A factual presentation of the decline in gaming

[Badassbill]

We are three years into the life span of the PS3 and Wii, and four years into the span of the 360. Using aggregate scores, how does the current quality of gaming hold up in comparison to the last generation?

Three years into the life of the PS2 (Summer 2000 - Summer 2003) there were 34 games that had an aggregate score of 90/100 or higher. If we compare this to the PS3 (Autumn 2006 - Autumn 2009) three years in and there are only a mere 18 games with an aggregate score of 90/100 or higher. That's a decline of nearly 50% in a single generation.

How's the decline on the Microsoft side of things? Four years into the Xbox life span (Autumn 2001 - Autumn 2005) there were 32 games with an aggregate score of 90/100 or higher. If we compare this to the Xbox 360 (Autumn 2005 - Autumn 2009), four years in and there are 26 games with an aggregate score of 90/100 or more. Not too bad, but it's still an 18.75% decline from the previous gen.

And finally Nintendo. I suggest if you're a fan ... brace yourself. Three years into the lifespan of the Gamecube (Autumn 2001 - Autumn 2004) there were 25 games with an aggregate score of 90/100 or more. Three years into the Wii life span (Autumn 2006 - Autumn 2009) and there are, ... well, 9 games with an aggregate score of 90/100 or higher. That's a whopping 65% decline.

Sony: -47.04%
Microsoft: -18.75%
Nintendo: -65.00%

Total decline in AAA titles over the last generation: 43.59%

Well, Shit.

[Rai]

Bear in mind that development costs themselves have likely skyrocketed, as well.

Remember the N64/PSone era, where any large areas (usually) needed distance fog to really exist. Then the next-gen (last-gen now) pops up, in the form of the 'Cube, the Xbox, and PS2. Large areas were easily rendered, and game worlds could be fully realized. Now in our current gen, where we're spoiled on being able to fully realize entire game worlds with ease, what then? Graphics. Simply because there's nothing else that can be done.

The N64/PSOne era was a paradigm shift in and of itself because of the proliferation of true 3D, while the black, purple, black-green boxes brought in high-quality 3D, and processing power comparable to the typical user PC.

Can you name a single current-gen console title that wouldn't have been possible, gameplay-wise, in the last generation? I sure as hell can't.

So, Mister Developer, your game fulfills every desire you had for it, what next? Well, the only avenue left to really go down is graphics. Now, I'm not railing against graphics in any way, but with how detailed graphics are getting these days, the developer will have to spend more and more time on those graphics, making sure that they're not falling behind the competition, who is also striving to make the framerate chug with their high-quality texture mapping.

So, with greater graphical power means greater focus on graphics. But every man-hour spent on perfecting graphics is another man-hour that isn't spent on perfecting gameplay.

[Helmo]

After the sixth generation all the consoles started sucking.

[tsr moderation staff]

that's because x-box discovered you can get a vortex of money by releasing a stream of fps games and nintendo found out you get get infinite dollars by releasing utter crap

[Ton]

What are the numbers for the overall lifespans?

[TomGuycott]

I'm not sure I wanna see the numbers for the overall lifespans... I'd find it too depressing.
I think one of the problems is that a lot of game companies are trying to appeal to a much wider audience than those they were trying to appeal to back in the day... I mean, the Wii is pretty much a system that caters to people who never played games before, because most titles hardly seem like games. There is so much garbage that sucks.

Granted, game consoles have had crappy games in EVERY generation. It's just that it seems like they churn them out faster than ever these days.

[Ultimecia]

Sorry Rai, you started a good argument, but it is flawed in some ways. Sure, Badassbill's also have it's flaws, but on it later.

Usually the reviews e critics of one game are based off on the current available technology. So even on PS1 and N64 era the fog areas were stunning for the time. Being able to cover a large area without screen transitions or loading time was something big by them.
On PS2,Cube and XBox era, they only had the previous generation and the information on the hardware available. The grades and the reviews were adjusted to the new generation. So the scores were kept more or less intact. Same thing on the current generation.
I played some games on PS3 and I must say I wasn't impressed. I was expecting a lot more from it. Many of Silent Hill Homecoming's models and textures looked liked something from a web stock. Metal Gear is beautiful, but I wasn't much more impressed than when I played the previous Metal Gears, it was still.. I don't know, plastic. I'm not even commenting on Resident Evil 5.

So it really don't holds together. Many of the problems seem today are the same, so it really don't justify this difference.

