Jubenhimer
Member
When a fancy new next-gen gaming system comes out, It's usually expensive, hard to find, and often doesn't have many exclusive games available yet. It's really hardcore gamers who buy next gen systems in their launch window. Lots of people still hold on to the predecessors of these consoles until the successors get more must-have games/come down in price. Hence Late-Gen and Cross-Gen releases, a way to extend the life of a previous generation platform with more games, thus making sure previous owners of the console still have something to play even as the new console is moving along.
I know people seem sick of games still coming out on previous gen hardware, but it's a practice that's been going on for years. Even as the Super Nintendo came out, Nintendo was still releasing plenty of games for the original NES with the last first party NES release, Wario's Woods, coming out in 1994, the same year the PlayStation was released in Japan. Sega continued supporting and releasing Genesis games even as the Saturn stumbled its way through the market. And speaking of the PlayStation, Sony is known for supporting their consoles for long periods of time. The same year the PS2 came out, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy VX, Threads of Fate, and many others were released, and the system still kept getting games until 2005. The PlayStation 2 itself lasted an insanely long time, one of its biggest exclusives, God of War II, was released just a few months after the PS3 came out, and its final game overall, was Pro Evolution Soccer in 2013, the year the PS4 released. The PS3's most recent game release was just last year with Shakedown: Hawaii, and even then, many big titles still kept releasing for it until at least 2016.
Remember when Nintendo was still putting out GBA games even as the Nintendo DS was released? Remember when everyone was ranting about the 3DS continuing to get first party games until 2019 when the Switch had already been out for 2 years? Even Microsoft supported the Xbox 360 for at least a few more years after the Xbox One released. I find late-gen games and cross-gen titles pretty cool TBH. It shows that the platform holder isn't just giving up on the older hardware just because something new is out, and they're a nice alternative for gamers who still don't have the money for next gen just yet, but still want a reason to keep playing their older systems until they're ready to upgrade.
It's only recently that Cross-gen titles and late releases became more prominent as development for big titles are much more expensive and time consuming these days, so it only makes sense to release on consoles people already have until the adoption of next gen systems becomes more ubiquitous. It's especially true for indies, who often don't have the money to make next gen exclusive experiences at launch, so starting work on last gen, and upgrading them for next gen systems is ideal. I think what annoys people is that more cross-gen releases means less next-gen exclusive experiences at launch, and that's a fair point. The PS4 and Xbox One gen didn't really start getting going until late 2015 at least. If its like last gen, then cross-gen games will die down eventually. It's just going to take longer than people would like.
I know people seem sick of games still coming out on previous gen hardware, but it's a practice that's been going on for years. Even as the Super Nintendo came out, Nintendo was still releasing plenty of games for the original NES with the last first party NES release, Wario's Woods, coming out in 1994, the same year the PlayStation was released in Japan. Sega continued supporting and releasing Genesis games even as the Saturn stumbled its way through the market. And speaking of the PlayStation, Sony is known for supporting their consoles for long periods of time. The same year the PS2 came out, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Legend of Dragoon, Final Fantasy VX, Threads of Fate, and many others were released, and the system still kept getting games until 2005. The PlayStation 2 itself lasted an insanely long time, one of its biggest exclusives, God of War II, was released just a few months after the PS3 came out, and its final game overall, was Pro Evolution Soccer in 2013, the year the PS4 released. The PS3's most recent game release was just last year with Shakedown: Hawaii, and even then, many big titles still kept releasing for it until at least 2016.
Remember when Nintendo was still putting out GBA games even as the Nintendo DS was released? Remember when everyone was ranting about the 3DS continuing to get first party games until 2019 when the Switch had already been out for 2 years? Even Microsoft supported the Xbox 360 for at least a few more years after the Xbox One released. I find late-gen games and cross-gen titles pretty cool TBH. It shows that the platform holder isn't just giving up on the older hardware just because something new is out, and they're a nice alternative for gamers who still don't have the money for next gen just yet, but still want a reason to keep playing their older systems until they're ready to upgrade.
It's only recently that Cross-gen titles and late releases became more prominent as development for big titles are much more expensive and time consuming these days, so it only makes sense to release on consoles people already have until the adoption of next gen systems becomes more ubiquitous. It's especially true for indies, who often don't have the money to make next gen exclusive experiences at launch, so starting work on last gen, and upgrading them for next gen systems is ideal. I think what annoys people is that more cross-gen releases means less next-gen exclusive experiences at launch, and that's a fair point. The PS4 and Xbox One gen didn't really start getting going until late 2015 at least. If its like last gen, then cross-gen games will die down eventually. It's just going to take longer than people would like.