Home Gaming The gap between current and last-gen gaming is getting bigger

The gap between current and last-gen gaming is getting bigger

3 min read
61

2014 is most likely the final year for any cross-console games. It’s a transition that we’ve gone through before, from the PlayStation 1 and N64 days, all the way up to the latest devices as players hop from PS3 to PS4 and Xbox 360 to Xbox One. As you might imagine, there’s always going to be a gap between games released across generations. But right now, that divide is simply massive.

Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry took another look at Shadow Of Mordor on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, a game which already looks outstandingly terrible on those systems. As usual, the game looked uglier than sin, although Digital Foundry remarked that massive open-worlds that were detailed and populated, had been difficult to create on older hardware as of late:

But can Shadow of Mordor’s open-world design excuse this to any extent? After all, ambitious sandbox games have rarely proven a strong suit for the PS3 or 360. Even as a jewel in the generation’s crown, the incredible Grand Theft Auto 5 still has trouble rendering complex inner-city areas, plagued as it is with pop-in and frame-rate lulls on last-gen.

Another case in point is the Assassin’s Creed series. After seven releases in as many years, each one improving upon its core AnvilNext tech, the series is still resigned to sub-30fps frame-rates as the generation draws to a close. By comparison, Shadow of Mordor’s engine has no existing template on last-gen from which it can quickly develop an open-world design. Sadly, the end result here reminds us of the early, ramshackle efforts at this gameplay form on PS3 and 360.

But ambition can always be tempered. You can still port a great game over, even if you do have to make some sacrifices. All it takes is a little bit of tender lovin’ care to do so. Something which the port of Shadow Of Mordor clearly never received according to the Digital Foundry report:

It’s a worrying sign for PS3 and 360 owners keen to stave off a console upgrade for as long as possible. Inevitably, it falls on each developer to make the best call when weighing the viability of these last-gen versions. The increasing need to be technically progressive on PS4 and Xbox One – to truly show off their mettle going forward – also stands to make each port to last-gen a greater challenge. We hope to see this fantastic era in gaming wind down with grace, but with more ‘me too’ releases in this mould, the aftertaste isn’t set to always be so sweet.

And I echo those sentiments. Right now, I’ve got friends and family expressing an interest in gaming, asking me what hardware to get. And my response is to tell them to get stuffed an older console and dip into the vast library of games that are available. Hopefully, they won’t be getting any of these horrid ports.

Still, credit where credit is due. Destiny looks just fine and runs smooth on older tech, the final old-gen Assassin’s Creed game was the best game of the year from Ubisoft and GTA V still looked fantastic last year. But don’t expect to see any more games of that calibre, from next year.

Last Updated: December 18, 2014

61 Comments

  1. I just know the day i get my PS4 its only gonna be a month then they announce the PS5,

    Can we please get Commander Shepard to stop this cycle????:-(

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      December 18, 2014 at 11:11

      But it’s Commander Shepard’s favourite cycle in video gaming.

      Reply

      • Ghost In The Rift

        December 18, 2014 at 11:13

        Towers of Hanoi on Next Gen for the commander???

        Reply

        • ToshZA

          December 18, 2014 at 11:16

          Repeatedly killing Mordin, over and over and over and over.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief Octacore

            December 18, 2014 at 11:25

            SPOILER ALERT!!!

          • ToshZA

            December 18, 2014 at 11:26

            Oh, right. Warnings and stuff people. Don’t read my previous post.

      • Matthew Holliday

        December 18, 2014 at 15:28

        im commander shepard and this is my favorite cycle on the internet.

        Reply

    • oVg elfroot slayer

      December 18, 2014 at 11:39

      PS5 lol. The 8gigs of RAM in the PS4 doing squat.

      Reply

    • Bran

      December 18, 2014 at 12:18

      To which cycle are you referring? Both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 milked (and continue to milk) their aging hardware for almost a decade. That might as well be a millennia to the tech industry.

      Reply

    • Zubayr Bhyat

      December 18, 2014 at 13:15

      Will the Chosen Undead do it? It might leave a trail of bodies though…

      Reply

  2. Captain JJ the engaged

    December 18, 2014 at 11:08

    My thigh gap is sadly getting smaller.

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      December 18, 2014 at 11:14

      What’s a thigh gap? :/

      Reply

      • Quo Vadis?

        December 18, 2014 at 11:17

        Its what hot chicks have. Don’t worry, you might see one, one day ;P

        Reply

        • ToshZA

          December 18, 2014 at 11:18

          Trev? Only in pictures or on TV.

