They’ve been out for three years now (Picture: Metro.co.uk)
A reader is unimpressed by the first three years of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, despite the quality of this year’s crop of games.
The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S turned three years old last week and yet there were no big celebrations or any kind of acknowledgement, that I’m aware of, from Sony or Microsoft. That’s not surprising given what a weird, disappointing generation it’s been so far.
That may seem an odd a thing to say given what a great year this has been for games, but almost all of the games either do or could exist on the previous gen consoles. 2023’s crop of classics are still great games but that has little to do with the consoles they’re running on.
The irony is things started off pretty well, despite the pandemic, for PlayStation, with a good launch line-up and a great first year. Instead of getting better every year, though, things have been getting worse, to the point where this year has only had one major exclusive, and as good as Spider-Man 2 is that is just not enough.
Microsoft had a great summer showcase but then the game they spent half the show promoting turned out to be a dud. Starfield isn’t terrible but it’s certainly no classic and it not only could have been made last gen, it wouldn’t have even looked particularly good, compared to other games, if it had been.
As streaming starts to become more viable, people have been predicting that each new generation is going to be the last one, because they’re no longer necessary. But I think it’s pretty obvious by now that there’s going to be at least a PlayStation 6 and probably more – Wi-Fi just isn’t good enough or has enough coverage to make streaming the only option.
That’s fine, but what is the point of a new generation if even the meagre improvements it offers are never taken advantage of by new games? You can’t just wait seven years and then say whatever you put out next is a new generation. It’s got to be capable of doing things the previous gen couldn’t and it’s got to have the games to demonstrate that. I don’t believe that’s been the case for either console so far.
SSDs were supposed to change the ways games are designed but they haven’t changed a single thing. Many games still have long loading times and even the few that do use the SSD in-game, like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, don’t do anything interesting with it – and still with longer loading pauses than we were led to believe.
The DualSense still hasn’t been used as well as in Astro’s Playroom – a free game that came with the console. The Xbox Series X doesn’t even have either feature (it has a SSD, but not a super-fast bespoke one like the PlayStation 5) and has barely had any exclusives anyway.
It all feels like the generation has barely started and there’s already rumours of the PS5 Pro, which seems like the most pointless thing ever. The power of the OG PlayStation 5 isn’t being used anywhere near its potential right now, so what an earth would we need a new version for?
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I don’t buy the pandemic as an excuse either. Obviously it had an effect, but it didn’t seem to put Nintendo off their stride for nearly as long as Sony and Microsoft. In fact, Nintendo seem to be running rings round them both at the moment, in terms of both quality and quantity. They’re clearly not rushing the Switch 2 and I’m also willing to bet it’ll have a regular supply of good games when it finally does come out.
Sony and Microsoft are so distracted with their console wars they’ve totally taken their eye off the ball in terms of encouraging and making great games. Everything good about this year, and this generation in general, has had almost nothing to do with them.
By reader Dobert
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A reader is unimpressed by the first three years of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, despite the quality of this year’s crop of games.
