By David Wyngard
Following PlayStation's showcase event on Thursday 9th September, the future of next generation gaming looks incredibly exciting, with gameplay and trailers being shown for the first time and some release dates that are on the not too distant horizon (although I did cry when finding out we would have to wait at least another 14 months for Spiderman 2). However, whilst next generation gaming seems to be gearing up heading into 2022 and beyond, how did these first nearly 12 months go of the console's lifespan?
Following the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X in November of 2020, hype for the next generation of gaming had hit its peak. With the stress of trying to secure one of these seemingly sacred items, you would at least hope that the line-ups for these consoles would be non-stop. However, this so far has not been the case.
After multiple delays to big titles during the Covid-19 pandemic, the releases for next gen consoles have been scarce, leading many to suggest that their consoles have been gathering dust waiting for something to play that they couldn’t play on the previous generation of consoles. As a PlayStation 5 owner myself, I can relate to this sentiment, as the games that have been hyped for PS5 such as the sequels to God of War, Spiderman and Horizon Zero Dawn have all seemingly disappeared from the ‘coming soon’ sections on various websites.
A quite fitting representation of the whole fiasco is the release of CD Projekt Red’s highly anticipated “Cyberpunk 2077”, which was hyped beyond belief and soon became infamous for having one of the most catastrophic launches in gaming history. The game was released in a nearly unplayable state, especially for those playing on PS4 and Xbox One, leading to developers CD Projekt Red having to issue refunds to those unhappy with the game (me very much included), and Sony and Microsoft pulling the game from their online store until the game was fixed. The whole process of hyping something up beyond comprehension and then underwhelming seems to have set off gaming in 2020/2021 in an awful manner.
On top of this, the pricing of next generation games has certainly raised some eyebrows, with games being priced around the £70 mark, almost £15 more than most last generation titles. The price of gaming is now becoming a huge stumbling block for those wanting to get into the hobby, with console prices, prices for the privilege of playing your games online (around £50 a year roughly for PlayStation and Xbox) and now the raised prices of the games themselves.
Despite faster loading times and the relief of not having to worry about my PlayStation 4 exploding due to overheating, it would be false to suggest that going through the hassle of acquiring a PS5 was 100% worth the time or money spent when I haven’t missed out on any must play titles that will define this generation of gaming. If you ask me this question in another year’s time, the answer will most probably be completely different. If the hype that these games are generating is matched by even a small percentage, then the possibilities for the next generation of gaming are truly endless.
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