{"id":2721,"date":"2020-12-22T20:45:24","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T19:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2020-12-22T20:45:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T19:45:24","slug":"the-pragmatic-console-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2020\/12\/22\/the-pragmatic-console-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pragmatic (Console) Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new console generation really is<\/em> different this time. I’ve long been \"PlayStationinterested in how video game consoles have – at least since the Nintendo 64 – consistently been promoted on the promise that now<\/em>, graphics were being revolutionized <\/em>and we would finally be able to play video games that were “just like movies”.<\/p>\n

With the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X, the main story is a different one: load times<\/em>. For example, The Verge’s PlayStation 5 review<\/a> lists “Games load quickly and run smoothly” as a top positive point, and features a table comparing load times, but graphical capabilities are a bit more theoretical – do you have a 4K TV?<\/p>\n

\"PS5<\/a>
The load time comparison we did not know we needed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Xbox Series S|X get a similar treatment, with load times getting top billing in the Verge review<\/a>. It is definitely becoming harder for non-experts to tell console generations apart graphically.<\/p>\n

Sony and Microsoft are actually catching up to Nintendo here. Where Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were in many ways painful hells of just-wait-30-minutes-for-the-update-before-playing, one of the selling points of the Nintendo Switch really was the near-instantaneous launch times, and instant sleep and wake from sleep.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, this comes at a time where the game industry at large has begun to talk of “quality of life updates” – the kind of update that doesn’t add features, but just removes some time management or other hassles from the player. The primary barrier to playing is almost always\u00a0time<\/em>, and the PlayStation 5 focus on activities<\/a> is a way for a console to compete with the bite-sized chunks of playtime that we get for free on our phones, but which have been hard to come by on consoles.<\/p>\n

Generic Hardware for Unique Experiences<\/h3>\n

\"\"The other apparent thing now is the sheer genericness of the hardware. The Xbox and PlayStations are now both just boxes of ever-so-slightly modified generic PC components, AMD RDNA 2 CPU and GPU, SSD and so on. I think this correlates with a de-emphasizing of console generations, with a larger expectation of backwards compatibility and mid-generation updates (PS4 Pro, Xbox One S|X).<\/p>\n

In parallel, the commodification of phone hardware means that the Switch is basically the hardware of large Android phone.<\/p>\n

So it’s a pragmatic generation, one of making-do, not of flashy new graphics, not of fancy new technology. It’s just a generation of casualization, of making games fit better into people’s lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new console generation really is different this time. I’ve long been interested in how video game consoles have – at least since the Nintendo 64 – consistently been promoted on the promise that now, graphics were being revolutionized and we would finally be able to play video games that were “just like movies”. With … Continue reading “The Pragmatic (Console) Generation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2725,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions\/2725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}