Old Gen vs New Gen - What people forget to mention

[vivster]

There is this argument that the change from old to new gen isn't big enough. Just a few more pixels and particles. That the gameplay experience is the same on old gen consoles if you don't care about graphics.

This is false. I've owned a PS3 since launch and saw it developing with my own eyes. Some things got better, others didn't, some got even worse. Sure the gaming experiences got better over time but there was a constant that would ruin your experience no matter what game you were playing.

I'm talking of course about the OS and the hardware powering it. The OS of the PS3 was one of the slowest pieces of garbage software ever I had to experience. The navigating was fast but just don't dare and try actually interacting with something. Not only were the loading times appalling but every interaction with the PSN was needlessly slow(trophy sync anyone?). The PSN store got even worse with the times to a point where the PS3 hardware wasn't even able to handle its graphical interface without almost dying in the process. Updates, installations and loading times in games were bigger time sinks than the games themselves. The time I spent waiting for the PS3 to finish basic tasks over the gen could've been used to actually play more games. Multitasking wasn't even present from the start and when they implemented it, the system was barely able to handle it. I'd also like to give an honorable mention of the application that called itself a browser. Functinal, yes, but usable? No.

Jumping forward to PS4. Thanks to the new hardware and some hiring of programmers with actual brains the new OS presents itself sleek, fast, functional and usable. It's a completely new feeling and almost fun navigating through the menus and multitasking everything. I can jump out of my game, have a quick search in the browser or look at my trophies and jump back in in just under 30 seconds. In PS3 times this would've taken minutes. Of course the store is still a piece of garbage but at least you can leave it a bit earlier now.

I know companies love to talk about "experience" and that word by now is so overused that it lost all its weight as an actual attribute. But the reason why I would never step back to the PS3 is that I will have a worse experience regardless what game I am playing. PS3 could offer the same graphics as the PS4 and I would have still upgraded. Because a frustration free and less time wasting experience is a lot more worth than money.

So screw anyone who says that the upgrade to current gen isn't worth it by only citing graphical differences. Graphics are nice but regardless of the pixels I will have been playing for an hour by the time last gen users passed all loading screens.