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Digital Foundry: Are Gaming and Consoles becoming... Boring?

Artistic

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I feel it's more of a age thing in my case than any hardware advancements or risk taking in games, but always interested in hearing your takes.



I'm still a gamer at heart, but I think I might have played mostly any unique experience you can curate in gaming.
 
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The gaming landscape is changing for the worse for sure, now its just about what the next Resident Evil/Souls like/Last of Us release is coming up...these days you can't even get a decent Panzer Dragoon, Burnout, Republic Commando, Pro Evo soccer like game...(case in point the absolute JOKE of an installment Konami recently put out for Master league, how the mighty have fallen...)
 
Video games HAVE become boring. The next big thing (VR gaming) never really got off the ground so we're now playing the same kind of games we did 20 years ago but with much better visuals.

My hope is that AI can bring something new to the table. Just imagine games like The Witcher 4 where every single character has an actual story to tell instead of the same 2 or 3 lines of scripted dialog. Imagine full fledged story driven quests that are unique for every single player. An open world that's literally a playground where you can do ANYTHING.
 
It was certainly much more interesting when we had a GameCube, Xbox and PS2, they all weren't trying to 1:1 copy each other and even the same games could have a different vibe between consoles.

Feels like Handheld & TV are really the only two massive differentiators now.
 
Weird ass topic.
I don't think so.

In my case, unless I'm gaming with close friends, I just don't find the same kind of enjoyment like I once did when I was an adolescent or teenager.

The industry in a lot of ways has also matured and "grown up" since those early PS2/OG Xbox to where we are now.
 
I feel it's more of a age thing in my case than any hardware advancements or risk taking in games, but always interested in hearing your takes.



I'm still a gamer at heart, but I think I might have played mostly any unique experience you can curate in gaming.

happy love you GIF by Dolly Parton
 
Not gonna watch these sad sacks pontificate about it but it's true. AAA gaming has been ass for a very long time with a few notable exceptions. You couldn't pay me to play Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar, Horizon Forbidden West, Ass Creed Shadows, etc.
 
Backcompat is the reason consoles (and PCs too) are becoming boring.

No room for innovation in controllers or human interface devices when your new controller has to operate 1:1 with your last 2 or 3 gens of games.

Everything in life comes at a price.
 
I feel it's more of a age thing in my case than any hardware advancements or risk taking in games, but always interested in hearing your takes.



I'm still a gamer at heart, but I think I might have played mostly any unique experience you can curate in gaming.


Maybe it's boring if you just sit and psychoanalyze every pixel on a constant basis the way the DF crew does.

Not hating on them, but gaming is going to inevitably feel tedious and boring and feel like work if you approach the hobby the way they do.
 
I remember seeing Shadow of the Colossus and not believing it could run on a console. Then I got it and realized that it really couldn't run on a console after all.
 
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DFs idea of fun is benchmarking and pixel counting every game to within an inch of its life. I'm not sure they actually "play" games at all.

The fun lies in the indie and AA area. AAA is generic shit these days. And that's all these guys focus on.
 
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I think if you hate 50+ hour open world games then yeah gaming might be more boring than in the past. Thankfully i love those games.
 
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Up until and including PS3 and X360 there were actual differences in hardware.

Now they are all the same, and basically just some custom variants of a PC configuration.
 
No, I don't miss any of the older consoles. PS4 had pathetically weak CPU which seriously hindered any progressions in gaming in general, xbox one had the same CPU with even worse GPU, PS3 was a joke all around, X360 RED RING OF DEATH, PS2 was even worse than Dreamcast, Dreamcast was decent but it died too quickly, N64 games ran at 10 fps, PS1 games polygons looked like shit, Saturn possibly the worst system ever, SNES SLOOOOOOW Genesis its limited color palettes made me go blind.. After all these painful years, we finally got something decent called PS5 & XSX, and PS5 PRO had been the best console yet, PS6 will be better.
 
Feels like Handheld & TV are really the only two massive differentiators now.
Imho there's no handhelds left. Switch is a console which also has a portable mode, but handheld as in every day carry around, eqsy pick up and play, are extinct. The last great handheld we had was the 3DS, or would you call the gigantic Switch 2 or Steam Deck pocketable? And all the other china handhelds are just trying to copy what's already been there, but none of them is truly unique.

