. Im currently having a blast on midnight suns, just prior I had a great weekend playing dredge (superb little game that) and the new Sherlock game (fuck knows how they managed to make that entire game and release it in under 12 months from starting the kickstarter....in the middle of a fucking war), and prior to that binged through Atomic Heart and Road96: Mile zero, and prior to that Hogwarts....That's all just in the last 2-3 months. June alone is RAMMED for releases

 

[gooner4life_uk]

You just answered your question. Every single one of those are easily possible on a PS4. Why do we need this new generation?

PS4 was great, we hit diminishing returns on graphics last gen, this gen is all about QOL improvements, faster loading, quieter machines, higher quality effects, we won't get a massive jump in graphics again.

 

[Schmendrick]

we won't get a massive jump in graphics again.

wrong.
The moment fully pathtraced lightning completely replaces raster tech will be the next transformative moment. We´re still stuck with baked lighting that falls apart depending on the camera angle and only a handful of lightsources that are allowed to actually act like real lightsources per scene.

 

[KungFucius]

Its a mix of things. Negativity trends and sometimes people just like to bitch, so relatively small things get blown out of proportion.

There has been a lot of negative things in the last month or so. The Jedi game needed a couple of patches, Redfall was poorly received across the board, Sony is only releasing one major AAA game they made this year and a second they paid to have exclusive on their platform, Zelda was fucking amazing but is on a weak system that a fair amount of gamers don't have, Gollum was a fucking joke, ...

Then there are longer term trends like GaaS games making up a large enough portion of new games / announcements, the price of games went from 60 to 70 and more games are bought digitally from stores that have no competition so you can't buy older games at good prices as often as you could in the past, controllers are made with shittier parts and cost more and fail more often, games cost a ton to make so many publishers play it safe and things feel too samey and also lower output from known devs due to the increased cost and complexity ...

Lots of little and big things that can lead to people complaining and when there are a lot of things happening in any one time it makes the complaints seem more prevalent. Also fanboy console warring always adds to anger because it is usually so pathetic to witness.

 

[Schmendrick]

Because game tech and design are nearly stagnant and we don`t have the hardware ressources to overcome certain critical limitations (mainly RT). The only light in the dark we`ve seen 3 years into the generation have been tech demos.

 

[Xenogeist]

Did you saw the PlayStation showcase? That thing was filled with 98% of "games" movies wannabe that probably will flop.

Nowadays they don't make games anymore, they don't know how to make videogames, the industry is filled with people who never played before, now all the "gamers" want is just Spiderman, Wolvorine, The Last of Us no one demands games like a new Alundra, a new Jumping Flash, a new Legend of dragoon, a new Medievil, you know what I'm saying? Players want movie like experience, these people lets be honest don't know what videogames really are and sadly the industry is filled with the confused people.
And as for the indies these guys all of them have some mental issue or family issue or social justice issue, I mean look at their games holy s**t their games are all poetic, no enemies, walking simulator, their main focus is not fun but make the player cry or something like that, these indie have daddy issues what's wrong with them.

What were they thinking with goodbye volcano high these guys have some F up s**t in their head.
They have a dark past and they try to hide behind these f up games.

 

[RoboFu]

People were conditioned for many years to think better graphics = better games. It’s Sony and MS fault really for pushing that marketing for so long.

We are getting to a point where time, money, tools, and skill just can’t keep up with the expectations.

But also there’s the whole diminishing returns. Atari to ps3 were huge jumps every gen just because computer graphics were in its infancy and made rapid progress and was not held down by having to have legacy support. Every chip could be completely different from each other and were on the graphics side of things. On the cpu side there really was only 3 main cpus with a few different versions for most of the 70s, 80s, and 90s in the consumer space.

Today everything has to made to a standards, everything has to support legacy standards, it’s much harder to innovate because of standardization even then it’s really only been adding more of the same processors on a chip and controlling how they work together.
There is little more that can be done in adding more to basic things like color space that would make as much of a noticeable difference. Even hdr wasn’t as noticeable as going from a 56 color palette to 256.

 

[RGB'D]

You just answered your question. Every single one of those are easily possible on a PS4. Why do we need this new generation?

I get your point, but the move to SSD was absolutely worth the new gen. I hate waiting to load.

 

[charles8771]

Look up how many highly rated, popular games were made per year over ten years ago. Then look at how many are made now.

