Compromise has been the watchword of this generation – and thankfully that’s about to change

There was some chatter earlier this year that the jump this new generation will give us will be the biggest since the leap between 2D and 3D. Don’t just dismiss that as marketing talk, because it’s very true.

Since the strongest 2d games were released for the SNES, we’ve seen a very slow transition to 3D. PS1 and PS2 were about finding the roots that would lead us to gaming as we know it today. PS3 was about building those games as best as possible within a digital/online world.

And PS4 has just kinda sat there. That we have had so many amazing experiences over the last seven years on both Xbox One and PlayStation is a testament not to incredible technology, but to the  ingenius men and women who have managed to squeeze every pixel out of these often mediocre machines.

Now, as both the Series X and PlayStation 5 are about to launch, we can finally say the age of compromises is over.

Back to the cutting edge

Nearly seven years ago – on November 30, 2013 – I wrote my PS4 review. I think I summed it up pretty well.

It’d be a lie to say that Sony have managed to create the most powerful gaming machine on the market. You could build a better PC relatively easily and without too much cost. But what they HAVE done is pinpoint that perfect place between tech and cost. For the price that you’re paying here, the PlayStation 4 will continue to impress for years to come.

…And it did. But this quote just goes to show that nobody was fooled by the PS4 and Xbox One at release. These were not cutting edge machines. They were cheap, short-sighted and, especially in Xbox’s case, fit for a very limited purpose. That’s why the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X exist.

But here’s the thing, that’s not true this time around. Yes, you can build a more powerful PC than these new consoles, but it’s expensive and thanks to diminishing returns, not exactly a perfect cost-benefit situation. You can spend twice as much as a Series X and not end up with a console that’s twice as powerful.

That’s chalk and cheese compared to seven years ago.

Tech obviously moves fast, and that PC lead will widen. But if this generation was obvious for that giant chasm between console and PC, this one is less obvious.

Goodbye to comprimises

The canvas that developers now get to use thanks to these consoles is incredible. They no longer have to fight with the device, coding to the metal, to make it do the most simple of things. The power is just there to use, and then some.

And when I say this, I’m talking from a purely gameplay point of view. Game development is compromise, and if a studio wants to put out a 120fps title, they’ll need to build it with lower resolution and graphics settings in mind.

But, for a second, just think how wonderful it is that that’s even an option. They’re not struggling along to make an almost 30fps next-gen game, with no choice but to cut features or turn off graphical settings. They’re not limited by slow ram and ancient CPUs. We’ve written before about the meaning of next-gen, but this is it. Developers being able to do so much more without the need to compromise.

The Future is Bright

From a customer perspective, this has perhaps been the most iterative next-gen launch we’ve ever seen. Almost exclusively, we’re seeing cross-gen games. The only launch title on either machine that isn’t running on the previous gen could very easily be made to do so.

But there’s a reason developers are excited behind the scenes. It’s because these early cross-gen games are giving them time to learn about the new hardware, and to start pushing what it’s capable of. We’ve only seen teases from the likes of EA at what the future may hold, but it’s looking bright.

My final word on the current generation of consoles is that they have punched above their weight for longer than they really should have. In searching for the above review, I found an old article saying seven years is too long for a console generation from some Sony exec. Now, of course, the PS4 will probably still be supported in some first party capacity into its ninth or even tenth year.

These devices, I truly believe, were never meant to stay as the base for gaming for as long as they did. It feels like things have stretched further than they did in the PS3 era, although that’s not accurate. I think the reason it feels that things have lasted so long is because for the last three or four years, there has been a promise of better things. The 4k consoles could hit better resolutions and had better textures, but ultimately the game was the same.

Over the next 12 months, we’re going to see things that are possible only because we’ve unshackled from the Jaguar CPUs. And that’s a very exciting prospect.

Life in the fast lane – Conclusion

If there’s one thing we should take away from the past seven years, it’s that starting on a bad foot isn’t the end of the world.

I wish we’d have started with more powerful kit, and maybe now the consoles wouldn’t be feeling so tired. I wish it would have been possible to have SSDs in 2013, and then maybe loading times wouldn’t be approaching 3 minutes in places.

But what we’ve also learned is that if you give talented developers the tools to make magic, they will make magic. If you give them dreadful hardware, they will overcome its limits.

I don’t know if I’ll be back here writing about the PS6 and the Xbox Trebec in seven years time, but if I am, I hope the optimism pays off. We’re back in the fast lane, and not a moment too soon.