By Nelson Schneider - 07/24/16 at 02:34 PM CT
With all three of the big hardware manufacturers – Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft – announcing a new set of higher-spec hardware, the majority of gamers and the gaming media have declared that the 8th Generation will be the first to receive a ‘mid-gen’ upgrade. I, however, am not afraid to announce that the majority of gamers and the gaming media (as per usual) are flat-out wrong. The Nintendo NX, PlayStation Neo, and Xbox Scorpio aren’t mid-gen ‘refreshes’ of old hardware; they are the harbingers of the 9th Generation, bringing with them a focus on backward AND forward compatibility.
The primary reason so many people errantly think that these three new consoles are ‘mid-gen’ refreshes is because these people are basing their conception of hardware generations on an unstable foundation. Because Sony spouted-off about the PlayStation 3 being designed for a 10-year lifespan, the assumption is being made that console hardware generations are roughly 10 years long. Yet the 7th Generation is the ONLY console hardware generation in which a decade-long lifespan has even been mentioned. The 3rd Gen, dominated by the NES, lasted from 1985 to 1991 – that’s 6 years. The 4th Gen, in which the Genesis and SNES fought a lop-sided battle, lasted from 1990 to 1995 – that’s 5 years. The 5th Gen, in which the original PlayStation trounced the miserable N64 and the also-ran Saturn, lasted from 1995 to 2000 – that’s also 5 years. Finally, the 6th Gen, in which the Dreamcast and Gamecube came out strong (and the original Xbox came out weak) but were eventually obliterated by the PlayStation 2’s slow-building momentum, lasted from 2000 to 2006 – that’s 6 years.
So, as we can clearly see in the historical record, gaming generations do NOT last a decade, but somewhere closer to 5 or 6 years. So why is it that the 8th Generation, which started in 2012 (coincidentally, giving the 7th Gen an actual duration of 6 years, not 10), is causing such denial amongst gamers and the gaming press regarding its immanent end in 2017, with the launches of the Nintendo NX in March and the presumed launches of the PlayStation Neo and Xbox Scorpio closer to Holiday 2017?
The answer seems simple enough to me: The 8th Generation hasn’t produced any truly iconic games, with many of the wiser members of the gaming community still sitting on the fence over whether or not to take the plunge and buy an 8th Gen console at all. We here at MeltedJoystick have generally had a tepid reaction to the 8th Gen, with me holding a funeral for my misbegotten WiiU shortly after launch, and Chris writing some soulless apologetics about why his PlayStation 4 hasn’t blown him away. Between the two of us, I’m far more willing to acknowledge the failure of the 8th Gen to accomplish much of anything for consoles, while Chris still clings to the idea that owning a PlayStation 4 is worth the discounted price he paid for his. In both cases, though, we have found our consoles to be relatively devoid of killer exclusive games, with our review scores typically topping out at somewhere between 3/5 and 4/5.
Of course, it is only actual consoles that have been in a bad way in the 8th Gen, as PC gaming has only continued to improve after its reincarnation during the 7th Gen, with things like the Steam Controller and ridiculous amounts of games, both exclusive (typically Indie) and multi-plat (typically “AAA”). Despite the monumental workload PC’s release schedule puts on Chris, with new, frequently terrible stuff being added to Steam on a daily basis, it shows that PC has an incredibly vibrant, growing ecosystem (every healthy garden will also grow huge numbers of weeds). Not too long ago, PC gaming releases had dwindled to practically nothing, with a handful of traditional “AAA” releases from traditionally PC-only devs like Blizzard and a lot of cheap knock-off shovelware filling the $1 DVD bins at retail locations. Everyone believed PC gaming was dying at the time, but it turned out it was only pupating into something magnificent.
The fact that the new, upcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft are focusing so heavily on not being too different from their predecessors is a testament to the strong foundation of modern PC gaming. Instead of releasing every 8th Gen game as a 9th Gen remaster, as many publishers have done in the 8th Gen with 7th Gen games, the goal with the new 9th Gen consoles seems to be to keep compatibility with old software, the same way that PCs can play old games from a history spanning decades.
Mobile phones have contributed toward this concept as well, with the constant need to upgrade hardware as more powerful chips get smaller and smaller. Imagine the headaches involved if every smartphone revision broke compatibility with every previous revision. App stores would be barren, as nobody would want to put in the constant work of running on the update treadmill, and users would balk at having to rebuy all of their apps every time they replaced an aging phone.
We who watch console gaming like hawks will soon see that the concept of the “8.5th Gen” is a delusion, manufactured to cover-up the complete inadequacy and worthlessness of the 8th Gen in general. The 9th Gen is coming, and it is bringing with it a grand revolution in the way we think about console games and hardware compatibility.