There are still great games being made, but the amount is far less in a sea of shit.

Games have long time development dude, we got 3 God of War games between 2005 and 2010 but 2 God of War games between 2018 and 2022

Its not like COVID increased development time, GOW 2018 took 5 years to develop

 

[E-Cat]

So a game must be impossible to play on the previous generation in order to be good? Nonsense.

Not in order to be good, but to warrant a new generation.

 

[charles8771]

Yup, totally agree.
I think games like TotK prove that the issue was never the power of the hardware but just stagnant game design and a hyper focus on visuals above everything else.
Ps3 feels like the last gen with a sense of innovation, ever since then it's like most of the industry stopped trying to innovate and push things forward and just started to focus on refining a handful of proven formulas and improving the size and visuals of games. Most Ps4 games already felt like they weren't bringing many new design ideas compared to the Ps3, and now it's the same except diminishing returns mean even the visual upgrades aren't as impressive as they used to be.

At this point I'm fairly certain Sony could release a new PlayStation tomorrow with an Rtx4090 and a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and we'd still get the same types of games, just with better ray tracing, higher res textures and stuff like that.

All of that said I do think people are at least partially to blame as so many just seem to only want graphics. Look at the Spiderman 2 threads, the main focus of the conversation is how it compares graphically to the first one instead of how we are seemingly still just doing the Arkham City formula 2 console gens later. Genres like immersive sims which are some of the few that still feel like they want to focus on interactivity and player freedom usually tend to have poor sales despite strong reviews.

Most of the industry has trained people to expect nothing but better graphics so that's what everyone looks forward to. The only big outlier is Nintendo who stopped focusing on graphics a long time ago and actually has an audience that doesn't really care about that stuff.

The 7th gen was the generation where frame rates was something developers didn't cared about:

 

[IAmRei]

I keep seeing people on this board, Twitter, Reddit, etc. complaining about how shitty games are these days and I'm having a hard time agreeing.

Yes, there are loads of incredibly greedy business practices, crunch for developers, broken promises, your "Red Falls" and "LOTR: Gollums" and myriad issues plaguing the industry. PC hardware prices have been bad recently and there has been a piss-poor track record of ports this last year or two.

But at the end of the day, we're getting some pretty damn incredible games very frequently. Despite my absolute best efforts, I simply cannot keep up.

This year alone has been a non-stop force-feeding of incredible game after incredible game. whycantIholdallthesegames.jpg.

Tears of the Kingdom just came out and while I'm reeling from that. BOOM. Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy XVI. Hell, even Boltgun is awesome and just came out!

Are people just playing a few genres and getting frustrated when something good doesn't fall within their limited view?

If you're one of these people, I'd love to know your reasoning.

"their limited view" <<-- You got your answer

 

[93xfan]

I have a feeling this will go down as one of the best years for gaming in a long time

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
SF6
Diablo 4
Final Fantasy 16
Starfield
Forza Motorsport (fingers crossed)

 

[In Cold Blood]

1. Diminshing returns graphically.
2. Covid delays
3. Longer time periods between game releases.
4. Too much effort and resources have been put into GAAS games.
5. Too many sequels.

 

[March Climber]

I have a feeling this will go down as one of the best years for gaming in a long time

Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
SF6
Diablo 4
Final Fantasy 16
Starfield
Forza Motorsport (fingers crossed)

If the momentum this year keeps it's pace, 2023 should be a pivotal year for gaming youths of this generation, much like 1998, 2001, or 2004 was for many here. Even this year ends up being that good, I'm still not sure GAF will give it a seat at the table of great years in gaming. I think that's what the OP was trying to point out back when this thread was made.

 

[Lethal01]

wrong.
The moment fully pathtraced lightning completely replaces raster tech will be the next transformative moment. We´re still stuck with baked lighting that falls apart depending on the camera angle and only a handful of lightsources that are allowed to actually act like real lightsources per scene.

That will be an incremental change for sure, so again, not giant leap.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Probably because of bad 3rd party games. It's not these consoles to blame for such shitty versions of games It's the "still last gen" and expensive devices that are supported in the development process to blame.

 

[DenchDeckard]

3 years in and literally a few next gen games, with pro consoles launching within the next 12 to 18 months maybe?

 

[mxbison]

Because it's all the samey old sequel and remake stuff.