And @ topic: yes. Console gaming became very boring. It's just copyinh what's already been there thousands of times, massive overstimulating games and no new experiences at all.

But I don't care that much, I just go retro. I still love my N3DSXL, Vita and PS3.
 
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I sure miss the times of exotic hardware getting you 20fps because developers had no idea what to do with it. Honestly, it's DF that's getting boring these days.
 
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DFs idea of fun is benchmarking and pixel counting every game to within an inch of its life.
Yea but that's precisely why for DF, consoles have never been more boring.
We literally just have one version of the game with slightly different settings repeated across consoles. PS3 era was the last time there were actual differences to talk about - and even there, it was already quite monotone if you compared 360 to PS3.

Of course - they missed their own train - the best time for DF to exist was 90s and early 00s in terms of exciting work for them 🤷‍♀️

I feel it's more of a age thing in my case than any hardware advancements or risk taking in games, but always interested in hearing your takes.
It depends on the games you're looking at. High budget stuff was never really about taking risks, but it's more safe and bland than it's ever been. Hardware hasn't had a meaningful impact on game advancements in a decade now (ok, loading times), so that's kind of immaterial.
But when looking at games that aren't trying to outspend the competition, creativity is pretty spectacular, and I'd argue best its ever been. It's just -not very console centric space, and definitely not a space that DF cares for.
 
No, I don't miss any of the older consoles. PS4 had pathetically weak CPU which seriously hindered any progressions in gaming in general, xbox one had the same CPU with even worse GPU, PS3 was a joke all around, X360 RED RING OF DEATH, PS2 was even worse than Dreamcast, Dreamcast was decent but it died too quickly, N64 games ran at 10 fps, PS1 games polygons looked like shit, Saturn possibly the worst system ever, SNES SLOOOOOOW Genesis its limited color palettes made me go blind.. After all these painful years, we finally got something decent called PS5 & XSX, and PS5 PRO had been the best console yet, PS6 will be better.
A bit harsh involving some of those older consoles as gamers expectations back then (and technical knowledge) was a lot different than today.
 
This may sound borderline depressing, but I don't find anything really exciting anymore. Maybe I'm old enough now that it takes alot more to get a rise out of me.
 
No. Gaming as a whole is still amazing. It's only shitty Western AAA games that are overly safe, boring, and ideologically garbage. Eastern AAA games and AA/indies are great.
 
I feel it's more of a age thing in my case than any hardware advancements or risk taking in games, but always interested in hearing your takes.



I'm still a gamer at heart, but I think I might have played mostly any unique experience you can curate in gaming.

I see they're back using the thumbnails that look like mugshots of convicted sex offenders.
 
It's pretty boring compared to the massive graphics leaps and brand new AAA (AA by today's standards) IP we used to get back in the PS1, PS2 and 360 gens. Soul Calibur, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo, SSX, Halo, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Tekken, Half-Life, the list can go on forever.

Now it's endless cross gen and barely any new AAA IP. The medium's understandably matured so there is only so much you can innovate, but doesn't change the fact that by comparison things used to be a lot more innovative and exciting.

Also capitalism, GaaS, cost of living and "wokeness" have basically destroyed the North American games industry so that doesn't help. The 4Bs (bethesda, bioware, blizzard and bungie) are fucking garbage compared to their prime years. And Valve makes 1 game per decade now. Epic just makes Fortnite slop (I think Fortnite was actually good from 2017-2022, but it's trash now)

The people who found joy in indie games, cool. But those aren't a replacement for the amazing $5M-$10M budget games we used to get from the west like SSX3, Burnout 3, NBA Street, etc
 
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all I know is that I picked up FFT Ivalice Chronicles on a whim and haven't been able to stop playing since. it really is remarkable how much better games as a whole were conceived back then.
 
I'm finding good games on a regular basis still. I also like a lot of the modern trends in gaming.

At the same time, gaming as a whole has become a lot more boring, stale and safe.
 
The need for XP, levels and progression in every game has pushed the industry into broader homogenised genres. Whether it's melee or shooter, first or third, isometric or hack n slash it's just a different seasoning on the same potato chips.

There are a handful of games that do something new outside the norm or bring something interesting to the table but by and large I think that's why we are bored and tired.

It's rare to log into a game where you don't need to chase some meta progression and can just play imo.
 
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