This Generation of Consoles versus Last Generation

[J_Viper]

With the next console cycle arriving roughly a year and a half from now, I thought it would be fun to see how this generation stacks up against the decade spanning, seventh generation.

Now, there's still plenty of heavy hitters like Death Stranding, The Last of Us II, and Cyberpunk 2027 still on the schedule, and these are certainly games that could ensure both the PS4 and Xbox One end with a bang. I do realize that I'm jumping the gun a bit by making this thread lol

I would have to go with the good ol' Xbox 360 and PS3 era. I can't deny the impact nostalgia has on my choice. With both consoles launching while I was in middle school, the stress of life had not yet poisoned my brain and threatened to ruin my hobbies. I had so much more time to mess around and stay up all night playing Halo and Gears with my main dudes.

But aside from that factor, I look back and notice a lot of advantages last gen had over this gen.

In this gen of consoles, games outstaying their welcome is a common fault. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey are two of my favorites of this console cycle, but an issue they both share is that they are simply too damn long. Where as the first RDR and Assassin's Creed 2 are both games that can be wrapped up in around thirty hours, their next gen successors can run for double that amount (hell, even triple in the case of Odyssey).

Even outside of the open-world genre though, linear, tighter designed games were often the norm, and that's something I greatly miss when so many developers this gen have been aiming for quantity rather than quality.

There's a ton of reasons why I'd go for last gen over current, including the lack of micro-transaction/GaaS mishaps, more experimentation from developers and publishers (at least early on), both Sony and MS having a strong lineup of exclusives, and EA still bringing the goods (I love you, Dead Space).

I'll go back tomorrow and elaborate on more of my feelings when I'm less tired, but I'm curious to know which cycle of consoles the rest of you folks prefer.

 

[The Struggler]

Witcher 3

 

[FF Seraphim]

I can play Doom 2016 on the go. This generation wins.

 

[SamAlbro]

The Switch port begging is better than the Wii port begging.

 

[Gale Moran]

Switch is ninth gen so I would vote for that. Wii-u is 8th.

 

[RestEerie]

This gen gave me bloodborne so it won for eternity

 

[Bishop89]

Last gen was better for multiplayer, but this gen QOL is much better.

 

[MrNewVegas]

I feel as though the amount of big name games has been smaller this gen. This gen has the far superior games though. I would take this gen in a hearbeat. This is coming from a guy who has a massive 360 collection and whos fave game is from last gen. Hell I think 3 of my top 10 games are from last gen.

 

[AA_DOOM]

The Switch port begging is better than the Wii port begging.

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I was 6 when the Wii launched and wasn't really into gaming news, so pardon my ignorance, but there was Wii port begging in the same way there's Switch port begging now?

 

[maximumzero]

I enjoy Nintendo's software output so I'd pick the Wii and Wii U over the PS3/360 and PS4/XBO respectively but that's an extraordinarily subjective opinion.

Between the two I'd probably go with the Wii U just because of the Indie software explosion between 2012 and 2017.

Should be interesting to see how the Switch library stacks up against the PS5 and XB2.

 

[Deleted member 12833]

Last gen was better for multiplayer, but this gen QOL is much better.

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My thoughts as well

 

[Schlep]

Indies didn't really start coming into their own until near the end of last gen. Now they're so good and commonplace that it's made this gen by far the best.

 

[vastick]

There were more games and a lot of more new ips last gen. Every developer released less games this generation.

 

[Xenosaga]

For me this gen has been much better than last gen. Last gen was terrible for genre I loved (JRPG) if I exclude portable systems. The only ones I really liked for 7th Gen were Resonance of Fate, Valkyria Chronicles and Xenoblade. But this gen I had JRPGs like Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI, Nier Automata, Kingdom Hearts III, Xenoblade 2, all of whom I liked more than any JRPG from 7th Gen. And there is still FF7R coming out early next year. Even excluding JRPG there are far more games I enjoyed in current gen compared to 7th Gen.
I have been playing since PS1-gen and last gen was by far the worst gen for me.

 

[Robin]

Hard to say until this generation is actually dead and buried. The Playstation 3 had some serious heavy hitters in it's last two years. This is a strange way of thinking of it, but if we were to cut the two hardware generations lifespans into a first half and a second half It would go:

8's Second Half > 7 > 8's First Half.

But also, I think certain genres have done better in other generations. I feel like FPS games have waned quite a bit this generation, and I also find myself missing Bethesda and Bioware's renditions of the WRPG from previous generations. JRPGs have waned as far as ""AAA"" games are concerned, but are thriving with Indies and whatever we're calling that not-quite-indie-not-quite-AAA part of the market.

7th gen was in many ways the rise of indies, but with 8th it's business as usual. Not sure how to compare the two.

