The Playstation 4 will be released Friday, followed by the Xbox One Nov. 22, ushering in the next generation of video game consoles and officially making this generation of consoles obsolete.
It’s time to take a moment, put on “Good Riddance” by Green Day and reflect back on the importance of the current generation’s effect on the video game industry and how we, gamers, play games. I still remember unwrapping my Christmas present to find an Xbox 360 staring back at me. The game that sold the console for me was the open-world zombie game “Dead Rising.” It was the first time a video game really captured the scale of a zombie mob.
Xbox 360 and its competitor, the PS3, promised the next leap in video gaming – a jump forward from the blocky graphics of the Xbox/PS2.
The first games didn’t exactly deliver on this promise. Early video games for the current generation looked and played similar to the previous generation. It would take a few years for developers to figure out the hardware and produce on their promise. Rockstar’s “Grand Theft Auto 4” showed off the capabilities of the systems with its realistic graphics, mechanics and realization of a living, breathing world.
In 2007, Infinity Ward energized online competitive multiplayer gaming when it released “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.” It turned the “Call of Duty” moniker into a household name, leading to a multimillion dollar franchise. For the first time, massive groups of people from across the globe were connecting and playing with each other. Local multiplayer gaming seemed obsolete and outdated when friends didn’t need to leave their homes to play games with each other.
During the current generation of consoles, developers and companies began to push to a digital format largely unheard of in the previous generations of consoles. Consumers, in the confines of their home, could shop and download games they previously had to go out and purchase. Video game consoles became a center for multimedia where people could download movies, listen to music or even surf the Web. Such was almost unheard of on video game consoles a decade ago.
The era of the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii was one of the longest generations that has graced the video game industry. Previous generations of consoles flew by in rapid succession. Every few years or so the next line of hardware was coming off the assembly line, but as the industry matured and the hardware’s performance increased, these companies formed plans with longer end goals.
Reflecting over the past few years in the video game industry, the landscape of video games has changed dramatically. Developers finally had the technology to create experiences they previously could only imagine. People from around the world connected in visual spectacles with the singular goal of winning. Here’s hoping the next generation can have such lofty ambition.
