| Rustuv said: But we've also seen console launch with much stronger titles also. For Example the N64 had Mario 64 a game that changed games for ever, The Dreamcast had Soul Calibur and Sonic adventure and the first Xbox for god sake ran on shovel ware and sports titles for almost a year and it didn't even matter because everyone was to busy killing each other in Halo to even care! |
I think this part captures the true issue, here.
There's nothing revolutionary about any of them. None of the launch titles (or titles released close to launch) on any of the systems do anything to redefine gaming, nor take gaming to a new level. It's all just a continuation of the previous generation with somewhat stronger hardware.
Mario 64 redefined an entire genre. Wii Sports redefined gaming. Final Fantasy X was a huge release for the PS2. Halo for Xbox.
Now look at this generation. Nintendo brings another NSMB and a minigame game that, while good, isn't spectacular. The only "big" title for Wii U that was different from things in the past was ZombiU, and it wasn't a blockbuster of any sort. PS4 and XBO had... a lot of the same games as each other, many of which were routine FPS games, and the few exceptions were titles that were basically either glorified indie titles or attempts to capture a genre that one of the other two held (such as Knack trying to capture the platformer crowd).
Even now, the only (currently-released) thing I've seen that has truly captured the imagination of gamers is Wonderful 101, and that was not just too late to get into the "launch" zone for Wii U, but also a little too unusual to go huge. And the only game I can think of that has people thinking that there might be real benefit to 8th gen is Watch_Dogs (which will also be available on 360 and PS3).
Furthermore, none of the three are really utilising their selling points. Kinect is relegated to "casual" gaming. Nintendo is de-emphasising Wiimote controls while not really doing anything big with the Upad. Sony has pretty much completely forgotten about Move. In all three cases, it almost seems like their entire pitch is "7th gen gaming, but with more power". And this, to me, is the root of the problem.
8th gen is basically nothing more than a continuation of 7th gen with a little bit more power. And whether developers make their games for 7th and 8th gens simultaneously (as has happened a lot so far), or they decide to move entirely over to 8th gen, they're still making prettier 7th gen games for the 8th gen, rather than re-thinking their approach to gaming.
It probably also doesn't help that many developers have bought into the "Free-to-Play" design, without the "Free" part. DLC has become standard, to the point that parts of the game that would traditionally have been included with the game are instead released at a premium price via DLC (fortunately, Nintendo has mostly resisted this tendency, having many of their games incorporate only free DLC instead, with a few notable exceptions).
So basically, I'd assert that the reason why the generation lacks excitement is that it feels like 7th gen on steroids rather than a new generation, with all of those business practices that gamers dislike becoming more common, rather than less.
