Topic: Is this the PS4 generation better than last gen?

@themcnoisy: Yeah exactly, point is it is easy to end up paying way to much for stuff day to day, so why should I get too wound up about the price of a £3.99 DLC if it feeds a hobby I get a lot of enjoyment out of. But that said, I don't buy hardly any stand alone DLC's and the only microtransactions I ever bought were for Drive Club and Transformers

@themcnoisy:
I can't believe the voting was even that close.

@Gamer83: Mad isn't it. Last gen had some amazing series and games, but I do have a lopsided view as I had so much more time to play and enjoy games a few years ago.

@kyleforrester87: Its amazing how few games actually need to sell to become profitable - even in this era. A game like FFxv announced it needed to sell 10m copies to become profitable - that after an incredibly insane budget and 10yrs of development. Considering there are over 40m PS4's alone let alone the number of XB1's and PC gamers too, the potential audience is massive.

I enjoyed Alien Isolation (although my version was a bit bugged - I didn't get the chapter completion achievements but was getting some of the other achievements) but it was released relatively close to the start of this gen and only on this gen. The potential audience wasn't as large as it is now.

I know I look back on last gen fondly with the creation of many games that defined it - games like Uncharted, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Dead Space, BioShock etc Games that went on to have at least 2 follow up games. This generation may seem like we have a lot of Remasters but we have also had a lot of new games/franchises too - games like Alien Isolation, Evil Within, Watchdogs, Sunset Overdrive, Destiny, the Division, Bloodbourne, Battlebourne, Overwatch, Evolve, Titanfall etc. Game development is taking longer with all the 'new' hardware and trying to make things bigger and better for us - the gamer. This is shown in games like CoD which despite similarities in content with each game, they have switched to a 3yr cycle as opposed to 2yrs. Whether you like the direction or not, you can't argue that the games are a long way from the more simplistic feature set and mechanics of the 2yr cycles and they look a lot better visually too.

I can't judge this generation yet but I know I am enjoying gaming this gen as much, if not more than last gen. I know I am excited by upcoming games like Horizon, Days Gone and the birth of HDR and upto 4k gaming. VR is still a way off from delivering what I want from it but that could change rapidly as developers understand the tech better. I am a lot more excited by it than Move or Kinect though. By the time this gen is coming to its end, I think we will be in a much better position to judge. I do feel this gen won't last as long as the 'primary/lead' console but its still pushing gaming onwards even if it keeps dragging things from the past back too.

To be honest, I find the view of a generation being linked to consoles a little blinkered. And especially if we're only talking about Triple A games, which seems quite common in this thread, then it feels more blinkered still. Gaming is a lot more diverse than that. PC has it's part to play and so does the independent scene in gaming.

When we're talking about generational leaps, whilst it doesn't feel as big in terms of specifications and visual milestones, I don't think that's really important. Instead, the way games are designed is what's impressing more overall. There is a lot of smart design, especially in narrative and how that works for the player. And in all honesty, I think that's where people should look. Instead of looking at the spectacle, have a look at what's going on under the hood.

P.T. is a prime example of a game that is so damn smart in its design. It allows you to garner information naturally through the environment and piece together the overarching narrative running through it. This in turn, informs the horror for the player. Also, the way the environment alters itself through real-time action is something that is not utilised all that often. It's quite simple when you think about it, but the emotional impact on the player it has is huge. Then add in the fact that there is no tutorial for it, no floating markers, and everything having a context. I feel like it's a game that couldn't have existed before because the design philosophy simply wasn't there. A lot of previous games and smart indie horrors had to be made to get to that point.

And when it comes to narrative, we're finding a lot of games that are exploring new issues not touched on in gaming before and also structures of narrative that only games can do. I remember when I played Alien: Isolation and a character is ready to explain their story. Before this gen, every game would've simply shown you a video. Alien: Isolation made you play through it and switch the perspective. Although I may have had my gripes with other parts of the writing, framing the narrative in that way was so damn smart.

And on a different level you have games like The Banner Saga. It takes the aspects of tactical RPGs but intertwines the narrative with the mechanics and different play sections in such a way that gives a whole lot more meaning to the story overall. Every decision you make has impact. It doesn't have to be a huge pathway, but even simple things like how you conduct you battles or use your supplies has purpose.

And that's how I feel about VR. Whilst the spectacle and sensation of it is gratifying, it'll be the design behind the games that'll make it something special. If there are games that we feel could only be possible in VR, then that'll be what makes the technology great. Just my two pence, or three!

I think we, as people, have a tendency to look back at the past with rose tinted spectacles. You hear people talking about how they miss their school days, but while I'm sure they do miss some aspects of it, they probably don't miss the double maths that they did every Monday morning, or being forced to wear embarrassing shorts when they forgot their PE kit. We tend to accentuate the good and ignore the bad of the past, and that creates the illusion that the times we're living in aren't as impressive as the good ol' days.

We still cling on to the glory days of music in the '60s and movies from the '70s forgetting that there were just as many awful bands and films in those days as there are today. We just don't remember them.

