What’s the deal with the lack of Next Gen Games?

MatrixReloaded101

MatrixReloaded101

Member
The lack of native next gen games is very puzzling to me, it's almost has if none of the companies knew the PS5 and Series X was coming out or weren't prepared for these new consoles.

I understand that E3 will take place in June and we will get a clearer picture of the games that will be announced for later in the year but it seems more so than any other gen we have been getting mostly cross gen games which is so strange.

Even the next gen upgrades for games like cyberpunk, doom eternal, metro exodus, etc. have still not been released with no clear release date.

Thoughts?
 
Allnamestakenlol said:
COVID...is likely the official response (for many).
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That still doesn't answer why we have been getting cross gen games for the games that have come out since covid.

I get that the install base is bigger on last gen consoles but at what point will the cord be cut so more focus could be placed on building games for next gen from the ground up.

Again, I am hopefully we get something to be excited about this summer but right now things aren't looking good.
 
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There is simply no need to release games tailored to Next Gen yet. For 3rd parties it's safter to wait until more consoles are in the market because at the time being they may not move enough units to recurpurate for the dev costs and Sony and MS do not really have to release any next gen games because PS5 and XSX are selling out as it is.

Add Covid to that and there you go.

If I'd be a dev or a publisher with no real need for the income of the next gen games I wouldn't release any at the time being either.
 
JimmyRustler said:
There is simply no need to release games tailored to Next Gen yet. For 3rd parties it's safter to wait until more consoles are in the market because at the time being they may not move enough units to recurpurate for the dev costs and Sony and MS do not really have to release any next gen games because PS5 and XSX are selling out as it is.

Add Covid to that and there you go.

If I'd be a dev or a publisher with no real need for the income of the next gen games I wouldn't release any at the time being either.
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Over a million PS5 and Series X consoles have been sold already. Money can definitely be made off next gen right now.

Holding back games is only going to slow down the transition from last gen to current. It would make more sense especially for new IP to release now to build a base before bigger games start to be released for the consoles because people on next gen are desperate right now to play next gen games.

When returnal comes out and if it reviews well, I would not be surprised to see that game sell well because of this drought.
 
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It's because this gen is still only a few months old. I feel like nobody has ever lived through a console launch. PS4 was a desert for over a year after release. PS3 was the same. You won't get a critical mass of titles worth playing for quite a while.
 
Phil Spencer has been investing in a lot more than just game studios.

200.webp
 
MatrixReloaded101 said:
Over a million PS5 and Series X consoles have been sold already. Money can definitely be made off next gen right now.

Holding back games is only going to slow down the transition from last gen to current. It would make more sense especially for new IP to release now to build a base before bigger games start to be released for the consoles because people on next gen are desperate right now to play next gen games.

When returnal comes out and if it reviews well, I would not be surprised to see that game sell well because of this drought.
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The PS5 should be somewhere in the general area of 7 million units by now, but we'll get an exact figure on April 28th when Sony goes their fiscal report.

No one's holding back updates or games. Companies are dealing with the fallout of having to switch to a work from home model which has generally slowed down production across the entire industry greatly. That means they have to prioritize what resources they do have to try and finish certain projects within a reasonable time. If they have to sacrifice a next gen update to an old game so they can get more people working on their next big project then they'll probably do that.

Some companies are able to cope better than others under these conditions so we may see some be more productive than others and release more updates and games. It doesn't mean that those other companies don't want to be releasing updates and games, they just have to deal with the circumstances that everyone finds themselves in right now.

Another reason companies would be hesitant to rush out a game just to get it on the market early is what happened with Cyberpunk. That game needed several more months in dev but they pushed it out early and it crashed hard. No doubt everyone else in the industry took a look at that and took it as a valuable lesson to not rush a game to launch.

Just speaking personally I've been happy with the updates and new games I've had access to play on my PS5. Demon's Souls Remake and Miles Morales were great launch games, and Astro's Playroom was a gem. I've been playing Destiny 2 with its next gen update and absolutely love it. Played Ratchet & Clank 2016 with its 60 FPS patch and have Returnal to play next week. Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart will be available to play in June and we'll see how the rest of their lineup looks when Sony does their big Summer event.

