The Seventh Generation May Ruin the Game Industry

If attitudes don’t change, the PS3 and Xbox 360 will lead the industry to a second crash. Let me explain.

First of all let’s remember why the industry collapsed in 1983. It was an over-saturation of the market, with too many companies selling their own consoles, but all with the same primitive technology. It’s no secret that early consoles had very rough capabilities, graphics and sound, people knew this even back during their heyday. But by 1983 the tech stalled at this level, the rose-colored glasses came off, and people realized how crappy the hardware was. It didn’t stop software from flying out of inexperienced, upstart game studios at rapier speed, often producing more cartridges than there were consoles to play them on. The think tank also ran dry at this time, resulting in genuinely bad games, and LOTS of them: both lots of individual titles and lots of physical copies. Customers responded to this by not buying these games or the consoles to play them on, resulting in the invention of the video game bargain bin. You had Atari 2600s mixed with Atari 5200s mixed with ColecoVisions mixed with Intellivisions mixed with Odyssey2s (and that’s just naming a few) which all played different-but-equally-subpar versions of popular arcade games. As arcade tech advanced, consoles did not, showing the potential of video games but also showing just how weak these consoles were.

This poor man's Pac-Man wasn't fooling anyone.

Then Nintendo came over in 1985 and turned the home gaming market back into hearts and flowers (yeah right), but more on them another day.

This second crash will not be history repeating itself, as the gaming landscape is practically the opposite from the 80s. Instead of having many consoles playing different-but-equal games, we have only two consoles that play identical games. (I am deliberately leaving Nintendo out of all of this, they will have their own post at a later date.) Not only is it dysfunctional enough to have two different companies and consoles that do and play the same fucking things, but it has been this way for quite a few years now. It’s a checks-and-balances system of sorts that is staving off monopolies and keeping harmony. But yeah, it’s still a pretty toxic dichotomy.

We’ve been trained as game consumers to expect consoles and games in cyclical generations that last about 4-5 years, with the new generation bringing better graphics and ideas than the last. With the seventh generation beginning in 2005 for the Xbox 360 and 2006 for the PS3, we expected Sony and Microsoft to unveil and sell their new consoles by around 2010, 2011 the latest. But they didn’t. Sony and Microsoft both declared their consoles to be active and relevant for 10 years since their debut, and the 2010/2011 timeframe was used instead to launch add-ons for their consoles, designed to tide us over and open the doors for further innovation with the current technology. Both add-ons came in the form of motion control (PlayStation Move and Kinect) and both initially sold strong but diminished into ridicule. With the wow-factor gone, both have been the target of complaints: Kinect for simply not working as well as it should, and Move for winding up what it was pitched not to be: a shoehorned gimmick over-relying on brand recognition. Games optimized for Move/Kinect came out either half-baked, derivative of older Wii games, or worst of all, better executed on the traditional controllers. As developers took the hint, fewer and fewer games came out that required or even used the Move/Kinect, with devs regarding them as a failed liaison for bringing new ideas to the table.

Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Both Microsoft and (especially) Sony also tried to invigorate and capitalize on 3D gaming at this time, which of course never got off the ground due to the cost, glasses and discomfort of current 3DTVs. (Also notice that 3D movie releases are starting to cool down in 2013… maybe we can get back to the world before Avatar ever existed and lit studios on fire to 3D-ify everything.)

The Move, Kinect, and 3D did not keep gamers satisfied, and the awkwardness of 2010-2011 left them with all this extra crap for their consoles while they continued to ask “When is the next generation?” Sony and Microsoft’s answer to this question was (and continues to be) silence. Even as of this day, neither company has announced or even entertained the notion of successors to the PS3 and 360. We are just so trained as consumers to expect a major console release every few years, though few of us can come up with things we’d like to see in a new console that can’t be done now. Even major sites like IGN have declared 2013 as the last year of the 360, assuming that a new console is sure to be announced this year. The consumers and media are fed up with waiting for something new, and it will directly force Microsoft and Sony to come up with a console to whet the demand, even though it will be going against their business timelines. 

We also need to discuss game developers’ roles in all this. The 2010-2011 awkwardness also affected the state of game development, as developers are continuing to play it safe and release sequels to established franchises. Very few ‘new games’ have come out since 2011. Those that have, and have sold well, are playing off tropes already defined to be big sellers (i.e. they’re all first or third-person shooters). ‘New games’ that are actually original have sold like lead balloons in comparison, and as the economy continues to be crappy, game studios are now closing rapidly, including those that introduced these original new games. Many major developers are announcing that they are no longer making new games for the 7th generation, declaring it is hard for new IPs to find an audience and sell well at the (presumed) end of a generation, further perpetuating the notion that the generation should have ended years ago. This is leading to a retardation of new ideas in the industry and making these past few years effectively very boring and slow-selling. Indie developers have taken this opportunity to fill the originality gap, but they are simply not big enough or organized to truly turn things around. However it’s my opinion that if it wasn’t for indie devs stepping up to the plate, the industry would have already crashed years ago.

Guy With a Gun + Numbered Sequel = UGH.

