Speaking of gatekeeping, I'm not sure if games being crossgen is indirectly giving us more 60fps games on PS5, but man I'm glad it's happening.
to be honest, i think that's a part of it in at least some capacity.
when these new system's launched with cross-gen support, some devs kind of set an expectation for many with cross gen games getting support for 60fps modes. in a way, it allowed them to have their cake and eat it too, in that they can push the gorgeous, high fidelity graphics modes running at 30fps, but also appease the gamers that prefer framerate over graphical bells and whistles. That way, they can still flaunt how amazing the graphics for PS5/Xbox Series X games are, and still have modes that prioritize performance, like many PC games that let player's customize their experience in the way they prefer.
now, if a game doesn't release with some kind of Performance mode, it gets dinged for it. I think, going forward, and depending on the game (some games target 60fps right off the bat, like Returnal), most games are going to have 60fps modes. And then, publishers, being all about maximizing profit, saw that some last gen games that received 60fps patches was like breathing new life into titles that they considered to have reached their sales potential, and now they can drive PS5 owners to those backwards compatible games, and maybe get a few more sales. It's one of those rare win/win scenarios for everyone involved. I know backwards compatibility and cross-gen have made the usual painful year one of the PS5's life cycle infinitely more bearable for me compared to the start of the PS4 life cycle, where I was absolutely hurting for things to play on it, and kept my PS3 hooked up for over a year while I waited for more PS4 titles to release. With consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X having strong backwards compatibility, with some of those games benefitting greatly from just running on the console (like games with unlocked framerates running at a smooth 60fps, no patch required, to other games having more stable performance in their 30fps modes), this first year has been, for me, at least, fantastic, and I think cross-gen games are also benefitting from this as well.
And then there's Insomniac, who really set the tempo for pulling off impressive feats like 60fps raytracing modes on top of the expected Fidelity and Performance modes. They're an outlier, but they certainly raised a bar there, outside of releasing 3 games in a, what, 6 month period, all excellent, and showpiece games for the PS5. Bluepoint also brought it with a gorgeous game running at 60fps, and a launch title to boot.
It's rare for me to get a console at launch. I usually wait a while, because I like to have at least 4 or 5 games that have me genuinely interested before I invest in a new console, but between Spider-Man Remastered, Miles Morales, Demon's Souls, and Sackboy, I was sold day one. I still can't believe I managed to snag a PS5 on launch day, and to have such quality games that same day was unlike any console launch I had experienced. And of course, Astro's Playroom was amazing, and I really hope we get more of that series soon too!
Personally, I'm not a stickler for framerate. I played Rift Apart in Fidelity Mode, because I wanted to see all the beautiful effects Insomniac were able to put into the game, but I liked having the option to be able to play at 60fps during a second playthrough.
I've been gaming a long time, and I feel confident in saying that this has been one of the best debut years of new consoles in a very, very long time. The fact that we got these new machines (PS5, Xbox Series X/S), during a global pandemic, and then such high quality software to play on them in the first year is just nuts to me! The cross-gen and BC support has been nothing but a good thing, in my opinion.
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