Playstation AND Xbox Both Lie to Us About How They Approach Console Generations
Hey Xbox and Playstation fans, I’m one of you, I love video games, and I’ve got some wonderful news to share with you. Xbox. Playstation. They both believe in console generations. They just lie to us about it differently. Maybe “wonderful” isn’t the way to describe that news, but it’s one less thing we all need to waste energy fighting about.
One of the topics I’ve heard a lot lately that’s being used to divide gamers is one that focuses on the differing way Sony and Microsoft each handle the console generation gap. The console generation gap being the weird period of time between the end of one console’s life cycle and the early months or years of a new console’s life cycle. Xbox One to Xbox Series. Playstation 4 to Playstation 5.
In broad strokes, Microsoft claims that developing games that can only run on new hardware is terrible. Microsoft’s idea being that you should be able to play any game on any Xbox device. Whereas Sony seems to take the opposite approach, claiming that giving developers the freedom to fully embrace new hardware will push games forward. Sony’s idea being that you should get unique experiences on the newest hardware.
And so Xbox fans and Playstation fans have aligned themselves to their respective team’s battle cry. Players are eager to take up arms and spill blood to defend their preferred platform’s stance.
But the truth is, both companies, Xbox and Playstation, know that generational shifts in hardware are inevitable. They just lie to us about it differently.
I’ll start with Xbox. Phil Spencer, the executive vice-president of Gaming at Microsoft, has said: “We want to enable you to play the games you want to play, with the friends you want to play with, on any device.” This statement, along with many others from Spencer, has been used to support the claim that games developed for next generation hardware, the Xbox Series X and S, will be playable on previous console generation hardware.
And while this will be the case, as it always is in any console generation change (more on that a bit later in this video), there for sure will be a time when games developed for the Xbox Series X and S will no longer be supported by the Xbox One console hardware. It just doesn’t make sense to handcuff game developers to old technology.
Think about it this way. Will I be able to buy a used Xbox 360 to play Halo Infinite when that game releases? Almost certainly not. And if not, Spencer’s claim about games being generation agnostic are false. He’s lying to you.
Please don’t be angry with me Xbox fans. Playstation is just as bad. I’ll get to them.
Logically, if Xbox didn’t believe in generations, they wouldn’t release a new console at all, and especially not one they tout as being the most powerful console ever. Why have a more powerful console if you don’t want developers to make bigger and more capable games that take advantage of that hardware? If Xbox didn’t believe in unique generational experiences they wouldn’t make unique generational hardware. You wouldn’t make this thing if you didn’t want people to use this thing? My own theory is that by downplaying generational shifts it gives Xbox a few more years of leeway for their first party studios to make games without their fans being angry about it. But that’s probably another video.
So, what about Sony?
Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s president and CEO has said, “We have always said that we believe in generations…We believe that when you go to all the trouble of creating a next-gen console, that it should include features and benefits that the previous generation does not include.”
This is a more traditional approach, as it directly addresses the inevitability of generational changes, unlike Xbox’s Phil Spencer who implies generation changes aren’t relevant, but neither of these companies is being honest with us.
Since the dawn of consoles, and especially so with disk-based consoles, at every generational change two things happen: 1) games for the previous generation’s console will continue to be published for a time even after the new generation’s console has been released, and 2) many games will publish on both the previous generation’s console and the new generation’s console.
It’s always been this way, and this generational change, from the 8th generation into the 9th generation, will be no different, even though Both Jim Ryan and Phil Spencer are trying to tell you that it will be different. Both men know console generations are inevitable, and both are trying to spin that fact to support some made up marketing war.
Microsoft says “no generations” while hoping that fans forget about that statement in a couple years when Microsoft inevitably stops making all of their next generation titles work on the Xbox One consoles. Sony says “yes generations” while hoping fans only consider the games coming out solely for the Playstation 5 as validating that statement, while conveniently ignoring that games originally implied to be next gen only—Spider-Man Miles Morales and Horizon Forbidden West—are coming to current gen consoles.
Microsoft knows that technology eventually becomes obsolete, yet Phil Spencer tries to tell you otherwise. Sony knows that technology eventually becomes obsolete, yet Jim Ryan tries to tell you it already is obsolete. They are both lying to you.
My hope with this video is that maybe we, as gamers, as fans of video games, can stop using this lie about generations to divide us, so we can go back to arguing over actual, valid differences between Xbox and Playstation’s appraoch, like subscription service model vs direct purchase models or the quality of games on the systems or controller style. Those are actual, debatable differences. If you have decided to bleed for a company, at least bleed over something more than marketing spin.
Music Credits:
Bossa Antigua by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3454-bossa-antigua
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Crossing the Chasm by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3562-crossing-the-chasm
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Easy Lemon by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3697-easy-lemon
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
