2023 shaping up to be the death of last-gen consoles
By Bryan Nelson
You would be forgiven for still playing your Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Up until recently, most games were still publishing on them, and even CD Projekt Red thought it would be a good idea to bring Cyberpunk to the platforms (and we all know how that went). Games were also still being put on the previous generation because the COVID-19 pandemic stalled production to the point where it was not only difficult for consumers to purchase a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S, but it was difficult for developers to justify abandoning the consoles altogether. Not anymore.
At the Game Awards, EA’s Respawn Entertainment provided a gameplay trailer for the next Star Wars game, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Not only did the game look great and showcase new mechanics, but it was also announced that it would only be released on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and the PlayStation 5. The last generation was abandoned for the developer to focus on polishing the game for this generation.
Another game coming up is Bethesda’s own Starfield. A brand new intellectual property that is coming with a lot of expectations. That game will only be on PC and Xbox Series X/S, foregoing the last generation entirely in favor of a beefed-up game that will play best if Xbox One just wasn’t thought about. In fact, here’s an entire list of Xbox games that are ditching the Xbox One for the Series X and PC.
On PlayStation 5, Returnal came out last year and didn’t even bother to release the game on PS4 alongside PS5, instead, next-generation was so important to them that they focused on developing for a single console, not multiple.
Right before I hit “submit” for this article, it came out that Hogwarts Legacy not only got hit with another delay but a delay for last generation’s consoles. Not only does developing for them take up precious resources, but they split teams, making the game take longer for everyone. It’s exactly like developing the same game simultaneously but each one has its hurdles. If they weren’t developing for those consoles, period, then we may have actually seen Hogwarts Legacy this quarter.
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It may have taken a little longer than last generation to begin telling people that their consoles were no longer relevant, but we’re reaching that period. And 2023 is shaping up to be the year of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4’s demise, and the focus will completely shift to gamers finally being able to see what these consoles are truly capable of. The Wii U has been dead for years, but I’m pretty sure you can find the most recent Just Dance for it, so at least they have that to look forward to.