The passage from one videogame generation to another is a particular moment, as capable of projecting us into a new dimension of the game, more sophisticated and capable of profoundly modernizing the medium, as well as of remind us with a bit of melancholy the time that passes, the games that get old and the titles that we will leave behind.
Of course, the incoming one is a generation in which one of the greatest successes in history will see its fourth edition-GTA Ve in which the upgrade tool will make its appearance, a step towards the creation of games destined to "remain". However, as the gen moves towards its conclusion, there are many video games - even classic ones -who risk retiring during the transition, and not everyone will be able to enjoy tools that can make them recover easily in the coming years.
Especially after some news from the past few days.
PlayStation Store excludes PS3 and PS Vita games
Everything starts from two news, coming from Microsoft and Sony, which arrive after a couple of days shed light on a perhaps not central but interesting aspect of the generational transition: the fate of old gen games on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S seems different.
What does "the fate of the old gen" mean?
As mentioned we are not talking about games from the last gen re-proposed in remastered or updates, but about something that is perhaps much more interesting (although it is a bit more "intellectual" interest, perhaps): all those games of two, three generations ago that today are no longer easily accessible to players but which in theory deserve it, even if only for the fact that the public has often shown a love for the research and culture of the "old game" and because today's platforms could perhaps make that happen, powerful as they are.
We know for example that Xbox Series X and S will allow players to download Xbox 360 games to the latest generation consoles and to import their saves for free, without paying for the Gold service.
In fact, as we specified in the news about it (which you can find here), Xbox Series X and S will be machines that will allow video game enthusiasts to open up to a pool of securities belonging to three generations, allowing the player to jump between the different eras of gaming in a very simple way.
And the PlayStation front?
PlayStation 5 will apparently have extensive backward compatibility with the generation that is closing down, also offering a large collection of PS4 classics that will be available with the new version of PlayStation Plus. However, it confirms its an unfortunate feature, namely the difficult access to titles of the generation immediately preceding the PlayStation 4, or PS3.
What is more, it is yesterday's news that the PS5 store will no longer allow the purchase of PS3 and PS Vita games on the new PlayStation Store Desktop (here the news), a fact that will inevitably lead players to have to buy and download individual games on the console native.
All to give more prominence to the latest and most sophisticated games.
Of course, this is a minor limitation if we think that if you still have a PS3 you will not need anything other than to purchase from the store and play in peace (different is the case on PS Vita, whose store seems closed since 2016).
Plus, if you have access to PSNow, PlayStation's streaming and subscription game service, you can easily find many games from your childhood ready to play on PS4.
However, although it can be circumvented, here the question seems to be a "philosophy of the game", with one side Xbox committed to "preserving" the milestones of its history and delivering them to the new generations and on the other Sony which restricts this possibility.
Vintage games and ease of access: why is it so important?
Before we move on, let's address the main question: why it would be so important today to allow contemporary players to access older titles even ten years to play comfortably in an armchair?
The reasons are many, and of various kinds.
First of all because today giving life to such an operation is quite simple and Microsoft's action with 360 games seems to be giving a signal in this direction. If it is true that our consoles increasingly resemble 360 ° entertainment centers thanks to which to have an approach to entertainment as broad as possible, the ability of these machines to easily give us access to classic games like Bioshock or Fallout New Vegas must be taken into account, also in light of two other factors.
First why the player has always been a category of user and customer "with memory".
Second, for an even more commercial and banal reason: like our uncles, older brothers or one of our parents, he still keeps his NES stored in the attic even the younger generations begin to have a videogame heritage to preserve.
Let's play Ghost of Tsushima, but if we are more or less thirty years old it is natural remember very well an Obivion or a Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and maybe we would like to access it again just to have a laugh about time passing. It is no coincidence that in 2019, unfortunately before the explosion of the Covid chaos, many independent projects have been announced around digital distribution services for indie and retro games, signifying the players' extreme interest in this issue.
The response of the majors to this issue was therefore very interesting.
When in recent days I read about the possibility of seeing 360 games on Xbox Series X and S I smiled, fascinated, for a simple reason: classics like Alan Wake may still have a lot to say within the player collection and act as a touchstone even for the youngest. Any "exclusive" title for PS3 will not have the same fate.
Only to me it seems that all this throws a bit of sadness around the launch of PlayStation 5?
Finally, as if that were not enough, a final question about the difficulty of recovering PS3 games on subsequent consoles: how many of you still have fully functional PlayStation 3s?
How I would like the Stores of the future
I believe that not providing effective ways to play the classics of the past in a simple way through the consoles of the next generations is a question quite interesting and worth discussing.
I also believe that, as a cinephile understanding a contemporary action film without a look at Spielberg's Jaws, framing a next gen game without understanding where the path that led to the birth of that title started makes the gaming experience incomplete, especially for those who live the game in the most genuine and "learned" way possible.
No one expects a deliberate act of kindness on the part of the majors, aimed at preserving the videogame heritage, but a store where it is possible to easily recover games from the past and then enjoy them could almost bring to a small growth of the player.
Going forward from generation to generation, perfecting the medium, making the game more and more sophisticated will be easier and easier, but if the majors do not preserve the pillars and the milestones that have brought us up to these good results haven't we all lost something very important and beautiful?
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