It's tough to say because a lot of developers and franchises that were missing strong releases are starting to reemerge. Capcom came out in the second half and Square could pull things out in the end with FF7:R.

 

[Nameless]

-Bro Shooters
-Music Games
-Weakest Gen by far for Japanese gaming

Gen 7 had some gems, but Gen 8 nukes it from space.

 

[SamAlbro]

I was 6 when the Wii launched and wasn't really into gaming news, so pardon my ignorance, but there was Wii port begging in the same way there's Switch port begging now?

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Yup. Not always for a direct port. Some of it was just to get franchises on the Wii.

there was massive blowback about not getting Resident Evil or Dead Space games (outside of rail shooter) after the Re4 port proved how perfectly those games worked with Wii controls.

 

[deftones r cool]

Sony PSP

 

[Dranakin]

I still contend that last generation is the worst modern generation (NES onward). Aside from some obvious gems, dominated by generic dude-bro shooters, dull orange/sand colors, terrible/unreliable hardware, etc.

 

[Shinku_King]

Probably least favorite gen, I really like the switch, but not much of a fan of the ps4/Xbox. I loved the 360 and I thought the wii/ps3 was just ok.

 

[thebishop]

I love the PS4 for bringing a complicated set of modern gaming features together in a really seamless and approachable package. It's an amazing console and set of system services for a great price.

But as a generation, I feel the current one was slower and less diverse than the PS3/360 cycle. A lot of major teams got caught in the cross-gen window and only actually made one game dedicated to the current hardware. By contrast, a lot of franchises that were new in the PS3/360 cycle had a trilogy of games in one generation (Mass Effect, Gears of War, Uncharted, Resistance...). I can't think of many trilogies this generation, and even fewer from original franchises.

It's really surprising given that both 360 and PS3 were complex machines that demanded a lot of new skills for console development. Even without the wild new paradigm on the Cell processor, it would've still been a huge shift for multicore development, and pixel shaders as a standard feature. PS4 and XB1 are much more tame beasts, sticking to PC architecture that most devs were already familiar with. I expected a much more rapid pace of development, but I think development ambition just shot way up. The result was a lot of great games, still way more than I have time to play, but also some major casualties along the way.

 

[WhtR88t]

This gen wins because of suspend mode and background updates. Don't even know how we survived last gen without that.

 

[Bobcats]

Yup. Not always for a direct port. Some of it was just to get franchises on the Wii.

there was massive blowback about not getting Resident Evil or Dead Space games (outside of rail shooter) after the Re4 port proved how perfectly those games worked with Wii controls.

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RE4 was pretty incredible to play with those Wiimotes as much as I disliked them in general.

I still contend that last generation is the worst modern generation (NES onward). Aside from some obvious gems, dominated by generic dude-bro shooters, dull orange/sand colors, terrible/unreliable hardware, etc.

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I agree completely about it being the worst modern generation. It's the only time I've regret purchasing hardware.

 

[Deleted member 7130]

True HD gaming + BC on XBone + PS3 remasters on PS4 just about kills last gen

 

[VeryHighlander]

Last gen had like 80% of the video game industry trying to break new ground and actually innovate. In fact because of this, most of the games we play today are using systems that were developed last gen. It felt like every gaming studio wanted to compete. Now it seems like devs are churning half as much games out this gen, although the quality of games is higher.

Last gen changed everything. Look at the 360's library and try and tell me that isn't amazing. Halo 3? GTA 4 and 5? Gears of war? Ugh. I fucking miss those days :/

 

[KillLaCam]

This gen has The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne

 

[Cpt-GargameL]

This gen by a long shot. SONY doing what they do best. Microsoft coarse correcting and having an amazing business proposition with their game services and the addition of Switch makes it all that much sweeter.

 

[Deleted member 8784]

I think I preferred last gen personally.
The only game this generation that I've loved truly madly deeply has been Bloodborne.

This generation also saw the introduction of lottery box microtransaction mechanics, which is the worst kind of monetisation I could have imagined, and the introduction of 'limited time, get-it-or-miss-it-forever" content.

I always preferred (and even enjoyed) to pay for a good chunky DLC pack, which we had last generation.

It's also been a shame to see Microsoft not on top form this time around, they never did recover from the badly thought out, badly planned disaster that was the original Xbox One and that fkin Kinect sensor.

 

[Zoph]

This generation has been so much better in just about every way. The hardware has been better up to the task of running the software demanded for it, the quality of games in general has been dramatically more consistent, most genres have fared much better, and Indies this gen really finally took off and have created a space in the market far exceeding what we used to expect from "B-Tier" titles in past gens.