          Reply

          • Quo Vadis?

            December 18, 2014 at 11:19

            unless he pays for it hahahaha

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          December 18, 2014 at 11:19

          I see them all the time at gym…

          Reply

          • Quo Vadis?

            December 18, 2014 at 11:20

            Fair point…

        • Captain JJ the engaged

          December 18, 2014 at 12:43

          So I’m becoming less of a hot chick then. I don’t know if I should be concerned or happy.

          Reply

          • Quo Vadis?

            December 18, 2014 at 12:50

            You were never a hot chick. Even if you were to get a little snippy snip snip in a certain place, you still wont be a hot chick. And should you prove me wrong on the latter, I am retiring my balls :/ XD

  3. CAE9872

    December 18, 2014 at 11:08

    I am not a graphics whore, so I rarely “see” the issues. Sure they exist, but if I like a game, the graphics are the graphics. And I can tell the difference. So playing Borderlands 1 currently and then looking at 2 you can see the bump. Likewise when I go from one of my older gens to current gen, you can see the massive difference.

    But in isolation…nah.

    Reply

    • Quo Vadis?

      December 18, 2014 at 11:16

      neither can I. As long as there is games for the xbox 360 and the PS3, I’ll delay the jump to next gen. Since my xbox 360’s brick died last night, and Microsoft charges an arm and a leg for it (you cant just buy a new power supply in a shop), I have now bought a PS3.

      Reply

  4. ReaperOfSquirrels

    December 18, 2014 at 11:09

    I can vouch for the GTAV Xbox360 rendering issues… and have seen how much extra detail they’ve added to the Bone and PS4 versions, and have not seen any rendering issues on them, at all.

    You can fly over a road on the Xbox360 and signs will SUDDENLY appear in front of you… haven’t seen that on the Bone or PS4.

    Reply

    • Raptor Rants A Lot

      December 18, 2014 at 11:39

      The bone and ps4 are miles ahead in hardware however. Not surprising the differences are so large.

      No one would buy new-gen if it didn’t look vastly superior. If the bone and ps4 looked almost identical to Ps3 and XB360 then most would just stay in previous gen

      Reply

      • ReaperOfSquirrels

        December 18, 2014 at 11:54

        Agreed, but either way I’m staying in previous gen for now… I can’t afford to jump to current gen. I’d literally have to sell my Xbox 360 and all my games and then MAYBE I could get a Xbone or PS4.

        Reply

        • Raptor Rants A Lot

          December 18, 2014 at 11:56

          Yeah, it is hard on those who can’t move over yet and I’m sure old gen guys and girls are going to start feeling really done in. It’s understandable too. It’s the unfortunate side effect of progress in tech

          Reply

  5. Alien Emperor Trevor

    December 18, 2014 at 11:16

    Games need TLC when porting to other platforms? Where have I heard that before?

    Reply

  6. Sir GIF Sexy

    December 18, 2014 at 11:19

    After trying and failing to get a next-gen console for the past 11 months, I’m going to just make my own console! With blackjack and hookers!… You know what — forget the blackjack!

    #2Poor4NewSkool

    Reply

  7. Hammersteyn

    December 18, 2014 at 11:20

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      December 18, 2014 at 11:21

      I thought Just Cause 2 was on consoles as well 😉

      Reply

    • ToshZA

      December 18, 2014 at 11:22

      I take it she’s going at 60fps and that slow-as-fuck car is either console?

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Octacore

        December 18, 2014 at 11:24

        No, the FAWR, the boner is still behind in the dust

        Reply

        • ToshZA

          December 18, 2014 at 11:25

          Thankfully that’s not true. Otherwise how would my dreams cope under the sheer pressure of being wrong?

          Reply

        • Hammersteyn

          December 18, 2014 at 11:30

          lol

          Reply

    • Corrie

      December 18, 2014 at 11:30

      On these special occasions I like to draw so in this case I decided to replicate that smooth image on Consoles

      Reply

      • Corrie

        December 18, 2014 at 11:33

        I optimized that better than Ubisoft ever could :p

        Reply

    • Ghost In The Rift

      December 18, 2014 at 11:31

      Im a pc gamer!!!WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Octacore

        December 18, 2014 at 11:31

        SUPERIOR SPEED!!!

        Reply

        • Ghost In The Rift

          December 18, 2014 at 11:34

          SWEEEEET!!!!

          Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          December 18, 2014 at 15:30

          superior speed, lower performance :'<

          Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        December 18, 2014 at 11:35

        Car = Consoles
        Women = PC

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Octacore

          December 18, 2014 at 11:54

          *woman
          Singular

          Sheesh Deon

          Reply

      • Ottokie

        December 18, 2014 at 11:54

    • Raptor Rants A Lot

      December 18, 2014 at 11:58

      She forget the stove on that she’s racing home like that?

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief Octacore

        December 18, 2014 at 12:00

        SHE MUST MAKE A SAMMICH PRONTO!!!

        Reply

  8. CypherGate

    December 18, 2014 at 11:35

    The only reason why its looking worse now than before is that they simply not that interested in developing games for the old gen consoles. There budgets are much smaller as well considering the new gen is the way forward. I bet if there were no new consoles that they could have developed a much much better looking game.

    Reply

  9. Raptor Rants A Lot

    December 18, 2014 at 11:36

    The gap is most certainly growing. Just look at how shoddy console releases are as of late compared to previous gen

    Reply

  10. oVg elfroot slayer

    December 18, 2014 at 11:38

    No shit Sherlock. 1 Patch is 2 XBOX360 games.
    But we will see next year once Metal Gear V sets the bar as the first NEXT GEN game to run at 60fps/1080P and its not a remaster.

    Reply

  11. HvR

    December 18, 2014 at 11:49

    Think the gap is now up to R300 a game.

    Reply

  12. Raptor Rants A Lot

    December 18, 2014 at 11:52

    In all honesty this trend of older gen getting less love is not surprising. It also really has little to do with the capability of the old gen consoles. It’s all about time and budget.

    Let’s look at a game like The Last of Us on PS3. The amount of time they must have spent optimising the code and textures etc to make the game look as good as it did on such old tech must have been crazy. Most of the dev time, I would like to bet, was simply optimizing.

    Now you have the new generation of consoles out and devs and publishers have to make games for them. If they don’t, they will fall behind and ultimately have to close up shop. So they make the games on the new consoles. But it comes with an unfortunate side effect of a vast amount of time and effort going in to learning the new console capabilities and how to code for it properly. So now you get Shadow Of Mordor and it’s taking all their time just getting it to look good and play well on the new consoles. Now they also somewhere need to get it in on old gen consoles.

    They can’t delay the old gen release because gamers would lose their shiz. But they don’t have time to properly code and optimise for old gen because the largest part of the dev cycle was dedicated to the new consoles. So now you end up with port that looks worse than we know the consoles are capable of.

    The poor devs can’t keep up. The 2 generations of console are like day and night when it comes to coding for each. It’s no surprise the ports backwards don’t look as great as we know they can handle. There simply isn’t enough time.

    Also, making the time by hiring specifically to optimise in parallel would be far too expensive. I’m sure they can’t justify the price of the extra time or staff just for older gen.

    I’m not saying it’s nice. But one has to understand from a technical and operational side. It simply can’t be that easy

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Octacore

      December 18, 2014 at 11:56

      tl;dr

      Reply

      • Raptor Rants A Lot

        December 18, 2014 at 11:57

        What, you couldn’t take 7 seconds to read it?

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief Octacore

          December 18, 2014 at 11:59

          5.5 (you know I like to troll your rants)

          Reply

          • Raptor Rants A Lot

            December 18, 2014 at 12:03

            huehuehue. At least 7 times a day hey?

          • Quo Vadis?

            December 18, 2014 at 12:10

            Since YOU now mentioned it 😀

          • Raptor Rants A Lot

            December 18, 2014 at 12:11

            If you can’t beat ’em…

          • Admiral Chief Octacore

            December 18, 2014 at 12:11

            Good advice Nr7

          • Raptor Rants A Lot

            December 18, 2014 at 14:04

            Lol. I read N7 and thought of Mass Effect

          • Quo Vadis?

            December 18, 2014 at 12:12

            they’ll beat you?

          • Admiral Chief Octacore

            December 18, 2014 at 12:11

            Especially at 7 o clock!

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          December 18, 2014 at 12:16

          It takes more than 7 seconds to read 7 paragraphs. SEVENCEPTION!

          Reply

  13. Tulipdame

    December 19, 2014 at 08:18

    Since playing Xbox One, I never touch my 360. Only to linj free games

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Manchester United Sues Football Manager Over Use of their Name and Fan Mods

Manchester United, that massive global football brand whose fans are as equally annoying a…