The era of time when game consoles were plentiful even if naff are now of rehashed Xboxes, PlayStations and Nintendo; which by the glory is now graphics.
It's sad that to even think of competing in the console race is now near impossible.
As the next consoles generations being AI with AI generated graphics, where's the fun in that?
Going digital has made everything cold and sterile. The same is true with mobile devices.
> Going digital has made everything cold and sterile. The same is true with mobile devices.
I don't think it's that things are digital, or digital distribution. IMHO, it's the consolidation of design without major limitations or character. XBox and Playstation are AMD based PCs with a weird OS, and have been for at least two generations. They don't have a "look", because 3d rendering is pretty reasonable now, and everything kind of looks the same; newer generations look better, but draw rates are plenty high, so things don't have to look a certain way to be playable. They don't have a "sound", because there's so much storage and most of the sound is mixed from (high quality) pre-recorded pieces.
You don't have to stick to AAA games for the big consoles though. