This was written in May 2011. Exactly 2 years later, I have rediscovered it and added the latest generation of upcoming consoles. 

Recently the next gen of consoles has been a pretty hot topic. First we had news that Nintendo was going to announce their “Project Cafe”, the successor to the Wii at this years E3 Next there were mumblings about the next console from Sony being well under way. And finally (for me) there was UK Ubisoft Exec, Rob Cooper saying the following.

“… there have been tons of technological advances since the last round of consoles was released, and we’d love to see those advances included in new consoles sooner rather than later.” (MCV)

Now, I come from the Commodore 64 generation.  So my first reaction was to question this sentiment.  The C64 lasted for 12 years.  Surely this desperation to move the next generation is just one of two things.  Greed or laziness.  Why try to eek out every last bit of performance from the current gen, when you can easily achieve your goals with a more powerful machine.  After all, that was what kept the early generations of consoles alive.  Innovation.

Or was it?

I decided to look at the timelines for console releases, to see if I was just seeing the whole thing through slightly rose tinted glasses.  I will admit my findings surprised me a little.

Looking at this you can see a few things.  Whilst the C64 did indeed survive twelve years, it was succeeded in generation by the Amiga 500 after about five years.  It also turns out that there is about a five year gap, on average, between generations for each console developer.  I have not included the Atari in averages. Their release timeline is a little bit of an anomaly!

So, each generation lasts about five years.  The current generation has been around since 2005 / 2006. That means that by that timeline, we are actually heading into being overdue for the next generation of consoles!

At this point I have to eat a large slice of humble pie.  I had always maintained that the generation gaps had been getting shorter and shorter.  It turns out this is total rubbish!  If anything it is getting slightly longer each time.   Maybe developers are not just being lazy, maybe it is time for them to have new platforms to indulge their imaginations a little more.

But, there is still the question of whether or not we want it?

I am personally very happy with the current generation.  True, there are certain games that make the current consoles look a little clunky.  L.A. Noire does struggle a little on the Xbox 360 — it is just vast.  Not to mention three discs long!

For me it is a financial issue.  I have a Wii, a PS3 and an Xbox 360.  I really have no wish to buy a whole new set of consoles any time soon!

What do you think?

In the mean time I shall enjoy my humble pioe in a corner hugging my C64.

Sources

• http://www.gizmocafe.com/editors-view/console-timeline.aspx
• http://www.thegameconsole.com/videogames94.htm
• http://www.wikipedia.org
• http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame_timeline