Just like the games you mentioned.

 

[M.W.]

It was out dated at launch.

 

[Fredrik]

We’re 3 years into this generation.

PS5 Pro might come out next year, would’ve come this year if it weren’t for Covid rumors says. There will likely be a Xbox coming out about the same time.

And lets look into two big developers on both platforms - Naughty Dog and The Coalition.


To this day we have not seen a single new game by Naughty Dog. And their upcoming one is essentially a multiplayer mode for TLOUP2 that turned into a whole game.

Meanwhile, on PS3 Naughty Dog released:
Uncharted
Uncharted 2
Uncharted 3
The Last of Us


And to this day, 3 years into the generation, The Coalition have not released a single new game, only the Hivebuster DLC for Gears 5.

Meanwhile, on 360 The Coalition released:
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Gears of War Judgement


We also got the complete Mass Effect trilogy the same generation. 8 Assassin’s Creed games. Halo 3, ODST, Reach, 4.
Etc


This is why this generation is so bad.
Apparently it takes 5+ years to make a game now, unless you’re doing highly iterated sport games or have multiple studios working on the same IP as with Call of Duty.
Not sure what’s taking so long now.

 

[lachesis]

I think it has mostly due to the COVID related delays which coincided with a new console release and all. Feels like we were stuck in the limbo of waiting game.
2023 seems to be shaping up to be one of the greatest years of all time (my personal fav is of course 1998) - so I am hoping it would get better and better from now on for next few years.

 

[hussar16]

Let's see barely any games exclusivet for this gen. Constant service genre games.and lack luster graphics and gameplay.

 

[hussar16]

Look up how many highly rated, popular games were made per year over ten years ago. Then look at how many are made now.

There are still great games being made, but the amount is far less in a sea of shit.

It's almost like movies in a way.overblown movies with huge budgets that try to please everyone and in the end nobody . It's a risk bussiness nowadays and creativity is gone

 

[Drizzlehell]

A lot of games these days lack soul. It's difficult to point to just one specific thing as a potential culprit because it's more like an amalgamation of many smaller elements and design philosophies that drive modern game development that simply make a lot of them feel like they were designed by a committee. They lack any bold and risky ideas, creativity, and that joyful energy and sense of discovery. Every game these days needs to appeal to as broad an audience as possible because they cost a lot of money to make and therefore, publishers and developers want to ensure the return on the investment. And it kinda kills any sort of risk-taking as a result. If a game is done by the numbers, then it's gonna play as such too.

That is why Elden Ring felt like such a breath of fresh air, because it felt different from most other triple-A games that come out these days and didn't try to conform to the notion that every game should be for everyone. It had a very specific experience in mind and by sticking to that vision, FromSoft was able to create something unique and fresh. It's why Capcom and many other Japanese developers are held in such a high regard as well, because they either give us what we want by remaking great classics, or take some risks with new IPs that prioritize being a game first.

I don't think it's a coincidence that whenever I pick up a 20 year old game that I've never played before, I'm having tons more fun than with any modern triple-A game released in the past few years.

 

[Ozzie666]

All generations, most companies continue to socially engineer customers to fall for new ways of making money, releasing beta versions, bugged versions, microtransactions, DLC, $70 games, battle passes, online play, content missing in games. We take it with a smile and keep on buying. The destruction of iconic franchises like HALO and others, don't get me started on the movie equivalents like Indiana Jones. Let's not forget the layoffs, just so some managers can get their bonuses even if the business is turning a big profit. All for shareholders and overpaid executives like Bobby. Fun times. I miss the simpler times when Nintendo ruled with an iron fist, at least we got great games.

I can't wait to see what they get away with next. EA? 2K? Sqaure? what ya got?

 

[RTX4070]

Because gaming is in its worst state ever.

