What a load of crap.

by ShadowOfTheVoid , South Carolina, Friday, June 21, 2013, 13:24 (3955 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I know that was a (IMO poor) attempt at hyperbolic humor, but still, people lamenting the loss of a couple of minor conveniences and saying "Now all we're getting is another Better Graphics Box" need to get some perspective.

The XBO can still do a great many things that the 360 could not do, and there's even a couple of features that it has that the PS4 doesn't have. Even if the XBO doesn't fundamentally change gaming — and let's be honest: the only fundamental change was going to be to the used game/second-hand market, which is what DRM and online requirements were about — that's still not a bad thing. As I pointed out in a post I made on HBO after the PS4 announcement, that's not really anything to be disappointed about. The history of gaming has been one of stepwise evolution. Even the increases in computing power we get every generation are in and of themselves capable of bringing us newer and better things. Even ignoring all this "cloud" business that MS and Sony go on about, I've noticed that many devs are doing things other than simply making prettier graphics. They're actually doing things that affect gameplay, things that simply couldn't be done on prior generations due to hardware limitations. We're getting larger game worlds (you could make a drinking game out of how often "open world" was said at E3), we're seeing large-scale physics-driven features, and we're getting the ability to play larger MP maps with greater amounts of players. It's not simply going to be "seventh-gen gameplay with better graphics." We need not bemoan the lack of revolution, but rather be in awe of the power of evolution. Even though the fundamentals of gaming haven't changed all that much over the last several decades — even things like motion control and networked/online gaming have existed since at least the 80s if not earlier —, gaming itself has evolved substantially in that time, and I have been nothing short of impressed at all the progress that has been made since I first started playing games some 30 years ago. Dismissing each new generation as "just a power upgrade" greatly understates just what those power upgrades are and have been capable of.