Is this really progress? - Gaming now Vs then

«Previous post | Next post»

Recently, I had to do a spot of house-minding while there was work being done to the interior. As the house owner has a PS4 I thought that this would be a great time to catch up on my gaming backlog, because being a new dad means gaming time at home is limited. Excited I grabbed my copy of ‘Arkham Knight’ and uploaded my save file to the Playstation cloud. I was ready, as I pulled up to the house, the adrenaline was pumping, the streets of Gotham would be cleansed of all ne’er-do-wells and I’d finally find out who was underneath that damn Arkham Knight mask! However, my excitement was short-lived, as I entered I was greeted with a note. The Internet was down…

Don´t we all just hate when this happens?

…without the internet I couldn’t access my ‘Arkham Knight’ save file, so completing that game was no longer on the cards.

This got me thinking, here I am with the cutting edge of console technology, and I am unable to continue my game that I started a few months ago because of something outside of my control. The second day of house-sitting I had to bring my console. This was the only way I could continue my game! It’s bizarre because carrying a console around is something I’ve never had to do before! Even in the days of the Mega Drive my game was saved to the cartridge. In fact, pretty much every console ever has had the ability to carry your save files with you in one way or another.

I still have some PS1 memory cards in my collection (Robin).

So when CDs overtook cartridges; console designers had to come up with ways to allow us to carry our progress, and the memory card was invented. I rarely left home without my memory card in my school blazer; you never know when impromptu Street Fighter or Tekken challenges would occur! Best be prepared! Hell, even my Dreamcast that has lived in an attic for 12 years has VMUs that still function and allow my save files to transfer!

WHY DO I NOT HAVE THIS WITH MY PS4?

Well, you do. A USB stick is your friend, save your game to one of those, and you have a modern equivalent to a memory card that’s not proprietary. Perfect right? Well no; you cannot save your profile to a USB, and that makes this function utterly redundant! And the best part of this is transferable saves are not the only functions of old consoles that have been omitted from this generation! There are a few of them, and each of them is annoying!

The big one of course is backwards compatibility; throughout gaming history, there is a tradition of allowing players to enjoy their old libraries in some way on newer consoles. The Atari 7200 allowed 2600 games to play. The MegaDrive allowed Master System games with the ‘Power base Converter’ and both the PS2 & early PS3s were compatible with the previous gens games. This gen however, it appears that games now have a sell by date. And with the recent boom of “Remasters” there is a lot of money in repackaging games and selling them at a slightly budget price. Another which annoys me is modern consoles not playing Audio CDs; and I can already hear the calls, of “they’re a dead format, get with the times Luvva” – and you may be right, but on launch, the PS4 was unable to play any music files, including MP3 (the PS3 could)!

Do you still remember this screen? I sure do!

And when I could do this on my PSOne, why can’t I on my PS4?

The Xbox One didn’t fare much better in this respect, I remember playing ‘State of Emergency’ (and loads of other games too!) on the original Xbox while listening to my own custom soundtrack, this is impossible on all the “next gen” consoles. Now when I play online modes, I’m subjected to terrible music and listening to the inane ramblings of those who happen to be in the lobby with me – I miss the days of playing ‘Day of Defeat’ listening to Crazy Town! I don’t understand how removing these features is in the consumer’s interests. It simply isn’t.

What is happening here, is that the multi-million pound corporations are dictating to us what we can do with our consoles. Sony omitted the profile transfer to avoid piracy or unethical treatment of their licensing deals on digital titles (which still happens, maybe a post on how DRM doesn’t work?) rather than a lame attempt to limit their console and our enjoyment.

Other omissions are simply down to pounds and pence. Why should Sony allow us to play our music CDs when they had ‘Music Unlimited’; a service that required its own subscription on top of PSPlus? Why should you be able to play your old copy of ‘The Last of Us’ when Sony can charge £30 for a remastered one and why should anyone allow us to listen to our music when they spend millions on hiring composers for their AAA titles?

The progress we have made in gaming is staggering when you consider we’ve gone from Pong to Uncharted 4 in thirty short years – in graphics, sound and storytelling gaming is almost unrecognizable from the late 70s. However, with these false limitations of the hardware; has this progress come at a cost?

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.

Chris Petticrew
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @Mr_Luvva_Luvva