Friday, May 25, 2018

Sunset on the Eighth Age

Perhaps the most significant news for this week was the announcement from Sony that the PlayStation 4 is nearing the end of it's life cycle.

Source 

In a way perhaps this should not come as a surprise. The current console generation (eighth) started in 2013 and it's been five years - the usual amount of time for any console generation. So does this mean the ninth console generation is just around the corner....?
Or most likely it is already underway with the release of the Nintendo Switch.

In any case, the news of the PS4's march off of stage is meaningless to me. Ever since the PS3 callously ditched backwards compatibility, I divorced the PlayStation and have never really looked back. No doubt Sony will repeat their familiar tactic of offering some new tech with their new console (ie PS2 = DVD, PS3 = Blu-Ray, PS4 = 4K UHD....kinda) but Sony's cavalier attitude to their history still doesn't sit well with me.
A wise man once said: you can't scrap a library's worth of gaming from the outgoing console and call it an improvement. For Sony to increasingly move away from backwards compatibility, when they originally introduced it with the PS2, is mind-boggling to say the least.
I am open to the potential PS5 being completely backwards compatible but, what are the odds of that happening?

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