Last-gen ports: Opinions?

[Umbra]

Mainly made this topic to see what everyone's thoughts on this were. How do you guys feel about the whole last-gen backwards-porting of current games, if anyone even cares?

I'm basically talking about the 360/PS3 ports of PS4/Xbone games we've been seeing for the past year or so, like MGS5, Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age 3, and the upcoming Tomb Raider game. Have any of you played these last-gen versions? How do you think they performed?

Like I said, this is mainly just to see people's thoughts. I personally played Shadow of Mordor on 360 (which had the graphical fidelity of a PS2 game and had some serious problems with load times), and it's made me leery on the whole concept, seeing as the only other current game I've played on a last-gen system was MGS5: Ground Zeroes, which ran perfectly fine. Looking forward to your thoughts!

[wiggy]

It's just a sign that current gen consoles can't carry their own weight yet IMO, which is sad, because we're 2 years into their life-cycles

[TDIRunner]

During transition years (years where the previous gen consoles are still for sale along with the current gen consoles), there have always been games that are released on both platforms.  However, it seems like the transition period has been longer this time compared to the past. 

I'm not sure if it's truly been longer or if it just seems like it.  I mean, the PS2 was around for a pretty long time after the PS3 came out and may games were released for both systems.  But then, the PS3 also struggled when it first came out and Sony had to continue to support PS2.

[gam3rz3r0]

It's just a sign that current gen consoles can't carry their own weight yet IMO, which is sad, because we're 2 years into their life-cycles

This 100 percent.

[Araden64]

I think the ports are awesome.  I missed out on PS3 because of the higher price at launch and because I ended up going with the 360.

Now that I'm on PS4 I get to play some of the games I missed out on like The Last of Us and the Uncharted Trilogy very soon.

I also read somewhere that it's actually a very small amount of current gen games that are ports of older ones.  I'll try to find the link later.

[WatcherJoshua]

Like others have said, there are always some ports at the beginning of a new generation, but I do believe this transition has taken significantly longer than it should. The new consoles have weak lineups and a small number of users. I think developers are hoping to sell more copies by continuing to support older platforms, but at the same time they are making a stronger argument to not upgrade.

In my opinion, the WiiU is easily the best current generation platform simply because the must-play games are exclusives. If I want to play Splatoon, Smash 4, Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 3, Bayonetta 2, etc. then I must have a WiiU. If I want to play the latest versions of Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Madden, Tomb Raider, etc. I can stick with the XBOX 360 I already have.

[FritzWhite]

The new Call of Duty Black Ops 3 for 360 isn't even going to have a campaign, just watered down multiplayer. I liked the 360 in its time, and the X1 seems like a smaller upgrade over the 360 than the 360 was over the original Xbox, but I'm still enjoying the X1 so far. I think the graphics look sharp.

[Araden64]

I actually don't like the fact that so many games are being made for both this gen and last gen.  Some games are being held back because of this.  Like in Destiny, we can't have unlimited vault storage because of the previous generation having memory issues.

I do understand that there are alot of people who just can't afford to upgrade though.  So either way somebodys getting screwed.

[Umbra]

I heard about the nonsense with Black Ops 3 not having campaign, which is kind of stupid considering they're still charging AAA-level prices (it's like $50 on 360). I'm relatively happy with the few games that are doing both gens, seeing as the leaked screenshots of Rise of the Tomb Raider look decent, and Metal Gear Solid V runs pretty well. Never knew about the memory issue with Destiny though. Personally I'm probably not getting a next gen console any time soon because it seems like one way or the other, most of the games are gonna make it to PC some time soon anyway (FF7 remake allegedly coming to other platforms later, Rise of the Tomb Raider coming to PC in spring, etc.) Plus, a lot of the games coming to Xbox / PS4 lately via the PSN/LIVE store seem to be games that have already been out on PC for some time. I logged into LIVE the other day to find that someone was playing Warframe on the Xbone, which has been out for years now.

[sheep2001]

Like others have said, there are always some ports at the beginning of a new generation, but I do believe this transition has taken significantly longer than it should. The new consoles have weak lineups and a small number of users. I think developers are hoping to sell more copies by continuing to support older platforms, but at the same time they are making a stronger argument to not upgrade.