Microsoft and Sony are adamant that their consoles still have the legs to continue into the mid-2010s. And I agree with them completely. The Xbox 360 and PS3 were and still are very powerful machines. Graphics are unrivaled and photorealistic when they need to be. Sound of course is as good as it will ever get. Their controllers are essentially the same and have been adopted as the de facto industry standard. Most importantly, both consoles have online networks that have branched into other media playback, so these devices can do much more than play games. A lot of these online extensions (games, movies, etc) come at a price, resulting in gamers paying hundreds and hundreds for access to things they don’t physically, tangibly own (and essentially can’t hold onto or take with them). To use this content as if it was truly theirs, they must be married to their console.

The above scenario sounds very definitive, and that’s because it is. With the seventh generation, home game media has plateaued. Despite two consoles doing it slightly their own way, the essence is the same. Gamers have invested years of gameplay and more money than they want to admit into their console of choice. And as much as they clamor for a new console, the harsh reality is they don’t want to give up on the level of content, comfort, control and familiarity their PS3 or 360 has given them. They have everything already and yet they want more. Unfortunately there is not much more to give them.

The challenge for Sony and Microsoft is to come up with something that gives them everything gamers already have combined with something so new and revolutionary (but not gimmicky) that they will need this new 8th generation console, and it’ll be worth abandoning or painfully transferring their old stuff over to it. These new consoles will wind up controlling and playing the same way as the 7th gen, probably just with faster processors. The graphics won’t even be better. The 360 and PS3 are capable of 1080p HD graphics, which is the highest quality current mainstream TVs can even show. Even if the graphics are better on nextgen consoles it will be very hard to prove this, and this will hurt the new generation badly.

We are also trained to look for dramatically improved graphics from one generation to the next. As much as graphics don’t make the game, unfortunately graphics make the sale for new consoles. How are kids going to convince Mom to get the new console without literally showing her how much better it is? The 8th generation will be the first generation to not show a marked graphical improvement. Simply put, it will look the same as the 7th gen. It will likely play the same as the 7th gen. For all intents and purposes it will still be the 7th gen, except it will be on a console that was conceived more recently. In that case, will there really be an 8th generation?

This is where the crash will come in, and there are two possible scenarios. In the first scenario, Sony and Microsoft will begrudgingly launch their successor consoles years earlier than they intended to. Though they might have improvements under the hood, at face value they will just be spruced up versions of the PS3 and 360 but with new names. Once the whining gamers finally get the consoles they’ve wanted so badly, they’ll quickly realize they are not that much better than their former consoles. 8th gen consoles will be returned, unsold, or generally unused while the 7th gen consoles will continue to be played, forcing Microsoft and Sony to take a major loss for their new consoles, or even worse, deactivate Xbox Live and the PSN from the 7th gen consoles in an attempt to force everyone to the new consoles. Of course that won’t be taken well by consumers, sparking all kinds of drama that will diminish interest in home consoles altogether.

Not feeling that one? Then try this scenario: Microsoft and Sony stick to their guns and do not release their successor consoles until their current ones have officially run their course. So 2015 and 2016 roll around and the new guys come out. But by this time it is too late. For the past 5-6 years gamers have had to deal with the borefest that has been uninspired sequels, GOTY re-releases and on-disc DLC from lazy developers that interest has already waned for the new generation. The indie scene remains just that, and eventually dies out along with the hipster fad. Gamers just don’t care anymore and are trained to be satisfied with the lack of originality and fun that games were designed to give. Also, since so many more years have passed, that much more time and money has been invested in Xbox Live and PSN that gamers are too grounded to want to move on. The 8th gen consoles flop and gaming continues to stall in the 7th generation as it already has now.

There's no escaping these black holes.

Don’t worry, because the future is not completely dark! The change is simple and needs to be put into place now. All we need to do to have a future of original, engrossing, and most importantly fun video games is change our attitude. This applies to gamers, developers, everyone. We need to embrace the 7th generation and respect it as an era that is truly different from generations past. It does not have to follow the cycle we are used to, and realize that we’ve invested too much in it to throw it to the wind in favor of an eventual 8th generation. Devs: you need to continue your support and interest in making ‘new games’ for the PS3 and 360, and the claims that you can’t because the hardware isn’t strong enough is bullshit. Gamers: be happy with what you have. It’s been going well since 2005/6 so why the urge to get rid of it? Games look great, sound great, and (with proper dev support) play great. We have it all, we just don’t realize it. We are so down pat with the ins and outs of our consoles, now is the time to own it! The devs can make the best games they possibly can since they are so familiar with the technology, and we can play them better than ever as we are so familiar with the control. That is where the possibilities and the fun are endless and can soon become timeless.

It’s similar to the automotive industry. Cars have remained mostly the same for decades because they are as good as they can possibly get. The cars we have now (i.e. 7th gen consoles) look and drive their best, and are equipped as well as we need them to be. Would we like cars that can fly out of traffic jams (8th gen consoles)? Sure, but we’re not going to stop enjoying cars and sprucing them up as nicely as we can until that day. We are content with what we have and what we can make of it.

Stop pining for the next generation of video gaming. We might not even need it.