Nope nope nope.
I don't feel like enough games really pushed the limits of the hardware this generation. Hell, only a handful even featured 4K HDR. The PS4 Pro and One X haven't been around long enough to have a bunch of games developed with their capabilities in mind, so it is too soon for me. I'm not particularly excited about the streaming/subscription future, either, and 8K is a case of really diminishing returns. I'd rather see them wait 2-3 years for games and television to start standardizing at 4K HDR (at least HDR), because 4K and/or HDR adoption in terms of TV sets is at least somewhat out there at present. I have zero interest in buying both a new console and an 8K-capable TV next fall, nor do I really want to have to upgrade to fiber internet so streaming gaming is viable or pay someone like MS a monthly fee to stream from the cloud. My current 4K HDR TV and Xbox One X are both awesome, so I'd much prefer to see some development for that tech that's still very much ahead of the curve unless compared with beastly PC gaming rigs and the very latest, highest-end 2019 TVs, and I just don't see these things being rendered technologically obsolete in the next 13-14 months at all.
It's an upgrade for the sake of upgrade, IMO. It seems like we've reached a point where they're just chasing spec benchmarks. "It can do 8K!" Awesome, the 0.1 % of households with an 8K set are happy to hear it. Except there's pretty much zero 8K content being made, and not even that much 4K content yet outside of some scattered Amazon and Netflix stuff. The infrastructure has fallen behind the tech. You have to have some pretty solid internet to stream in 4K as of right now. I'm extremely skeptical about the viability of 8K streaming. The content isn't there and most internet will struggle mightily delivering it. Moreover, even 4K was approaching territory of being overkill that isn't actually that much more noticeably great, and 8K is further down that path. So...what's the need for the next gen again? Oh, load times. Right. I can wait fifteen fucking seconds, guys. I am not some petulant child needing everything NOW NOW NOW. It's just not a big deal.
The refrain on console life cycles of late has continually referenced smartphone upgrade cycles, which is sadly coming true. Phones arguably peaked about five years ago, yet people are dropping a grand every year or two for a "new" phone that pretty much only offers a marginally better camera. Fuck that shit. Yet here we are with consoles trending that way rapidly. That we're apparently supposed to get amped about the mere capability of a borderline useless resolution and faster load times speaks for itself. I don't want consoles utilizing the bullshit "planned obsolescence" strategy, but it's inevitable. I'm really glad MS actually seems to care about backwards compatibility, because that at least gives me some hope that they won't easily sunset the "old" stuff to where it can't be used anymore. That said, who MS is when they need to build goodwill and who they are when they don't are two different things. I'm far from sold on Sony's actual commitment to BC as well.
I don't like how we're quietly losing ownership of things. I was on board with the shift away from physical media, but I kinda hate the idea of being beholden to multiple subscriptions with games I "own" potentially being made unavailable on a whim. I simply do not trust that MS, Sony, whoever will not be tempted to actively make things not work on an "old" system to try and increase adoption of the "new system!!!" This next generation that doesn't really need to exist yet is a half-step in that direction. It's setting up an ecosystem of dependence where you pay the same place for your gaming subscription, your hardware, your internet, etc. Guess what? Now they own your ass. It's how Apple made billions upon billions. It's fucked, but it works. People say, "well, all of my stuff is here, I can't change now" and just accept throwing money at incremental trash that arrives far before the end of the actual useful life of its predecessor.
In a world where content was typically 4K/HDR, my TV was noticeably inferior to new sets, and my Xbox One X was struggling to run games, bring on the upgrade. In this actual world, 4K HDR content is minimal and you can't even count on new games to feature one or both, my TV is more than capable of beautifully displaying available high-end content, and the only game that feels like it taxes my One X even a little bit is Forza Horizon 4. Yet in just over a year, I'm apparently supposed to drop $3-5K on a new 8K TV, $500ish on a new console, an additional $30-50ish a month on either better internet or cloud streaming, a $15/month console game subscription fee, probably another $30ish for other publishers' game subscription fees as everyone dives further into this lovely model, plus whatever games I want that don't end up on a subscription service. Yeah, let me go ahead and drop $3500 to $5500 on the next-gen from the outset and commit to well over $1K/year in requisite periphery. All this so I can have less control over my stuff and sit around hoping they don't make a Xbox Two X in 2022 or so to repeat the cycle again.
I guess I'm different, though. I'm not a bit unhappy with this generation. Titanfall 1 & 2, multiple awesome Forza games, HITMAN 1 & 2, Rocket League, Wolfenstein, and Battlefield 1 & V are all among the best games I've ever played, and I still need to take on several of the "must-plays" like RDR 2, The Witcher 3, etc. There's also a pretty damn good argument that publishers haven't maxed out this hardware yet. On top of that, a strong case can be made against the "need" for new hardware based on the questionable real-world viability of the new features and the arguably insidious shift to unnecessarily brief smartphone-esque life cycles and subscription-based gaming that probably leaves us all worse off.
So, yeah. The TL;DR is that it's too soon. The One X and PS4 Pro aren't remotely dated, nor is 4K/HDR as a technology. The next generation will really only provide a near-worthless resolution and address a very minor annoyance in load times, while creating multiple artificial barriers that will increase the price and hassle of gaming without improving it much, if at all.
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