Now on Badassbill

One thing that helped a lot the PS1/N64 generation was the fact the industry was hyped by the time. The SNes/Genesis was very good for all and many professionals left their big companies to try to make money on their own companies, so there were lots of games. Many were awful, many were good. I'm guessing that some of the PS2/Cube/XBox got some collateral effect from that, but now making a game on the current consoles is just too expensive, so less titles are produced. It's also harder to produce to the hardware due to the coding (or so they say) so they don't quite got the hang of everything they got. Yet.
The games are also more expensive to buy, so people are buying even less games. This really don't stimulates the producers. In earlier years, it was easier to produce low-costing games to cover for the high-profile games. So for every technical masterpiece here were at least five or more low-budget games. Now it's a bit harder to do it. Not to mention each platform's "campaign"

At first PS3 were trying to sell their superior hardware, but it was too expensive and it took a while to break-even. It's the hardest to program, and even with better hardware the reviews says that the 360 versions of most games actually looks better.
The first XBox was mostly a FPS platform, so 360's initial titles were more of this genre.And it don't attracts to all gamers. Now it's getting more variety and it's selling a lot more, but the red ring of death thing scared many gamers away. Oh! Almost forgot that many of the 360 games might ended up being ported to the computer.
And Wii decided to go with the same strategy like PS1 over N64: inferior hardware, but cheaper games. And decided to invest on casual gamers. More games, but way more crappy games and not even 1/3 of the games gets reviewed.

Those are some of my thoughts. And if you ask me, yeah, I got a Wii and I'm planning to buy a 360. But so far I'm having way more fun on DS and PSP than big home consoles.

[GaryCXJk]

The thing that really helped back then was the fact that back in the previous generation, there weren't so many reviewers who could call themselves "notable", therefore, the total average wouldn't be brought down by those so-called "reviewers". Nowadays everybody can start a website, make some reviews, get in some sponsors and then be called notable because of that. Hell, British Gaming Blog, the site that started after Jonathan Explorer and Rogultgot left, could potentially be then next "notable" reviewing site.

[Rai]

Usually the reviews e critics of one game are based off on the current available technology. So even on PS1 and N64 era the fog areas were stunning for the time. Being able to cover a large area without screen transitions or loading time was something big by them.
On PS2,Cube and XBox era, they only had the previous generation and the information on the hardware available. The grades and the reviews were adjusted to the new generation. So the scores were kept more or less intact. Same thing on the current generation.
I played some games on PS3 and I must say I wasn't impressed. I was expecting a lot more from it. Many of Silent Hill Homecoming's models and textures looked liked something from a web stock. Metal Gear is beautiful, but I wasn't much more impressed than when I played the previous Metal Gears, it was still.. I don't know, plastic. I'm not even commenting on Resident Evil 5.

So it really don't holds together. Many of the problems seem today are the same, so it really don't justify this difference.

I was speaking about the developer's side of things. Compared to the actual tech driving the game, graphics should be a footnote in the design doc, but when graphical capability reaches a certain point, so much more time has to be spent on those graphics to achieve the peak of what that tech can do.

Compare Spyro the Dragon to a typical console title nowadays. Now compare the 3D model of Spyro to the 3D model of Alex Mercer. Spyro's overall model is maybe a few days' work at most. With Alex over there, I'd be surprised if his 3D model was completed in under a month.

Now, take comparison and apply it to every artistic asset in the game. Between all the deadlines, a developer really can't spend a great deal of time on both graphics and gameplay.

This isn't to say that graphically sound games are destined to suck (I had a blast and a half playing Prototype), but most publishers and developers are deadline-driven, so it usually comes down to a one-or-the-other decision.

[Cshad]

The games are also more expensive to buy, so people are buying even less games.

Weren't games on the older consoles (ie SNES etc) much more expensive? Games now a days roughly cost 40$, whether its on the DS or Xbox.

Ie Mother 2 was $69.95 (US)

[Rai]

Uh, average price for a typical 360 title seems to be around $60, whenever I walk into a retailer. Not too far off from what seems like a typical price for an SNES cart.

[Ultimecia]

I completely agree with you, Rai. When making a game, they are usually forced to chose were they are going to invest their 'workforce', and currently they are more graphics driven. There are many factors that limits a game, not only the deadline, but sometimes the money, the current technology and even the own development team. I saw two games (one amateur and other professional) in 3D created by teams that used to work only with 2D, so you can imagine the quality of the overall product.
Unfortunately gameplay isn't something that is going to appear on the game's box, but the graphics will. Trailers and TV spots are easy to manipulate, believe me, I did a few. So yeah, the current mindset is "screw the game, long live the graphics! Huzzah!"

Older consoles (SNES, Genenesis, N64) there was the cartridge costs. For example, only Nintendo used to produce the cartridge for the SNes and the companies still had to pay the royalties. And the previous generation's games prices were a little lower (CD and DVD medias)

[LeleleleMAXIMUM]

I don't think you should be comparing the AMOUNT of good games, you should be comparing the PERCENTAGE of good games.
I have a feeling it will be pretty much the same result, but, yeah.
Just saying.

[Syphr]

All truth aside I think the bar for a "spectacular game" has been raised considerably.

[Koopaul]

Well here's how I see it. Game developers these days don't care what the gamers and reviewers think. They only care about what'll earn them big cash for little effort. May I remind you that good reviews do not equal good sales, that has been proven many times when I saw great games sell poorly.

Nintendo has been releasing extremely few games good or bad because they don't need to. They made a fortune on ONE or TWO games like Wii Fit which got an 80% as its best review but sold like hot cakes.