Eh, this gen was a slow burner. All the good stuff came it the past few years and now the generation is almost over. I'm glad I waited so long before getting a PS4. I'm wondering how Nintendo is going to handle the new gap in power next gen - the ports it's getting are already really pushing the limits of what devs can do to downgrade.

Red Dead Redemption 2 Witcher 3 Spider-man Horizon: Zero Dawn. Destiny Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Assassin's Creed: Origins. Dark Souls 3 Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. Warframe. Lots of great games out there. You are just focusing on two franchises that have stagnated, and were on a downward trajectory LONG before this console generation....and you're own situation isn't allowing much time for gaming. THIS is the Golden Age of Gaming.

This was the generation of corporate bullshit and scamming pretty much, that’s how I’m going to remember it. So much bullshit has occurred in the last 6 years that pretty much points to gaming going down the shitter. Yes it has some fantastic games in it, but what about paywalls, MTX literally -blam!-ing everywhere, essentially online gambling, skins and other stuff you used to be able to unlock getting thrown behind $5.00 to “fund” the next year of content while still charging for expansions? What about all the downgrades we saw to games that were hyped up to be revolutionary in how they looked and played and then found out on release we were sold a lie and the game is nothing like what we were promised? Or even the fact that games these days rarely ship complete and take months of updates to make it something worthy of a $60 price tag? Gaming in my opinion is becoming a game (hilarious I know) of how much can the publishers and developers milk out of our wallets before we say no? We rarely get content as complete and whole as what we used to get years ago back in the previous generation and the one before. Somehow, games have got bigger and more expansive but feel more shallow and empty than games from the previous generation like Halo or the inFamous series. Games ship broken more often than they do complete. That is NOT acceptable for the price these hacks expect you to pay. It’s almost like most of gaming is no longer made by people who are passionate about creating it and are only passionate about the huge amounts of profit they can make by tricking kids into online gambling using their moms credit cards. I know there’s good devs out there like CDPR or even Respawn or Fromsoft but hear me out, there’s a lot more bad than good in the gaming industry right now and their actions continue to overshadow any positive things good devs actually do. I worry for the next console generation and what kind of shit will be devised to scam us out of more money.

It seems like, now that’s it’s less of a niche market, there’s more fat cats sticking their grubby little fingers in games. Less and less games feel like passion projects. Instead, we get games designed to blind you with their flashiness so publishers can riffle through your pockets. Sure, games look prettier and are more advanced as they’ve ever been, but devs and publishers are scummier than they’ve ever been. “But they’re businesses and businesses make money! and the free market! and they have families! and—“ Sure. But at some point, you have to start questioning the morality of boosting profit margins at the expense of player experience. It isn’t sustainable. Or, at least I’d hope it isn’t. Look at GTA V. They made an absurd amount of money on preorders alone, but that wasn’t enough for them. So they started peddling Shark Cards, and locked everything in GTA:O behind a fat paywall. Now the game just isn’t accessible to normal people, who don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars just to participate in Online.

The developers aren't listening to the right group of their fan base, they are listening to the ones who whine & cry the loudest & honestly, I don't think those people even play the games. I also think this pre-order nonsense sends a false report as to what people want. They see some flash, some cool exclusive & they are hooked, only to dump the junk a week later in Gamestop or on Craigslist. So then you have this awesome game, that everyone loves & they want that in the sequel, but the sequel or the continuation doesn't capture it & they are not articulate enough to express what they did not like about the new one & what they loved about the old one, but since everyone pre-orders it, it says to the financial backers that it worked & to keep on! All this says that people need to follow a formula to make money. Follow this formula, repeat what others are doing & you will succeed. Then maybe one day, you can make what you want to make, unless by then, you are so burnt out on the gaming industry, that you no longer care, because hey, your vision will be shit on anyway by whiney idiots on the internet that can't just have fun on a game because they bought it in advance for a stupid amount of money & did not wait to see how good it actually was. Also, it is hard to rent a game or find places to buy interesting oddball games because you can only seem to find a limited selection at the main stores that stock games.

[quote]Is it just more but before the Xbox one and PS4 was released there was so much hype. For some odd reason it didn’t live up to the potential. We didn’t get a lot of heavy hitter games in my opinion and the ones we did get sucked.[/quote] We got lots of heavy hitter games this generation, both new IPs and sequels. Both Sony and Nintendo released big exclusive games that made a huge impact on the industry, and that's without mentioning third party developers. I don't really follow if your big issue with this generation is with impact or quality, but impact is undeniably there this generation: Gaming is a bigger industry than it's ever been before. People are making millions playing Fortnite. The indie game scene is booming, which means A) it's easier than ever before to get into games development and B) there is more variety available than ever before. Twitch streaming and gaming YouTube channels are getting bigger, better and more varied. And triple AAA developers are constantly pushing for bigger games, better graphics and more cinematic storytelling, for better or worse. In relation to quality the only decline has come from AAA devs. Smaller names are doing better than ever before: this generation brought us Nier Automata, Bloodborne, Gris, Resident Evil 2 (yeah it's a remake but still), Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Outer Wilds, Darkest Dungeon, Dragon Quest 11, Dragon Quest Builders, Dead Cells, Valkyria Chronicles 4, as well as updates for last gen games like Minecraft and The Binding of Isaac. Plus, while I personally dislike them, I've since been convinced of the importance of Overwatch, The Outer Worlds, Fortnite and *sigh* Hollow Knight. [quote]The MCC was released very broken and I personally don’t care to much for Halo 5 and it’s false advertisement. Call of Duty a billion was released but they have ran that series into the ground if ya ask me,[/quote] All AAA FPS's. I'm not judging, we all have our favourite genres, but maybe the issue here is that you need to branch out. I've said a little about this already, but there is so much more variety this generation, in terms of genre, style, tone, story, gameplay, length, perspective. I recommend looking into all the games I listed above, at least watching their trailers. Maybe something will jump out at you, and you'll change your tune. This generation of games has been great.

Bloodborne? Sekiro? Anyone here?

I don't own an Xbox, but me and my PS4 would like to disagree about the "no heavy-hitters" bit. Spider-Man Horizon Zero Dawn God of War Detroit: Become Human Titanfall 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 Witcher 3 Metal Gear 5 Uncharted 4 Overwatch Bloodborne Sekiro And don't forget the Switch... Super Mario Odyssey Zelda: Breath of the Wild Super Smash Bros. Ultimate My Friend Pedro Mariokart 8 Undertale Celeste Hollow Knight Fire Emblem: Three Houses Super Mario Maker 2

Xbone and PS4 were way too underpowered for it's time with both the Pro and X being a few years outdated. At least with the next consoles they are apparently trying to match the newer high end PC with the Xbox also releasing an X equivalent at launch which has more power than the PS5. As for games, they're subjective. There were a decent number of games for me on each console and PC, not to mention Sony started making exclusives I actually like again.

Tbh, are the console wars even a thing anymore?

A generation where we got games like Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, DOOM, Overwatch, Smash Bros Ultimate, Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA 5, and Titanfall 2 didn't live up to the hype? LMAO [quote] The MCC was released very broken and I personally don’t care to much for Halo 5 and it’s false advertisement. Call of Duty a billion was released but they have ran that series into the ground if ya ask me [/quote] Yeah well no shit, a console generation is gonna be boring if all you play is Halo and CoD when both series haven't been good since the Xbox 360 days.