 

[Fbh]

The 7th gen was the generation where frame rates was something developers didn't cared about:

I don't get your point.
I mean yeah games ran pretty badly during that gen but at least the games themselves still felt like they were offering a generational leap compared to previous gens.
Also let's not pretend performance was a priority before the 7th gen when classics like Ocarina of time run at 20fps (lower in Europe), battles in games like FFVIII were locked to 15fps, games like Shadow of the Colossus run at 15-20fps during fights and stuff like GTA San Andreas ran at like 20-25fps unless you are looking at an empty street or something

 

[SHA]

I don't really consider myself picky, or others who look just like that, just because for the last 10 to 15 years even before that, I've experienced tons of great contents, and through all that time, before we jump to that conclusion, it's really hard to understand the flow or the rhythm of contents, you can't just picture it or pinpoint at something and think it's going to be straight from that point, it has never been the case ever, we were just expecting the stuff we used to experience to get more of it, nothing more than that, maybe cause the industry's approach is less of artistic and more of filling personal stuff for personal reasons, cause we know the idea of art if you take from any approach is absolute, there's no limit to it.

 

[trent_the_gent]

Unless you are talking about remakes or sequels then most devs are all just copying each others homework nowadays.

Look at the console showcases from a few weeks back. Most of the games could be described as being a reskin of something that some other dev released a few years ago. It's hard to be enthusiastic about this gen when it's the same thing over and over and you've already played the best version of it 5 years ago.

 

[GymWolf]

Because some people should just stop playing and hang the controller on the wall.

2023 is one of the best years in gaming ever and it's not even done yet.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

There's just too few next generation experiences. Stuff like Ratchet and Clank, FF16, Starfield, CP2077, Elden Ring, and ToTK don't come along that often. Most of this stuff is cross-gen and it shows.

Not to say there isn't any fun to be had, though.

 

[Razvedka]

The amount of awesome moments and fun I've had playing GT7 in VR with wheel and pedal setup makes a lot of these arguments dumb. It's a PS4 game though

What's your setup?

 

[RTX4070]

Because some people should just stop playing and hang the controller on the wall.

2023 is one of the best years in gaming ever and it's not even done yet.

You must be young.

 

[MasterDerico]

I have a ps5, its a nice console, but has no games of my interest...
But i need to have to follow the upcoming games like Mk1, Tekken 8, etc...

I have only 3 game discs for my ps5 and one digital;

-Returnal
-Soulstice
-FFXVI
-Bright Memory (digital)


I play much more my old consoles...

Current gen has slow releases and is the worst generation of all time imo...I just hope more frequent releases.

 

[MMaRsu]

You just answered your question. Every single one of those are easily possible on a PS4. Why do we need this new generation?

This.

And people think real next gen games are gonna be 60fps lmaooo

 

[MMaRsu]

FFVII Remake is a great example. I played through on PS5 and although I know it's on PS4, it definitely felt "next gen".

I've seen people make the same comment about FF16.

What is next gen about either of them?

 

[ungalo]

Besides the next gen deception, i just think games aren't all that interesting. The games branded as "incredible" are just not incredible to me.

It's easy for me to find some sort of fun playing games but it rarely goes beyond that anymore.

 

[GymWolf]

You must be young.

I'm 36 and started at 3 with my father and black and white pong.

You are just old inside

 

[64bitmodels]

a new Alundra, a new Jumping Flash, a new Legend of dragoon, a new Medievil, you know what I'm saying?

As a jumping flash fan i think that you need to broaden your horizons, and not get so angry over what other people like.

Have you PLAYED spiderman? Great traversal, fun combat, good stealth gameplay, amazing animations and visuals. People don't like that game because it's a 'movie'.... they like it because it's fucking good and a unique take on the Arkham formula. There aren't even as many cutscenes in it, it's more gameplay focused than you think. I can't speak for the Last of Us (and i don't very much like new God of War despite the good combat), but people want games like Wolverine because they want that type of slasher/beatemup combat gameplay adapted to wolverine's set of powers... it sounds fun

And as for the indies these guys all of them have some mental issue or family issue or social justice issue, I mean look at their games holy s**t their games are all poetic, no enemies, walking simulator, their main focus is not fun but make the player cry or something like that, these indie have daddy issues what's wrong with them.

What were they thinking with goodbye volcano high these guys have some F up s**t in their head.
They have a dark past and they try to hide behind these f up games.

And this is just fucking wrong. all of it. Even the Goodbye Volcano High part.

Like.... Indies are all made by people with mental issues? Games like Hollow Knight, Vampire Survivors, Ultrakill, Cuphead and Pizza Tower are held in high regard and beloved by many gamers these days. This idea that they're all "depression walking simulators made by mentally distraught people who want to make you cry" needs to fuckin stop.

Like all games, they simply come in a large amount of shapes and sizes.