The next-gen launch will soon be over and the last few weeks I've seen a lot of complaints on both sides of the fence about the launch line up. Sure, more are saying the Xbox ONE's is more robust, but the fact remains that all launches are lackluster. With new tech, this is just about always the case.
But one thing I've seen a lot since the PS4 launch last Friday is talk about how the launch titles weren't anything that couldn't have been done on the PS3. That these games really aren't "worthy" of the power the new tech provides. And I ask: would you really want them to be?
There's a few ways to look at why you wouldn't.
First, just to get it out of the way, yeah, it'd be great to have better looking games, but frankly better looking doesn't mean better games. One is not exclusive to the other. In fact, if the last generation is any indication, one usually runs away from the other at high speeds.
Beyond that, better games coming first thing would be nice to see, but it opens the door for for a lot more failure to come down the pipe from the start. Something no one wants from their new big purchase, and would be horrific for many publishers and developers, especially those who want to push new IPs.
Think about it, you just got a $400-$500 system your already worried will fail on you out of the box, do you also want games that are so future-savvy that they fail on their own because they pushed too hard on that yet-to-be-proven hardware? Having games that are just a little behind the new times allows you to get more from your purchase then constant frustration. Which is a good thing, because even games that could have been built for tried and true systems can still have a boat load of issues.
But what about the tech itself; if its so great, then why should the games be a worry?
Because games are everything. Literally. You bought a system to play them, in spite what some companies will have you believe about wanting them more for apps and movie watching. If those games don't work out of the gate, then not only is your wallet in trouble, but so are the livelihoods of those that made faulty games that were supposed to help sell systems.
People have complained that the launch of both systems was hurt by Watch_Dogs being pushed back till next year, but I hold the line that it's strengthened because of it. If Watch_Dogs was a mess for being rushed to the market just to meet some quota, after having pulled in so many people to buy expensive new systems upfront, then Ubisoft, Microsoft and Sony would have a monumental mess on their hands that they could do nothing more then say "please wait for fixes" or "Please wait for other games." -Two sentiments we'll likely hear, and wouldn't accept hearing, anyway.
Afterwards we'd all be vocally inconsolable, yelling, "But.. But this is the next-gen!" till we were blue in the face -and that really doesn't do any one good. This is one of the few times in recent memory where I can say with all seriousness that Ubisoft did the right thing.
And, besides, the tech itself is a mine field of its own.
Taking out the possible failure factor, most of us seem to forget that the console were only really brought to their final state just scant a few months ago. This means that developers have been working on these games for whatever amount of time they have been, when they'd usually have a few years to develop, with only a floating bar to regulate themselves with before the final build was produced. These men and women have been on strict deadlines with the same large question marks over their heads as we had looking in on this through the glass, although any changes to any system means far bigger troubles for them then it does for us armchair analysts. This is the sort of thing that, unjustly, makes or breaks developers around this time in a generation, to the point where holding back becomes the smart thing to do for survival.
I find this to be one of the fundamental reasons why companies like Ubisoft, who cried havoc for a new generation so they could bring out new IPs, only really have ports on the plate at launch. It's just safer as a base to launch from, especially when they're properties like Assassin's Creed, that they're going to bring out every year any way. It's proven, and with so few choices, there's no real need to worry about it selling, even if you've just sold the same game to that person a few weeks before.
Then there's the dark side. As in, where things get a little more fickle then simply graphics we've already seen or the daunting shadow of possible failures. And that comes from the always looming threat of the PC, and it's community.
If we were given everything these consoles got, right out of the gate, and there's nothing left to give 4 years from now, then what's the point of getting a console over the increasingly easier to use PC platform? None really. They'd undercut (Read: Gut) the console market that they're trying to sell you on even more then the "They're just under powered PCs" sentiment that everyone can't let go of, already does.
The steady progression in quality over the course of the generation seems to serve consoles in order to stave off such claims by offering "much better graphics then the last game!" If you ask the PC community, better games could already be happening right now, but this unnatural stymieing in the flow allows developers more time to work on them while both not needing to ask players to buy constant hardware upgrades and to -attempt- to keep down budgets, which would only be that much detrimentally larger if they were consistently told to go all out -which really worked so well for everyone in the last generation.
It also serves to hold back the PC market a bit, so that, even though the upgrades are out there and can be used, they don't really matter as much because there's not being fully utilized by all things. Is that part a little shady? Sure can be construed that way, but it still works for them right now -we'll see if it will by the next generation. Some believe we won't even have a next-gen, but I can't really say where I think things will go yet, its just too soon. Or wishful thinking. Depends on what side of the fence you sit on.
So would I like better games released day 1? Sure, but I'm honestly fine with having any games at all. The launch libraries for both systems don't bother me one bit, there's things I'd play in both, if given the chance. But would I want the games to be questionably "better?" Nah, I'm okay with where they're at right now, in this moment. Better games will come, and hopefully they'll come sooner then later.
The prevailing idea that a system needs a "killer app" right out of the gate, when it's simply trying to survive fo a much longer term then just a few months, really needs to be forgotten. Anyone who's been through a launch before, let alone been an early adopter for one, knows that this is how things roll, even if they don't don't really look much deeper then the surface to exactly why this sort of thing happens every time.
Overall? Just have fun and be happy we can have things like this at all. When I was little I couldn't dream we'd be where we are right now, with what we've got.
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