I do think this has been more of an iterative generation than an evolutionary one, but that's not a bad thing. Like the SNES and PS2 gens before this one, it took the new ideas and experiments from the previous gen and polished them up to their best potential.

 

[Forerunner]

I have a huge soft spot for gen seven. Halo 3 and Reach, CoD 4, Mass Effect, BF 3, BC 2, and etc. I could go on and on. It felt like there was a constant stream of great games.

 

[Mona]

i dunno, last gen had better games, but this gen had much better game performance

neither gen has blown me away though

 

[jroc74]

I just love that the Wii U is separate, lol.

 

[FTF]

Gen 8 easily.

 

[Strangelove_77]

Last gen was possibly the worst generation ever in gaming since the NES generation.

 

[Kuro]

The only thing last gen has over this gen is the quantity of AAA games from my favorite western devs.

 

[DoradoWinston]

WiiU belongs in that list not Switch.

Switch is by itself until Holiday 2020

 

[Aftervirtue]

Gen 7 broke my gaming spirits and made the hobby fall out of favor with me.

Breath of the Wild and Bloodborne in 2017 back to back rekindled my love for the medium and I have never looked back.

 

[GonXtreme]

Gimme PS3 and I'm happy. It's about the exclusives.

 

[yap]

Gen 7 is fascinating for me. It paved the way to a huge growth of the industry, many experiments led to major genre/trends that 8th gen still follows even at its tailend, and it's the gen that I spent the most time playing in my teen years.

but fuck me i can't remember anything about the games i played. very few stuck with me that gen unlike 6th or 8th.

 

[dex3108]

Last gen had way more games. Just look at EA and Activision output last gen and this gen. And even Sony had more games and variety.

 

[thebishop]

Gimme PS3 and I'm happy. It's about the exclusives.

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I think I had over 60 games on bluray alone for PS3. For PS4, it's more like 25. Though the average level of polish on those 25 games is legitimately staggering.

 

[Cantaim]

Last gen gave me Skyrim, Mass Effect, and Deus Ex Human Revolution . it wins for me by a fucking landslide.

 

[the_kaotek1]

This gen gave me bloodborne so it won for eternity

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No lies detected.


Honestly, to me last gen was my least favourite (I've been playing since the first gen) maybe because it followed arguably the greatest gen of all it felt a bit lackluster.

 

[Remo Williams]

I've loved both, but this is the first console generation that I've experienced from its early days, and I've really enjoyed it thoroughly. Features like suspend and resume, automated cloud saves, and screenshots made Xbox One a machine that's much more pleasant to use than any of the previous gen consoles. However, if Xbox One didn't have such great BC support, my opinion would perhaps be different.

 

[Pyro]

Last gen had a lot more original IP (even if they weren't all great or even good) so I have to go with that.

 

[DmckPower]

Last gen was a very awkward start to HD development.

To me it was a process analogous to the start of 3D on the PS1 and the jump to this gen is similar to a PS1~PS2 jump.

Games performed so much worse on average and their scope always felt hampered.

There is very little worth going back to on PS360 gen and they all got remastered

 

[SMD]

.

 

[Chasex]

Easy 7th gen for me.

2006 - 2009ish Xbox 360 were my prime gaming years. I was young, had tons of free time, and a lot of disposable income. Xbox Live felt like the future. The community was so much more vibrant and active. Halo 3 and CoD4 were daily obsessions - I met so many great friends to this day through these games. Gears of War, Mass Effect, Bioshock, and AC1 all blew my mind. Lots of really cool JRPG's like Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey, and Star Ocean 4 too.

 

[thebishop]

Easy 7th gen for me.

2006 - 2009ish Xbox 360 were my prime gaming years. I was young, had tons of free time, and a lot of disposable income. Xbox Live felt like the future. The community was so much more vibrant and active. Halo 3 and CoD4 were daily obsessions - I met so many great friends to this day through these games. Gears of War, Mass Effect, Bioshock, and AC1 all blew my mind. Lots of really cool JRPG's like Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey, and Star Ocean 4 too.

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Man... imagine if MS had bought Bioware instead of EA...

 

[MZZ]

This generation cashed in on the nostalgia and made games look relatively uncompromised compared to last gen. This generation revived lots of dead franchises killed off in the prior generations.

My problem with last gen, especially at the tail end, is the performance issues and compromises just to squeeze in the developer's vision. Post processing effects were overused which is not necessarily a bad thing but was at a very early form. I remember trying to mod in Bokeh blurring in Skyrim and how amazing

It brought amazing franchises but this generation felt like it pushed the ideas of the last generation to fruition. This generation is the realization of the HD generation just as how PS2 gen is the realization of 3D and SNES gen for the 2D sprites generation.