The more things change
We’re on the cusp of a new generation of consoles, with Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 both due to launch later this month across much of the planet.
Both are powerhouses, both designed to be the ultimate console experience for customers lucky enough to grab one. And both offer a less expensive (I’d hesitate to use cheaper in this context) digital-only console.
It’s a far cry from 2013, and the furore over Microsoft’s botched Xbox One reveal. Amongst a plethora of announced features that mattered not a jot to gamers was the promise of a digital-only future, an always online connection and a shift towards games-as-a-service.
The outcry was vociferous – to the extent that Microsoft u-turned on so many features heads were sent spinning; gone was home media centre aspirations, gone was Kinect, gone was Snap.
Even now tough, seven years on from that announcement and on the eve of a whole new generation, there’s a vocal section of our hobby who don’t want gaming tio change. They don’t want digital stores, the Netflix of gaming, or anhythiung that might bring new people to hgames.
They want the same as they’ve always had, only shinier and better.
And it makes me sad that what I wrote in 2016 – an excerpt below – rings as true today as it did back then.
March, 2016: Why we all need to grow up and embrace the future
Today’s Xbox One is a far cry from the always-online Xbox One of the disastrous launch event – an event orchestrated by financiers and business people rather than games people, it seemed. In an effort to win back the fans the pendulum swung back and rapid changes were made. Many of these were for the best.
Many, but not all. Let’s be clear – there was much in that original concept that was good, and would have benefitted gamers if only it had been presented properly.
Let’s look at always-online. The requirement that your console would have to ‘phone home’ once per day to function was clearly ill-judged. What about servicemen overseas? What about those with spotty Internet connections? For those consumers, their consoles would effectively brick until a connection was restored. More than ill-judged, it was positively anti-consumer. An effort by the suits to control every aspect of how we use our consoles.
Fast forward to today. I’ll wager the vast majority of Xbox Ones (and PlayStation 4s, and Wii Us, for that matter) connect automatically to the Internet, and Microsoft’s (or Sony’s, or Nintendo’s) servers, every time they boot up. There will be a significant proportion, too, who have their consoles in instant-on mode, silently watchful black boxes periodically logging in and downloading software even as we sleep or are engaged elsewhere.
In every one of those cases – as far as the faceless financiers are concerned – and in every way that matters, this is as good as the always-online future threatened. Those who railed against every aspect of an always-online imposition but who now use their consoles this way should take a long hard look at themselves. Those who were too blinkered to see the potential but could only look to the past, who just wanted the same as before only newer, have damaged the Xbox brand and continue to tarnish the reputation of all those who love this hobby.
There’s a section of the gaming community who fears change, who rails against the new and different, who tilts at windmills. Gaming is a medium that has the potential to deliver experiences of greater worth and depth than any other. Gaming is a medium that, more than any other, drives forward the pace of consumer hardware development. Why, then, are some so fearful of change?
Instead of regressing, of hiding behind excuses of poor internet connections or fears of governmental interference, we should embrace change. We should demand that our services keep up with the aspirations of the most forward looking developers, and not decry those aspirations because our services fail.
Nothing worthwhile ever came from playing it safe, from treading the middle ground.
Let’s not play safe. Let’s demand more.
Back to the dying embers of 2020. Let’s keep demanding more. We should expect to play our games anywhere, on any device we own. We deserve better representation in games – we should ALL be able to see ourselves in the games we play.
Let’s demand an end to gatekeeping. Let’s demand that games are open and accessible to everyone.
Let’s keep demanding more.
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash.
