Okay…Maybe This IS the Worst Generation of Gaming

I find it increasingly important to check our collective nostalgia. For example, my friend recently told me that he thought the Switch 2 launch lineup was weak. And while I do agree with him, it’s important to remember that most console launch lineups were weak! I sent him a photo of the launch lineup for his favorite console ever (the PS2) and we were both shocked by how underwhelming it was.

It’s a cop out to always say that “things were better back in the day”. I am completely aware of this. And yet, there are some truths to it every now and then.

Up until the turn of the millennium, there was no way for developers to patch their games. This meant that by the time a game shipped, it had to be done. I am constantly impressed by how good the catalog of the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of consoles is. Developers had a set date to finish and that was it. If your game was a broken piece of garbage it would affect your reputation greatly. Even if your game was good, if it had some major issues left within it, the games status would take a hit. Nowadays we get things like Cyberpunk 2077. This is one just example of an inescapable fact. The ability to patch games has led to the attitude of “we can fix it a few weeks after it launches”. Another small example is the concept of a physical video game. Buying a physical video game at the store meant getting a manual and a disc with all of the games data on it. Today, a “physical” game might not even have the full game on it! And manuals have of course been extinct for over a decade. Again, I bring all this up just to provide example of ways things have objectively changed for the worse.

If you look up a list of “PS5 only” games, you will find a list of about 45-50 games. As I’m perusing this list, I see games that aren’t even out yet like Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, Saros, Intergalactic: The Heretic Project, and Wolverine. The rest aren’t very impressive, but of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When I was younger, exclusives were the number one factor in determining a consoles identity. Choosing the PlayStation 2 meant you would get access to Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Sly Cooper. Choosing GameCube meant of course Mario and Zelda, alongside some peculiar exclusives like Resident Evil Remake. Other than Nintendo, exclusives don’t seem to matter much to any of the hardware manufactures in 2025. Sony puts their games on PC. Xbox puts their games anywhere they can. I try not to bring this up too much because at the end of the day it comes off like “Boo hoo more people game to play these amazing games!” But again, exclusives once did mean identity. That is another inescapable reality of the gaming landscape. And what can take exclusives place as a key part of identity? A stupid controller? Console UI? That’s not enough.

What sparked this post is yesterdays news that Xbox prices are going up. Yup- games, controllers, and consoles are all going up in price five years after release. This is of course due to the tariffs and the recession that nobody wants to admit we’re in. Remember when consoles went down in price after a few years?

I know that I’m ranting and whining right now.

I tried so hard for the past handful of years to fight against the growing attitude that “modern gaming sucks”. I put my money where my mouth is and bought countless new games on day one. I found it extremely important to prove to the industry that I’m ready and willing to support them in the number one important way- financially. But it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that pro-consumer moves are rarer than a solar eclipse. Games are launched broken and buggy. We are given fake release dates just so publishers can sell “2 days of early access” for another twenty dollars. Prices for five year old consoles just went up despite the next generation of consoles inevitably coming out in just a couple of years.

It’s hard not to feel jaded. Yes, my frustrations mostly lie with the industry and not the games themselves. I’m regularly satisfied by games like Silent Hill 2 Remake and Astro Bot. But is the juice worth the squeeze? I’m not sure anymore. I remember feeling particularly annoyed when I purchased Visions of Mana on launch day, only for the studio behind it to be shut down a day later.

I’ve been telling my friends that I may go the route of focusing on retro and indie games. For months I’ve been saying that Switch 2 may be my final console purchase before I go the PC route. And both of those ideas seem ever more possible. The video game industry is starting to feel like the exterior of McDonald’s. What was once colorful and welcoming is now grossly corporatized, gray, and sterile.

I apologize for the whining. I just needed to get the frustrations I’m feeling out.