As gamers we of course want shiny new things to play on our expensive new boxes, but we can also take a moment to appreciate the circumstances of what's going on and be understanding of why we may have to wait a bit longer for our games. In the meantime many of us no doubt have massive backlogs to go through. We'll have a far better idea of how things are shaping up for the rest of the year and beyond in a couple months.
 
MatrixReloaded101 said:
That still doesn't answer why we have been getting cross gen games for the games that have come out since covid.
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It does, though. The games that were released at the end of last year and start of this year were games that were nearing the end of their development cycle anyway. They were obviously delayed a bit by COVID but not by a hell of a lot. This year is when you're really going to see the effects of the various lockdowns because you're going to start seeing its impact on games that were much earlier in their development cycle and will have suffered a lot more from not having its team in a central location with easy access to dev kits and the like.
 
Covid

compounded by the fact that most of Sony and Xbox heavy hitters have already been released a year before PS5/XSX/XSS.

This has also happened in the previous generation and that's without a pandemic fucking up release schedules. I think it took both platforms a year and a half before actual big next gen games were released and that not exclusive to the platform holders but also on third party games which continued to release cross gen games.
 
What did you expect? PS5 and XSX are nowhere to be found, no one will make a game just for what, 1MLN userbase? That's a commercial suicide, until the production ramps up and more people switch to newer hardware cross-gen titles is all we're gonna get, which doesn't mean the games can't be good. I'm actually afraid that once PS4/XB1 become abandoned 60FPS will be gone forever as well other than the usual suspects like CoD, Fifa etc.
 
one reason.

Player base.

Low player base = low sales.

No point selling next gen games only.
 
It's obviously Covid. The disruption has delayed a lot of announcements and games, due to devs having to work from home, or even not at all in some circumstances.

New generations are always slow, and this one is even slower because of the pandemic.
 
Let's not mix PS5 with Xbox though, the difference is pretty big in the offering between the two. But overall every new gen starts slowly, some platformers slower than other as well.
 
This generation is a joke. There is nothing "next gen" about it. It's particularly egregious on the Microsoft side of things. There is barely anything worth upgrading to if you own a last gen system (more so if you own a PS4 Pro or X1X). To the people attempting to compare the launch of the PS4/X1 to this - you must be living in la la land. There has never been a console launch without at least one next gen showcase title. Killzone Shadow Fall and Ryse are examples I could site but every console generation worked the same till now.

Considering the drought of 1st party games for the last couple of years on Xbox it baffles me that there isn't at least 5 or 6 next gen launch window games. This whole "we don't believe in generations" crap is gonna be their downfall as new hardware uptick will be terrible. Phil Spencer has done a lot of things right but he has really dropped the ball here. I get that it's all about selling services but we will be stuck with X1 as the lowest denominator for years to come if he doesn't shift enough series units over the next couple of years.

I have both a PS5 and Series X.
 
That's why I am quite happy with my recent purchase of the PS4 Pro, does the job..as well as the fact of new found appreciation of the PS3 titles like Spec Ops the Line and Motorstorm...PS5 can only DREAM of having new instalments of those..
 
I don't really buy the Covid reason anymore.

Software development isn't that badly effected. Sure working from home isn't ideal and things take longer, but if you add another 6-9 months of development time, there is still nothing in sight really....

That said, launch lineups were often also weak in past generations.
 
I feel like PS4/XBX could have hold on another year. Microsoft decided to put some pressure and then both companies decided to release both consoles last year.
Sure, Covid had some impact but it's being overused as an excuse for everything. Also, you'll away get cross gen games at the start of a new generation. There's a lot of people still with the previous console and that's a lot of money on the table. The "ps5/XSX sold millions of consoles" doesn't mean anything. Not every single person that purchased a new console will also purchase every big game.
 
Is there a lack of games overall ? The answer is no. Next-gen or not does not matter in any way.