I see a lot of chatter from people about how gaming isn't what it used to be, but I think it's about the best time to be a gamer as you could hope for. There are a lot of interesting things happening in the indie scene, and games are relatively cheaper than they've ever really been. There's new games, and ones worth playing, released all the time, on a weekly basis. Not only that, but the PS4 as a console is a fantastic machine and leagues ahead of what we had last generation.

Personally, I think this generation has been great, and while there might not have been many life-changing games so far, take a minute to remember that for every Uncharted 2 last-generation there were a dozen of Haze.

@themcnoisy You're right that the tech is much better than before (or at least, it should be), but the point I was trying to make is that I didn't feel that it was being reflected in the games so far. Some of the games don't look like they're much of a step up from what we've had before. Now granted, that argument could also be applied to early last gen as well, in terms of sheer gameplay at least. Mix that with games still to come, as well as that this is more of an observation on my part, I might feel differently about this in the future.

@johncalmc I agree, and that reason is why I try to be fair when I take part in discussions like this. I know I said last gen is better so far, but it was far from perfect either. Especially when you remember that some of the problems of this gen was started last gen.

for me i think its the current gen; i've played more indy and less AAA titles this gen and ultimately had more fun overall. but my best console moments have been last gen with the likes of Bioshock, Bodycount and Super Stardust HD

@Tasuki: i,ve been playing games since the commodore 16 in terms of both graphics & gameplay mechanics, game's of today are miles ahead of the 16 bit era. Take Destiny raid mechanics the 16 bit era never come close to that in terms of gameplay mechanics, going back to old games only makes me think how far technology has come.

This generation Yes, The generation before last No. (PS2 era)

We are almost 3 years into this generation and it feels pretty slow on the standout titles. What we've had mainly is a lot of filler with remasters so far. Just based on the first 3 years then I'd have to say this generation hasn't been all that great and given how regularly we got great games after this point last gen I think the PS4 has its work cut out to match that.

@KratosMD: Trust me, I don't wear nostalgia goggles when I say this, but games are definitely not getting better (at least from AAA developers anyway). I'll go through what you get when purchasing a game nowadays, we get a small box with a disc in it, that's it (unless you pay silly money for the collector's edition). No biggie, I bought it for the game anyway so I'll go home and play it. Putting the disc in you see you have to wait for an install. 'OK', you think, 'this shouldn't take long' so you go and make a coffee. after your third cup of coffee and an hour or more it finally installs. 'Great' you think 'I can finally play', but then you see you need to download a 20GB patch and Sony's servers cap your internet speed and are prone to further slowdown if it is a popular new game.

You decide to watch some TV while you wait, it is more drivel and it's all that game's fault you are watching it. You check progress multiple time to see the download bar has barely moved. Another couple of hours and finally the game is installed and patched, by this time you're a bit miffed that it took so long, but you decide you've gone through this you may as well play it before you go to bed. You decide to try the multiplayer first and join a match, but you eventually find after 30 minutes the servers are struggling and going down as the developer didn't realise there would be people actually wanting to play their game online, they thought it would be different than the previous three times it happened. So you decide to try the single player side, thankfully this isn't a game that requires an always online connection so you should be good. You get about 10 minutes into the game when the tutorial area shows you how you can buy a ton of cool stuff with real money because the £40 you already paid wasn't enough or make the game easier and shorter as you don't actually buy games to play them.

Irritated by that you nevertheless push on past the tutorial area. Here you find some strange physics behaviour occurring and weird glitches with character models messing up or seeming teleporting across the street. You thought that was what the 2-3 hours you spent downloading the patch was meant to fix, but obviously not. You could wait a week and hope it's fixed, but you bought it to play now so you press on. You manage about another 15 minutes until your console freezes up with a crash and you have to hard reset it. On rebooting you find the game's install data has corrupted and you need to reinstall it. 'Well that's nice' you think with clenched teeth 'perhaps tomorrow I can play outside with my £40 shiny Frisbee'.

Call me an old softy, but I prefered when I could just put a disc/cart/cassette in and play a game, I mean even the C64 didn't eat up that much time loading from tape. I also preferred getting all the game I paid for and cheats being a reward for finishing a game, not for and extra £3 a pop. Given I probably spend much more time playing indies than AAA games these days and still play games that were released around the early to mid-nineties quite often I think I can have a preference for older games and not be blinded by the past.

@KratosMD: Bloodborne was great, I agree, as for The Witcher 3, well I'm one of those people who loves RPGs and yet it never grabbed me. Not saying it is a bad game (although on the other note I think it took about 6 months to patch up on PS4 before it ran better than on the Xbox one) as I would be a fool to do that given the amount of people that absolutely love it, it just never resonated with me. The thing is if you look at what was released by this time last gen, there wer far more new titles, big titles and better games - I struggle to think of a handful of standout titles so far this gen. We shall see how it pans out, but I think the PS4 has an uphill struggle to catch up at this point.

I don't know. but I do play my ps3 more often than my ps4. (o_O )
And I own a ton more games on my PS3 (as well as a bunch of PS2 and PS1 and Indie games on there) that haven't been released on the PS4 yet.