In my opinion, the WiiU is easily the best current generation platform simply because the must-play games are exclusives. If I want to play Splatoon, Smash 4, Mario Kart 8, Pikmin 3, Bayonetta 2, etc. then I must have a WiiU. If I want to play the latest versions of Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Madden, Tomb Raider, etc. I can stick with the XBOX 360 I already have.

But if you want to play the latest infamous, forza, halo, dragon quest, Star Wars battlefront, fallout, kill zone, uncharted..... You need to upgrade.  Plus the new ip's.

I agree that the launch line up was pretty poor, and the constant delays, sometimes by over a year of certain titles have been a pain, but I love my launch ps4 - even the games that suffer because they are being made for previous gen compatibility, still look beautiful (watch dogs, need for speed, destiny, etc).  I haven't yet got enough reason to own both a ps4 AND XBoxOne (but I'm getting close), and I would definitely advise any gamer that upgrading to one of them is worth it right now.

[Thom Grayson]

The existence of last-gen ports is making people say 'see, no reason to upgrade!' and then more ports get made because 'look how many people are still playing last-gen consoles'.

There are people at my work who keep on making conditional statements along the lines of 'if X game isn't coming to my system, I'm going to upgrade'. One person in particular actually did it - the lack of single-player in Black Ops 3 on PS3 equaled a preorder for the PS4 Black Ops 3 bundle and most of his PS3 games being sold.

I've got no idea how common that mindset is, but if it's even slightly common, we could see a significant increase in sales when last-gen support is totally dropped.

[wiggy]

I think the ports are awesome.  I missed out on PS3 because of the higher price at launch and because I ended up going with the 360.

Now that I'm on PS4 I get to play some of the games I missed out on like The Last of Us and the Uncharted Trilogy very soon.

I also read somewhere that it's actually a very small amount of current gen games that are ports of older ones.  I'll try to find the link later.

But you can get a PS3 for so little now, and the games you mentioned are dirt cheap at this point.  You can pay $60 for 3 very old Uncharted games on the PS4, or about 10 bucks for all three for the PS3.

[Umbra]

But you can get a PS3 for so little now, and the games you mentioned are dirt cheap at this point.  You can pay $60 for 3 very old Uncharted games on the PS4, or about 10 bucks for all three for the PS3.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of re-releasing games that are already out, just ported to a next-gen console years afterwards, with the exception of full-on graphical remakes of games that are still popular (ex. Halo/Fable Anniversary). And personally, some of these next-gen collections just don't make sense. Prime example would be The Master Chief Collection. If I was Microsoft, I'd have just used Halo 4's engine to remaster Halo 2 so that everyone can be happy having all of the major Halo games on one system (anyone else remember how irritated that got a lot of people?), and instead of devoting the time/money into upscaling Halo 3 and 4 with a slapped-on multiplayer that was stripped down in some aspects, I'd have devoted that time/money to working on Halo 5.

These collections are just kind of a way to sell consoles when the console developers know they don't have enough strong material to sell one on its own, in my opinion. Killer apps don't really exist anymore it seems. I mean, the PS2/3 and Xbox 360 didn't rely on remakes of old games to sell them.

[wiggy]

I seriously think part of the problem with the current gen consoles isn't the lack of games, but rather that they're just not really a significant jump over the last gen.  I'm playing Forza 5 and 6, and yeah, they look great, but not like the jump from PS1 to PS2 and then to PS3.   I'm really starting to think that Sony should have stuck with their 10 year plan for the PS3.  It seems really logical at this point, to be perfectly honest.

[Thom Grayson]

I seriously think part of the problem with the current gen consoles isn't the lack of games, but rather that they're just not really a significant jump over the last gen.  I'm playing Forza 5 and 6, and yeah, they look great, but not like the jump from PS1 to PS2 and then to PS3.

This is the issue. Severe diminishing returns have kicked in. Even if Sony and Microsoft had waited another year or 2 before putting out the PS4/X1 (with improved internals over what we have now, of course), I still don't think there would have been enough of a technology gap to impress the way previous generations had. Case in point, go back and play, say, Gears of War. It still looks and plays well, and it's quite nearly 10 years old.

Or, to stick with your Forza example, play Forza 2. It still looks and plays well enough. Is Forza 6 better? Maybe, but it certainly doesn't feel like EIGHT YEARS worth of improvement.