Nowadays developers make a game, and have it run on whatever are the current consoles available for the market (except under-powered consoles like the Switch, obviously). It is actually much better this way, rather than being forced on the next platform while there is no technical justification for the game to be exclusive to it.

Simply enjoy the games where they are, no need to rush.
 
mxbison said:
I don't really buy the Covid reason anymore.

Software development isn't that badly effected. Sure working from home isn't ideal and things take longer, but if you add another 6-9 months of development time, there is still nothing in sight really....

That said, launch lineups were often also weak in past generations.
Click to expand...

Software is not the issue, hardware is - with limited staff in the factories, or even entire factories closed, there's only so much parts/consoles that can hit the market, and that's what Covid is responsible for.
 
we`re not even 6 months into the new gen and big games have a development cycle of 3+years nowadays.
Add the tiny installation base of the next gen consoles to that and you have your answer for anything 3rd party at least.

Same story every gen. Your first gen-transition?
 
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It just feels like time itself is whizzing by yet the games are flowing like treacle. Almost as if the PS6/Xbox Series 2X will be announced before we get any true next-gen games making use of the SSD and other new tech. On the bright side, there's no going back. The technologies in use for this generation will be present next-gen and improved even further. I just wish I wasn't so old!
 
Gotta go with Covid.

Like stock, supply there is no telling how things would have been without Covid.

Also, we arent even 6 months into the new gen, lol. Before Covid I expected the cross gen period to last the same amount of time as it did the past 2 generations. It was always gonna be a handful of games here n there next gen exclusive.
 
T-Cake said:
It just feels like time itself is whizzing by yet the games are flowing like treacle. Almost as if the PS6/Xbox Series 2X will be announced before we get any true next-gen games making use of the SSD and other new tech. On the bright side, there's no going back. The technologies in use for this generation will be present next-gen and improved even further. I just wish I wasn't so old!
Click to expand...

I have the exact same feeling, sadly. The PS4/XB1 are just too primitive with their CPUs and HDDs, hence before the PS5/XSX will be able to truly spread their wings they will already feel dated, and new hardware will already be on the horizon. Like realistically, in 2024-25 when those next-gen-only titles finally start to appear the consoles will barely hold 30FPS anymore, at 1440p or below, just for the sake of "look at the graphics!"... But like you said, the generation after that even during its initial, cross-gen period will get games based on current Zen2 CPUs, SSDs, RT etc., so the baseline will be pretty robust.
 
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"I get that the install base is bigger on last gen consoles but at what point will the cord be cut so more focus could be placed on building games for next gen from the ground up."

Sony exec - Good news sir we've sold almost 5million PS5 consoles.
Jim - 5 million eh. Huzzah, it's time to cut the cord. No more games for those last gen bums.
Sony exec - But sir, there's 115 million PS4 owners
Jim - FUCK 'EM ALL. THEY EITHER GET ON BOARD OR GET ON GAMEPASS
 
MatrixReloaded101 said:
The lack of native next gen games is very puzzling to me, it's almost has if none of the companies knew the PS5 and Series X was coming out or weren't prepared for these new consoles.

I understand that E3 will take place in June and we will get a clearer picture of the games that will be announced for later in the year but it seems more so than any other gen we have been getting mostly cross gen games which is so strange.

Even the next gen upgrades for games like cyberpunk, doom eternal, metro exodus, etc. have still not been released with no clear release date.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
1. COVID;
2. General lack of memory about how new generations start.

Thank God at least this time we have BC from the start with upgraded graphics/fps.
 
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I mean, launches are always slow, plus pandemic?

We're all making huge sacrifices this year...maybe yours is 'next-gen'.

...try to hang in there.
 
This is how new generations go these days. Development time is longer because the industry has almost completely cut out anything that isn't AAA. COVID doesn't help, especially with the scale of games and the teams that make them.

All in all though, it's still better than last gen. Maybe not as many games, but at least a couple quality ones.

What were the last consoles to have great launch games that weren't cross gen? You gotta go back to GC/PS2/Xbox.
 
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