It’s been more than a year for the new consoles hit the market and our homes. We don’t already use the term “next-gen” anymore. Right now it’s just the current and the old gen and we’re okay with it, but there are certain things that makes people doubt about if this generation is really the next step for console gaming, regardless of the hardware.
The main reason for not feeling this generation the true successor of the last one is, simply, the lack of games. The extra features these consoles have —that we all celebrated at that time— are already taking its toll for more important things, such as new IPs and exclusive video games. And it’s not just that, there is also the fact that most of the exclusive games that were released during this time did not meet with the expectations created. And thanks to this, the most affected console now is… PlayStation 4.
Let me give you a few examples: When the PS4 came out, it was announced with a bunch of amazingly hyped exclusive games, and so far, the only release who kept that promise was “Bloodborne”… and it was released this Tuesday. The other exclusive games have had flaws in gameplay, acceptance, quality, and some other issues: “Killzone: Shadow Fall” and “Infamous: Second Son” weren’t as good as their predecessors, “Knack” wasn’t a big hit either (at least in reviews), “DriveClub” is still an unfinished game because the PlayStation Plus edition is still not available, “The Order 1886” is a very good idea but it ended up like that, just an idea, and we’re talking that this happened in a period of a year and a half.
That’s the situation in new and exclusive PS4 games. This situation has left the game catalog of PS4 with empty spaces between big releases, and these spaces are filling with remasters. That is not a problem —actually I like them— but it becomes a problem when there are more remasters than original games. It took just a year to have a remastered version of “The Last of Us”, the greatest game of PS3 (and maybe the greatest game of all that generation), but it needed at least a time to breathe. God of War III was released in 2011 and it took 4 years for a remaster. To me, that’s a moderate time to wait. There are, of course, more remastered versions nowadays: Tomb Raider, Injustice: Gods Among Us, DmC: Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto V, Grim Fandango, Resident Evil, and others… sorry, I got a bit tired of counting.
This has to be a warning more than a complain. PlayStation 4 is a console that will last for 10 years, according to its creators, but if the companies keep releasing not-so-good exclusive games, lots of remasters, and still believing that the console will sustain itself only with multi-platform games, the whole Sony experience and ecosystem will collapse because it won’t matter if a play a game in a PS4 or an Xbox One, it will both be the same thing. Sony, please, don’t make the same mistakes as Nintendo did with the WiiU. Their sales have increased from last year because they are releasing amazing games, such as Super Smash Bros., but the console has been out since 2012.
Is PlayStation 4 in debt? Yes, it is. But it’s not too late to reverse that and give this console the place it has always deserved. There are announced games that we all know they won’t disappoint, such as Uncharted 4, No Man’s Sky, Abzu, and some others. Let’s hope the future becomes more shiny for our friend and see this article in another year and a half to see if everything changed for good.