#oneaday Day 640: Next-Gen Unhype

I'm almost certain we'll discuss this on the MoeGamer Podcast at some point, but the thoughts are fresh in my mind right now, so I thought I'd pop them down on paper with no real organisation.

I'm not excited for "next-gen". I've said this before, but this is the most not excited for "next-gen" I've been in the history of next-gens.

My reasoning behind this is that the things people seem to be getting excited about are the absolute antithesis to the things I like about gaming. The main case in point at the time of writing is the recent reveal of the Xbox Series S — a smaller, lighter, 1440p version of the next-generation Xbox with no disc drive and a 512GB SSD. Everyone seems super-hyped about this because 1) it's launching at $299, which seems eminently reasonable for a new console and 2) something about Xbox Game Pass.

I don't like Xbox Game Pass, and it kind of baffles me why so many people are so thoroughly on board with it. And I'm not just saying this to be contrary; I have fresh memories in my mind of how vociferous the resistance to "not actually owning your games" has been in the past when, for example, games have ended up delisted from various digital storefronts. Hell, in the last week we've had people chewing out Nintendo for the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection no longer being available after March of next year.

So what's different about Game Pass? I guess it's "cheaper" in that you pay less up front and have access to all the games you want from their catalogue rather than paying more, once, for a single game. But I'm not convinced that's necessarily a good thing, for several reasons. Firstly is the obvious one: stop paying, you no longer have access to any of the games.

Secondly is perhaps more of a concern when we think about how few people already bother to play their games all the way through. With a vast, ever-growing catalogue of new experiences to try on Game Pass, people are going to be even less likely to see things through to their respective conclusions, which means 1) said people are going to miss out on some fabulous finales, and 2) developers and publishers are going to do their best to implement "retention strategies" in order to keep people playing.

Because the business model for Game Pass pays out to developers and publishers according to play time, it's in companies' interests to put out one, continuously updated game that never ends, a la Fortnite or its ilk. Throw in some microtransactions on top of it and they have the potential to make even more money atop whatever they get out of Game Pass. EA signed up to make their EA Access catalogue part of Xbox Game Pass today, and you can be damn sure they'll be on the front line of implementing this bullshit with anything even vaguely online-centric.

Game Pass does have value in that it's a risk-free way to try things out without buying them… but that used to be what demos were for, and older demos often provided unique experiences to the full game. Plus how many people do you think are going to find something on Game Pass that they like and then buy it if they already have access to it? Not many, I'd wager.

On top of all that, the meagre 512GB SSD the Xbox Series S comes with means that deleting games to make room for new ones will be an absolute necessity. And I suspect not many people will bother to redownload something they consider themselves "done" with if something new and shiny is just a click away.

I don't like the direction things are going, and I don't like how bafflingly positive people have been about all this, given, as I say, past criticisms of digital distribution models. Sony has some work to do in order to convince me next-gen is worth jumping in on. And I suspect the various limited run companies are going to be very busy in the coming years, too.

I don't like to be negative about what should be an exciting time, but frankly, most of what I've seen about the new generation of consoles fills me with worry rather than anticipation. I hope I'm wrong.