Early in 2013, the Playstation 4 and XboxOne were announced, leading to huge hype, and endless lists of questions. As a fairly recent college grad with a mountain of debt, and basically no money to spend on a new system, my first question was how long are they going to support current-gen consoles for before I'll have absolutely no new games to play? Sony was quick to answer, stating that they'd fully support their current-gen systems until 2015, guaranteed.
That's great news, I thought. I'll still have new games to play with no worry for at least a few more years! Then, throughout the rest of the year, new previews started popping up left and right, most of which were for next-gen systems. This is, of course, expected. What I was not happy to see, however, is that most of these titles are not coming out on current systems, but instead only on next-gen.
But is this really the best idea? Should developers and console-makers just drop out on their current-gen systems, in favor of their new babies?
To answer that, I invite you to take a look at the hardest hitting past-gen system, the Playstation 2. The biggest surprise of console sales that I saw this year had nothing to do with the next-gen systems. Instead it was the staggering number of Playstation 2 sales worldwide before the system was eventually discontinued. Here's a quick breakdown of console sales for past-gen:
Playstation 2 (released in 2000) = 155 million
Xbox (released in 2001) = 24 million
Gamecube (released in 2001) = 21 million
Dreamcast (released in 1998) = 10 million
Hold on, let's take a look at that again. Playstation 2 outsold its largest competitor, Xbox, home of the original Halo, by almost 7 times as many consoles! The system was selling so well, and was still having games made for it (albeit not many), until it was finally discontinued globally in 2013. Again, the console was still in production of new systems until the same year that its SUCCESSOR became obsolete! Xbox, on the other hand, was globally discontinued by 2008, only 3 years into the life cycle of its successor, the 360.
So why is this relevant? It shows that not everyone can afford, or even wants to upgrade to next-gen hardware. Sony saw this, and capitalized on it in a big way. While they still focused on their new champion, they still didn't stop producing games for those who weren't quite ready, or maybe hadn't finished saving up for the next big thing.
Games were being made for the PS2, but there was a downside: the games sucked. If you read my past blog, you'll see that I really...really...ehem...REALLY don't like Activision. This started during my ownership of a PS2, before I could afford a next-gen (at the time) system. As a huge Spider-Man fan, I was really excited to play "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows". I did my research, heavily, and saw nothing that showed in any way that the PS2 version of the game would be any different from the next-gen copies. The day finally came that I had the game in my hands, and I learned that what I had purchased was one of the worst side-scrolling games I've ever played. I won't go into how horrifying the PS2 version of Web of Shadows was, but sufficed to say that when my local game store didn't believe me, the manager gave me a full refund for the game after I had them play my copy, and without me even asking. The guy was dumbstruck by how horrible the game was.
In short, Activision knew that people were still buying and playing their PS2's, and decided to throw them a bone. The trouble was, it was a bone picked out of the dog's poo.
With the power of next-gen, developers will no doubt be seeing how far they can push this new hardware within the PS4 and XboxOne. They'll be pushing it harder than the PS3 and 360 can go. But here's my final word to those developers: If you aim high, and seek to create the most breathtaking next-gen experience possible with our current technology, that's what gamers want. I'm all for it. But if you do this by completely alienating your customers who have yet to buy that system, you're hurting yourselves as well.
As of the end of 2013, Playstation 4 sales are a roughly 2 million, with XboxOne slightly behind. If companies cease to create games for the current-gen systems, however, they're going to be isolating the roughly 160 million combined owners of PS3's and Xbox 360's.
In short, I'm always going to be excited to see what developers can do with the next big thing, and when I save my pennies and can finally afford one of the next-gen systems, I'll be running down to GameStop. But I still believe that until it is clear as day that nobody is buying or even playing current-gen hardware, companies should not abandon their current-gen customers, or burn them with lack-luster, trash versions, while only next-gen users get the full experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles