On the cusp of the 9th generation, what are your thoughts on the 8th?

I'm the only vote so far! Sorry, I must still be on some election day shit! It was a great generation, I've enjoyed it, and I'll continue to enjoy my Switch and PS4 for years to come while getting some of the newest games on PC.

I'm on a phone so I can't expand all that much...

...but it was great! There were a lot of fantastic games. Unfortunately, the technology just couldn't keep up. The base Xbox One was rendering games at 900p at launch and every game I've played on mine looks like a muddy mess. The base PS4 wasn't much better. 1080p30 still wasn't standard until the half-step consoles launched, which is a massive shame.

But I spent most of the past 8 years on a PC. There have been some amazing experiences available, almost all of them great ports or just native to PC in the first place.

EDIT: Ah, it's the evening and I'm at home and I can write some more about this.

In pretty much every other generation, "I'm a PC gamer" would have meant "I played a mostly different set of games than console gamers". But this generation, it largely meant the same thing, so honestly I'm just going to count PC as "part of this generation of consoles" They're not really all that different at this point. Frankly, Microsoft seems to think of the PC as "basically a user-configured Xbox", so for the next-gen they're probably going to be pretty much the exact same thing.

One quick note that I couldn't really put anywhere else - I don't think there were a ton of groundbreaking new ideas this generation. We got a lot of refinements of previous ideas and only a few things that really feel like huge jumps in game design or technology or whatever - but, as you can see below, I think the tradeoff was worth it. I think we got the cream-of-the-crop in a lot of different gameplay styles and I think we were all spoiled for choice over the last few years.

Anyway, the real star of this generation was the games. Most of the Bethesda-published games this gen were fucking stellar - I'm not sure if Bethesda just lucked-out or if there was some actual business strategy behind this, but Arkane, id, and Machine games just made some of the best first person games ever put to disc. Dishonored, Prey, Doom and Doom Eternal, and all of the Wolfensteins (note: haven't played Youngblood) are essential to this generation as far as I'm concerned and I'd recommend them wholeheartedly to anyone who asks. Sony put out a lot of exclusives that people loved. Microsoft kicked Mattrick out the door and hired the much-better Phil Spencer to turn Xbox into a brand that actually feels like it's interested in treating customers like customers and not like money dispensers. Smaller/indie developers seem to have found much better footing. Shovel Knight was one of the best 2D action games ever made, Bloodstained is easily the best Castlevania game ever made, and Ori proved that yes, 2D games can still be stunningly gorgeous. Throwback shooters like Dusk, Ion Fury, and Amid Evil showed us that these kinds of games are still relevant to the modern day, and CRPGs made a comeback with Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, and Divinity: Original Sin showing the world that yeah, these isometric RPGs are still popular and still incredibly deep and rich in storytelling and mechanics. Speaking of RPGs, The Witcher 3 came along and kicked the ass of every other big-budget RPG in the world, setting a bar so high that even five years later, no one else has really reached it.

There's more that I could talk about, really. Actually, I feel like I could spend ages talking about games that came out this generation. Games big and small, indie and AAA, action-packed and slow-paced. I didn't even talk about survival horror getting a sort of comeback in first person form, with games like Resident Evil 7 and Alien Isolation scaring the shit out of people who thought that AAA horror was no more. I honestly think this generation has been a high mark in video game history in a lot of ways...

...but not in some others. This generation saw multiplayer games largely rely on predatory and invasive microtransactions to make money and stay relevant. Lootboxes - meaning, gambling mechanics - became prevalent and even made it to some courts of law. You can no longer earn something in a game and then show it off while playing it. You can never again make your own custom in-game skin and run around fragging people with it. You can grind up points or you can just pay upfront about it, but never again will people go "that guy's got Recon armor!" or whatever we were talking about in Halo 3 days.

On top of that, the concept of ownership is slipping away as time goes on more and more. Many of these practices were already in place, but DRM has become even more invasive with stuff like Denuvo. Bungie is actually removing parts of Destiny 2 - the game that I paid for can no longer be played, only the newest content that I'm honestly not all that interested in anymore. I didn't want to get rid of it, Bungie just decided that I shouldn't have it anymore because "all that data is too much to manage". There was an Afro Samurai game that came out, was considered garbage, and was simply removed from everyone's library and everyone who bought it got a refund for it. Imagine being told that you can't play a game you may have liked anymore, despite its reception, and you just get your twenty bucks back.

And, as I think other have mentioned, performance. Some people may not have had an issue with it, and that's fine. If you're A-OK with poor performance, more power to you. In some ways I'm envious. Really. But this generation started off underpowered and got worse as things went along. Bloodborne is basically unplayable to me, on my base PS4 at least, because it looks so muddy and runs so poorly. Control barely ran on base platforms. Many games ran at a framerate between 20 and 30 and not actually at 30. Sony and Microsoft had to release mid-generation console upgrades just to keep up. Mid-range PC hardware exceeded console specs at the start and that gap only widened, so much so that people were confused and angry when their $1000 PCs couldn't run Deus Ex Mankind Divided at max settings.

Thankfully, things seem to be course-correcting, at least somewhat. Ownership is still questionable, but you can buy only from GOG.com and still get a lot of games, both new and old, some of them reasonably current! That platform has really become something I never expected it to. The new consoles seem pretty damn powerful and even support some modern features that only high-end PCs really do (4K ray tracing!) and they seem to do it at 30FPS and not "sorta 30FPS". Lootboxes... are still a thing but EA at least released not one but two whole Star Wars games without them, and 2019's Call of Duty seemed to have plenty of customization options without feeling like you're being nickeled-and-dimed. Oh, and more importantly than all of that, both new consoles are damn near fully backwards compatible with their previous counterparts, so you don't have to worry about your PS4 breaking and being unable to play Ratchet and Clank.

Anyway, I spent a lot more time writing this than I thought I would. I had a lot of fun with this generation of games and I can only hope the upcoming generation is just as much fun. Perhaps the next generation will come with less shitty business practices and fewer way overworked employees in months- or years- long crunch periods.

I think this past generation (past by the time people are reading this) was extremely good. It didn't outshine other generation mainly because it was so good from start to finish. It started strong despite people being very pessimistic about consoles.

There are many lenses to view a generation through. But, my lens is that this was a generation that made series that were tired new again.

God of War - Remade and reimagined to be and adventure games instead of a action brawler.

Resident Evil 7 - A return to roots and a suspenseful and creepy horror games again. I'm not a bit sorry in saying that RE 5, 6 were terrible - they were mistakes. A return to form for RE7 made ist a serie to watch again. I would even say the remakes of 0-3 did the history of RE/Biohazard relevant again.

Persona 5 - Again a jRPG that always amazes. Was P5 better than PS4? No, but ist was not miss either. I think the insustry needed another good Persona game.

Doom - Truthfully, did anyone really think that Doom would be relevant again? Oh, we all hoped it would be good again...but anyone who said they knew it would be relevant is full of sh_t. Id walked in and threw down the gauntlet and said, "There...you happy?!"

MARVEL’S Spider-Man - Not since the PS2 era of Treyarch has spiderman really worked. And low & behold, maybe as to be expected Insomniac Games, was able to bring this property back on Playstation is a way worthy of the character.

YAKUZA 0 - In the United States I don't think Yakuza ever really found the audience it deserved. But, I think Capcom really showed what these gamer were about, but they did it as an amazing technical tour-de-force too. Yakuza 0 is a beautiful looking games! Yakuza is a beautifully told story! And, Kiryu Kazuma and Goro Majima became beloved classic characters.

Shadow of the Colossus - I don't think SoC every got its due. Maybe, the power of PS4 was what was needed to bring this serene tragedy to life. The developers updates the game’s graphics and controls to modern standards; yet, they honoring its classic, groundbreaking gameplay and feel.

Monster Hunter: World - Once again Capcom took a flagging property to the hardware that would allow it to flourish. Sorry, but putting MH on Nintendo was a silly mistake. Making MH a smaller handheld game for so many years was a stupid mistake. Monster Hunter matters again on teh powerful consoles...thank god.

So many good games from the West and East and indies stepped it up even further.

MGSV, W3, RDR2, Gravity Rush 2, The Last Guardian, Celeste, Tetris Effect, Control, Life is Strange/Before the Storm, God of War, Nier Automata, Night in the Woods, Hitman, The Beginner's Guide, Emily is Away, Mario Odyssey, Wolfenstein 1 & 2, Doom, Thumper, Undertale, The Evil Within, Hyper Light Drifter, Uncharted 4, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Lara Croft Go, Hitman Go, The Fall, Inside, Bayonetta 2, Cuphead, Horizon Zero Dawn, Grindstone, Grow Home, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Neo Cab, Resident Evil 7, Ace Combat 7, Death Stranding, Dishonored 2, Resident Evil 7, Until Dawn, Return of the Obra Dinn, Zelda Breath of The Wild...

This gen is nuts and that's just the games I've played. I've got as many games from this gen I haven't gotten to yet, ones that have been as well received.

I find it pretty amusing that a lot of the complaints about the start of this next gen is stemming from this current gen being so good. Storage feels limited because we were spoiled with cheap hard drives for the past seven years. UI and controllers don’t feel that new because they were pretty close to perfect last time around. And graphics don’t seem that impressive because games just look good now. We’re truly very spoiled. :-)

As far as games I think it was a great generation. I think the hardware was pretty weak and didn't keep up with growing gaming standards IMO, 1080p 60 should have been the thing. I think the obsession with 4k last gen was bad for consoles as if they had made the upgraded version 1080p 60 machines they would have been much better I think. Pc was great regardless though.

For me this generation was all about the PC. I never got deep into either console. With great controller support on the PC, digital downloads being ubiquitous and cheaper and faster on PC, the console architecture seeming to resemble PC's more which lent to most games having a PC version, and the relative underperformance of the consoles from the start, I mostly played everything on the PC.

And while that was a nice experience I gotta admit there are aspects of the old school PC vs Console feeling distinct and separate that I miss. The Switch was the only system that gave me some of those feelings but for whatever reason first party Nintendo games just didn't click with me this gen like they have in the past. I think playing Mario 64 on 3D all-stars is the most fun I've had with a Nintendo game in the last few years. :shrug:

It could be better, but it's been a lot of fun.

Because I didn't get a Switch and a PS4 until last year, some of Sony's and Nintendo's exclusives are still in the infinite void known as my backlog, but the 8th generation had some bangers ofwhich which I played on PC.

I think my biggest summary of this gen is a feeling of the entire echo system of consoles (and games overall) sort of settling into itself. Things felt a lot like last gen but matured. When it comes to games though, it lacked the peaks of last gen. Nothing this gen really got to me the way the original Mass Effect trilogy, Alan Wake or Assassin’s Creed (when it was novel and took itself too seriously) did. But the gen was still very solid with a few titles getting close.

I voted for excellent though I feel it was probably best - I just know, at 32, I'll never be nostalgic for these games in the way I still am for objective dreck like Tom & Jerry on the SNES. I refresh pages once a day hoping I can pre-order a PS5. I want the haptics. But, man, for the slow start this generation got off to it sure did hit wild heavy from 2015 to now.

Despite not ever buying a Switch because I think it's disappointing and pointless for me. Make some real hardware Nintendo and actually make some games with your IP!! >:D

..And barely using the Xbox One since launch..

This generation was great because of the PS4. It just worked, it had a lot of great first party titles, the UI wasn't too bad, being able to save gameplay footage when silly or awesome shit happened at the press of a button just so I could stumble on the clip years later and relive it all over again is great. I ended up with about as many physical copies of games as I did with the PS2 or I guess PS3 generation.

Lots of excellent games, many have already been mentioned above. My PS5 is coming Thursday hopefully and my lovely PS4 will be ready and able to pass the torch.

Edit: OH! And I just sold my Xbox One S to my friend the other day because that's how little I cared about it. I keep all my old hardware. He's had it for I don't know how long, just so he could play Banjo Kazooie on it, I asked him if I could have it back (I've been packing my stuff up) and hes like.. Sure.. or I could just buy it if you want.. lol $120 for the console + Rare Replay.. which I then just went and reordered another copy of that for $18.

The standout games of this era couldn't be pinned to one generation, like Rocket League PUBG Jackbox etc

A game would have to be a perfect mix of cult favorite but not popular enough to justify a remake to fall squarely in one gen of consoles, like Bloodborne.

Some phenomenal games over the years, I felt the consoles at launch were extremely lackluster and the half step consoles were and are a of confusing mess. Frankly it's pretty ridiculous that those consoles came out in the state they did, having worked at a store that did repairs I can't count how many people ended up with launch PS4s with busted HDMI ports that we couldn't replace and Sony charged like $100 to fix, and that launch XB1 is a joke.

That being said I love the steps Microsoft took over the generation to sweep the Mattrick years under the rug and start incorporating more consumer friendly features and policies. The PS4 eventually grew into itself with a great library of games but for the duration of the generation the platform felt woefully underpowered to me. That being said, the ease of development for the new consoles really helped usher in this indie renaissance we're in, and that I am certainly thankful for.

To me, this was a great generation content wise. But the systems themselves the most boring. Excluding the Switch's TV/Handheld mode and maybe Sony's PSVR, the systems were mostly boxes that did the same thing.

Maybe I miss Wii era weird-Nintendo, or wild experimentation with something like Kinect (even though it was largely a failure). I miss gaming feeling innovative. I'm glad to hear the haptics in the new PlayStation controller are exciting and fresh, I think that could go a long way to adding more immersive experiences.

@bobbydigital00: I think there’s a reasonable argument to be made for PSVR as this gen’s innovation push.

I mean, I'd argue VR in general is where the innovation in gaming is. Some incredible experiences I couldn't have anywhere else. I think I'd definitely consider the resurgence of VR a part of this generation so to speak.

Now.. whether a person is too lazy to use it regularly or finds the headset options too expensive (not as much lately).. that's a different problem.

I think the PS4 might be one of my all-time favorite consoles, if not THE favorite. Just an incredible set of games.

The PS4 is probably my favorite console to date. The games were good but functionality wise, that thing just hooked me. I’m perfectly okay with next gen being more of the same but more powerful, because more of the same is pretty damn amazing.

I'm a bit torn on this generation. On one hand, we saw a lot of great things happen. Indie devs really came into their own and made games that could stand up to and exceed AAA games. Studio's like Supergiant and Klei made their best work while publishers like Wadget Eye and Devolver Digital are known quantities now. We also saw a bunch of great multiplayer games arise that were able to capture huge numbers and opened up the idea that maybe these consoles shouldn't be completely walled off gardens. Nothing as annoying as a kid when you find out that you play the same game as a friend, but on a different box and therefore you are forever seperated. A lot of these great multiplayer games being f2p also meant that a lot of kids probably had a better experience for free than i had back in the day when i was checking the internet for interesting sounding korean f2p games. More and more games also made you create your own character instead of having a random dude named 'john' star in every game, which makes total sense given that most gameplay focused games didn't even really attempt to create an interesting character. They just needed a character to hold a gun for the boxart.

On the other hand, personally i love linear storydriven games in the AAA space and that has definitely not been the focus this generation. Ubisoft used to always offer an interesting counterweight to EA & Activision's guns & sports model of AAA but while i have had fun with Assasins Creed and Far Cry in the past, it now feels like all their games share a lot of DNA with eachother to the point where it all just feels a bit too familiar. The individual games no longer feel exciting on their own. It has becomes more of a 'sports' model for me. 'Oh i haven't played a Ubi game for a few years, let me pick up the most recent one to see where they stand' . That kind of thing. Even a brand new IP like Fenyx comes across like a different theme based on the same underlying systems we already know. And when it comes to EA, holy moley, it has been quite a dreadful generation on their part, with the exemption of Titanfall 2 and Jedi: Fallen Order. Well, from an overall quality standpoint, financially it was probably a great success.

As it became more and more clear where the big audience was, the more it felt like everyone was trying to cynically jump into that same space. The amount of overwatch menu-stylings and colorful sassy characters that each have their own unique ultimate ability got a bit too much for me. The rise of popular f2p games also had a shadowside to them. Fortnite became such a cultural force that suddenly households had to discuss V-bucks allowances and kids were getting pressured into looking cool by spending money. When i was a kid, i didn't feel any pressure to spend money on GunZ or Gunbound because no one cared about those games at all.

To end on a highpoint, Control luckily channeled some of that Psi-ops / Second Sight energy and made a fun game with a clear start and endpoint. Yakuza's localization was excellent. FF7 Remake actually managed to satisfy most people. FromSoftware was able to avoid any major pitfalls and deliver a steady flow of good to great games that offered slight interesting variations on the formula that worked so well for them. Also a shout out to games like Obra Dinn, Witcher 3, The Sexy Brutale and Outer Wilds for picking up the storytelling glove.

Pretty good but too many remastered games were released to make it truly great. No new Sony handheld was a disappointment as well.

I preferred the previous gen to this one with the x360/PS3/WiiU/Wii. In terms of games at least.

8bit to 32bit are still my favourites though.

I wrote a personal list of my favorite games over the last ~7 years or so and a couple patterns do emerge. First there are a lot of games that are either remasters or sequels that barely iterated on previous gen versions - for example I'm talking about something like Fallout 4 and not a game like Witcher 3 which felt fresh. There's a also a few on my list that were Wii U games that I and most people never played. There were also a handful of games-as-service type stuff on my list like CS: GO and League of Legends which, as others have said, are hard to pin on representing a single generation. So overall this gen didn't connect with me as much.

Personal circumstances also obviously play a huge role into how all of us experience a generation. For me the years of this generation 8 were pretty tumultuous. I basically graduated college and started a real job at the tail end of the generation before it which meant this generation was me concentrating on starting a career, getting married, buying a house, and I had kids in the last few years. I probably spent less time playing games overall as a consequence of all that change and I spent too much time taking adult life too seriously because I was establishing it all I guess. I'm hoping and expecting this next generation to be more exciting for me personally. It will be the generation that my two sons start their video game life with and now that my adult life is more or less established I should have more time to enjoy games.

It was ok. In terms of software, it has some really strong contenders and a lot of indie darlings, but it was entirely devoid of B-tier games, which I really liked.

In terms of hardware, it was a lot murkier. Nintendo did its thing again, so it hardly counts, although the Switch has been a lot better than the WiiU, while the other two were fighting with nearly identical options, while the PC became the union of all those sets.

Seriously, if you could keep your PC relatively up to date, it was very hard to justify buying a XBOne or PS4.

I didn't answer in the poll but from what we've seen with the back comp stuff on this new gen, it was software pushing the hardware beyond its means. I didn't own a PS4 but I may pick up a PS5 to play the likes of Spiderman, TLoU2, GoW, etc at higher framerates.

I'm trying to think about ninth generation games and i'm kind of just blanking at the moment, i don't know if i played enough of them to feel like i took part, or whether i'm just at the age now where i care less and less about playing new stuff, maybe it's just because it's been going on for so long.
I really like The Witcher 3, but i think of that game more as an accomplishment rather than "one of my favourites", i'm glad Tekken finally took its place at the head of fighting games and 7 is fantastic, but i liked Tag 2 more, Ace Combat 7 turned out excellent and i love it, but i loved 6 too, it's amazing how much stuff Modern Warfare did right, but i can't get passed what they got wrong, i liked Watch Dogs 1 more than most... i'm glad Age of Empires and Command & Conquer are back... It's just kind of been like that really.
Stand out memories of this time period include finishing childhood unfinished business by beating all the Strike games on the Mega Drive, and playing through Resident Evil 6 again with a friend.

To me the generation was defined by four Games with Gold a month and Game Pass, plus lots of free to play MMO's available. I'm just awash in games of all different types these days, and am enjoying that. However, there has not been a game that really blew me away like the Mass Effects and Gears of the 360 era.

i came to this gen late (bought a ps4 last year)- so my sense of its quality over the duration isn't really valid. i've been able to get the best of it all at once.

but going purely by the quality of the product- in 2020 alone i've played doom (2016), outer wilds, nioh, both wolfensteins, horizon zero dawn, spiderman, god of war (2018), animal crossing, TLoU2, red dead 2, hellblade and bloodborne...

...yeah, that's a pretty god damn solid gen from my perspective.

I can remember about 5 decent games this generation. I can remember a LOT more for previous ones I guess

Don't really have much to say about it, when it started I was considering getting a PS4, even thinking it may be the first generation I was an early adopter of, but the lack of backwards compatibility kinda took that early excitement out of me, forcing me to instead look for newer games that would really compel me to get either system, and now at the end of that generation, we still only have like one game for each system that I wished I could play. But one game isn't worth buying a console for, so I didn't.

In general, thinks just kept going as they had in the 360/PS3 era. Very little happened this gen that couldn't be done in the last one, and no new genres emerged. The only thing that really happened was that predatory practices (which had already been around for decades) got more widespread and widely adopted into non-free to play titles.

Outside of Witcher 3, RDR2, God of War, Uncharted 4, and maybe one more game there were no masterpieces to me this gen. The previous gen had games like Bioshock, TLAU1, Uncharted Series, Mass Effect series, BF3/BF4, and others that I liked way more.

Screw it, I'm ready to list:

• Doom
• Witcher 3
• Bloodborne
• Sekiro
• Monster Hunter World
• Nioh
• Fortnite
• Player Unknown's Battlegrounds
• Super Mario Odyssey
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Tetris Effect
• Metal Gear Solid V
• God of War
• The Witness

There was stuff this time around. Some of which has been a real landmark for the direction of the industry.

Gen 8 seemed very much like an evolution of the ideas from the previous generation. While in the Xbox 360/PS3 era, they were still experimenting with online interactions and digital-only games for example, this generation those things were implemented well from the beginning, and small issues were resolved in firmware updates.

The same is true with games, I feel like publishers have perfected many genres, but it comes at the downside of games lacking creativity. I remember being floored by the massive open worlds of the likes of Far Cry 2, Assassin's Creed and GTA 4. But now, we've been playing those same games over and over again for what seems the entirety of the 8th generation, the only thing that has changed is that there are more icons on the map and progression bars than ever before. There has been a profound lack of any new IPs. Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Halo, Forza, Need for Speed, Battlefield, GTA, RDR, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Yakuza... Even Tony Hawk, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot came back. Again it's just the same games over and over again. Those games may have nearly perfect gameplay, graphics, audio, presentation and everything, but it all comes at the cost of a complete and utter lack of originality. And that is what makes this generation disappointing for me, and makes me really not excited for the next generation if this continues. My nostalgia has been thoroughly milked and I'm ready for something new, but I'm not confident publishers are going to deliver it.

@apewins: There were some attempts at launching new IP. Sony even had some success with Bloodborne and Horizon: Zero Dawn. But they also made Days Gone, Death Stranding, Detroit: Become Human, and a bunch of stuff for PSVR like Astrobot and Moss.

The last big PS4 exclusive was Ghost of Tsushima, which is kind of an Assassin's Creed clone but is definitely a new IP.

Microsoft tried too, with Sunset Overdrive, Recore, Quantum Break, Sea of Thieves, Ori, and Titanfall (became a multiplat and launced on 360 too.)

It's just that most of those didn't take off for whatever reason.

I agree that in terms of gameplay innovation there really wasn't much this gen. People talk about Battle Royale games and MMO games like Destiny, but those are just tweaked versions of things that already existed. The VR space had some real innovation, though. It's just a shame that, again, it didn't really take off like we were all hoping.

If I filter out my nostalgia, I really think every console generation is an improvement over what came before. Improvements to online party systems, cross-play multiplayer, live service games that are able to hold player interest over time, incredible production value for tentpole releases, technical innovations like VR, fidelity of graphics and game systems, the establishment of new game modes like battle royale-- all of it. That doesn't take away from previous generations at all, and there will always be classic games that I'll go back to with fondness. Gen 8 has really been massive though, and I don't think when you look at the depth and breadth of games in this gen you can really say that previous generations have topped it.

I don't buy arguments that gen 8 is somehow less because games are derivative. Every gen has been replete with derivative games. I can see the reticence to say gen 8 is 'best', since it is by no means perfect. I just don't see a strong argument to say that it isn't considering everything that came out across AAA, Indies, VR, etc.

I will say that I don't think the Switch is the pinnacle of Nintendo's gens.

PS4 exclusives alone made this a Great generation

I thought call of duty would die. And it didn't. That summed up the generation for me. Nothing changed really lol

I picked the PC gamer response, because that was the closest one that applied, but it wasn't really accurate.

I enjoyed my PS4 for about 3 years, but something changed with ME that meant I didn't want to play on a console on my TV anymore. I've always enjoyed some games that are PC-only (strategy games like Civs and lately Anno and Crusader Kings and such), but Fall Guys being on Plus made me realize that I hadn't played a game on my PS4 between God of War (April '18) and Fall Guys (August '20), and before God of War it had probably been 9 months back to the last one.

Bloodborne is my "game of the gen", so there's that. But I wasn't interested in many PS4 exclusives (or Xbox - didn't get one this past gen, and I don't think I'm going to mind not playing the next GoW), and I have a good PC. So I just started buying my "console" games (basically games that are controller friendly) on PC and using a controller there. And still buy my mouse/keyboard games on the PC.

I think I just came to the conclusion that I'll always have a gaming PC and most console exclusives aren't that interesting to me. The past year in my gaming has been Warframe, CK 2/3, No Man's Sky, Fall Guys, Raft, Ark, Anno 1800, a bit of Kerbal, Sea of Thieves, a bit of F1 2020 and some Football Manager 2020. Only Fall Guys (because it was free) was not on PC. I should probably stop my Plus subscription.

@wheelhouse: All of this makes sense except why you couldn't play the next Gears of War game on PC. Gears of War is no more an Xbox exclusive than Sea of Thieves is. They're both first party Microsoft games, so they're on Xbox and PC. Presumably whatever store front you used for Sea of Thieves could also be used for Gears of War, and also it will be on PC Game Pass if you have that (or even if you don't you can subscribe for a month.)

I have no desire to ever play a Gears of War (and I meant God of War by GoW).

There were plenty of great games, but every game being a RPG and the games as a service trend just made everything feel too samey. I don’t know for sure, but this has to be the generation with the least amount of new IP by triple A publishers, right? Even the indie scene became bogged down in a million metroidvanias and roguelikes.

There were a few games I would classify as all time greats (Bloodborne, BOTW, MGS V, Red Dead, TLOU II) but games felt less creative and interesting than the 360/PS3 era. Also the consoles always felt pretty underpowered; it wasn’t until 2-3 years ago that some graphics started to blow me away.

Overall there were a lot of great games and I think developers learned a lot that will make gen 9 even better.

It might be my favourite gen yet - it's certainly been one of the most impactful on my list of all-time favourite games in a long while. It inserted 5 games into my all-time top ten, including a new number one in Yakuza 0 (debatably a PS3 game, but really mostly considered a PS4 title at least in the West). From big to small, games have really thrived. I think MonkeyKing's point about tired franchises being revitalised is a great one as well.

Games were amazing, but as far as hardware goes i feel like we reached the point where the lines between pc game console are more blurred than ever. As games get more and more expensive i do wonder if system exclusivity becomes a thing of the past for all but a very select few titles. Im not wild about them bumping prices on some games to 70$, that seems like too much to me when games depreciate so quickly after release.

