PixlBit

The 90's were a time of meteoric growth for the video game industry, both from a technical and a creative standpoint. In just ten short years, we went from the 16-bit wars ("Genesis DOES what NintenDON'T") to games like Soul Calibur and Power Stone on the Dreamcast. Indeed, next gen transitions back then saw titles that curbstomped even the best looking titles on their predecessors graphically; just compare Tekken 3 to Tekken Tag Tournament, or FF9 to FF10. That made next gen hardware a very easy sell, as much better visuals signified a clear and unambiguous sense of growth.

This generation has gone on for about 8 years--roughly the amount of time between the release of the SNES and the Dreamcast. Yet few of the early PS4 and Xone games offer the kind of clean break from the past we saw back then. People are quick to point out how much more developers have gotten out of current-gen consoles since the early days, but the need to even do that has only become a factor during this generation. And I think it taps into a much more serious problem with how both the gaming industry and gamers judge the evolution of the medium.

As far as technicals go, I'm hardly an expert. But even a slightly-above-average layman like me can tell that the amount of power that can be drawn out of key components like the processor and graphics chip has long since started to plateau. This is especially problematic for consoles, which are much smaller than your typical PC and has to draw far less power, limiting performance even more. As such, the ability to keep holding up graphics as a key selling point for buying $400-500 boxes has been diminished considerably.

That certainly hasn't stopped developers from trying though. The press material and trailers have stretched credulity when it comes to showcasing a clean break: PC footage has been rampant, and we've seen several cases of "in-engine" footage that come nowhere near reflecting actual performance. EA's sports showcase is an egregious example; just compare their "totally not CG" Xbox One reel with the actual gameplay footage.

So the logical question, then, is how do they sell next gen experiences when the most obvious avenue of graphics and visual scale aren't there?

Sony and MS have been working to mitigate the issue throughout the rollout of their respective boxes. The prospect of having live streaming and recording built into each box is far more interesting to me than the parochial tech nonsense that the internet is tearing itself inside-out over. Sony has also spoken of migrating away from traditional consoles entirely, making Playstation a streaming service that works on a wide variety of hardware. Both companies have also been working hard to promote indies--especially Sony, who showcased several indie titles right on the E3 stage that don't look like Crysis or Battlefield.

And that, ultimately, will be the approach they need going forward. The ability to push polygon numbers and the like will mean less and less as time goes on. The diversity of the gaming experiences, alongside the different features and services that come with each new generation, will be far more important than how pretty or grand the games look. That's only for the best, I think.