I thought this was a great generation. I think some stuff that has been more streamlined has made everything better. During one of the E3’s focused on the PS4 launching, there was a big moment with those 7 or so indie devs on a stage together. Now, games constantly come out. The playing field of just getting stuff on PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch alone is such a huge bump. You could say “Oh, but look at how many great games that came out on the PS2” or whatever, but there’s arguably more and better games out than ever before.

Maybe it’s just because I always look forward to what’s next and not look back too often, but I’m not sure what this generation is missing, unless I do some very specific comparisons like “Mass Effect 2 was better than Andromeda”.

I think this generation is one that will be really under appreciated by a lot of people.

At the beginning of the 2010s, there was a lot of speculation of whether people would even want dedicated gaming consoles, the rise of mobile and the more easily built PCs meant people were getting their fixes somewhere else, or at least that is what a lot of the industry thought. Go back to launch day streams for the XB1 and PS4 and you hear Brad, Jeff and Patrick making comments about it. As a result of this both consoles were made for as cheaply as possible, it led to an incredibly weak set of consoles (relatively speaking, obviously they were still more powerful than the 360/ps3). But this generation led to a lot of really cool stuff that people will either just shrug off as a part of video games, or even roll their eyes at the bas versions of them.

This generation led to a real surge of indie games, being viable on consoles, from both a developer and consumer perspective, Developers weren't constricted to Microsoft's slot methodology of the 360 and Sony embraced indie games in the early days even giving them time on stage at e3. Hell even EA is cultivating a culture of giving smaller teams money in order to get games available to people, Unravel 1 and 2, A Way Out, Fe, Sea of Solitude etc are all games that would not exist if there wasnt a market for indie games.

People will absolutely roll their eyes at the term Games as a Service, but again, this generation made way for a game that wasn't just a game pushed out the door in order to start on the next one, sure some companies have screwed up and made bad choices, but then there are games like Rainbow Six Siege who 5 years later is not only still thriving but doing better than at launch. Games like Destiny, Rocket League, and even the 1st Division where all games where they supported the games. This even led to the rise of free to play games like Fortnite, Apex, etc. This just wasn't possible on earlier consoles due to policies regarding updates.

Also other small things like day 1 digital availability, the ability to stream straight from the console, the ability to screenshot and record clips, led to a really interesting generation, throw in a mid cycle refresh with more powerful consoles, and this generation was truly unlike others before hand.

Also on a personal level, 2016 is when I got heavy into games, and also the industry. This generation is where I became a fan of games and the industry around them.

I really loved this generation. Last gen (I guess two ago now) I was an Xbox 360 guy and loved it, but switched to the PS4 because of the exclusives and loved it just as much. Big change for me was being a purely digital person. I didn't buy any physical games and really liked the change. Over all the 360 generation I still would say I liked overall a bit more. It had a few more big names titles that I'd consider all time favorites and in general I got more enjoyment out of the "B tier" stuff. Still though I loved my PS4, it had a bunch of games I truly loved, all digital is great for me, the controller was awesome. Having games constantly being added to threw DLC, patches, updates, free stuff really made a difference too. I'll certainly look back and think it was great.

It was a really strong generation but I will also have to say this, as purely a console gamer (PS4), this was the generation where I really started to be a bit bothered by loading times. I'm still playing games on my base PS4 and some of the loading times on specific games are just too long.

The arrival of new consoles have not made that easier to deal with. I will hopefully be upgrading next year to a PS5. Not having to deal with long loadtimes is almost worth the price of admission alone for me.

PS4 was a decent piece of hardware that had an amazing set of games. My PS4 overheating ruined some games for me because of how loud that thing got. But yet again, those games were damn amazing. Even after stumbling out of the gate, 2015 kicked an amazing 5 years. The PS5 has revealed some of the short comings of the PS4 (load times and overheating), which is why it isn't the greatest generation ever. Still much that could have been improved.

And then there is the Xbox One which was most certainly not an all time console. Good piece of hardware with not killer games on it. Also remember they launched that thing with Kinect??? What whirlwind it has been for Xbox, but it looks like they are set up to have a great generation this time. We can only hope.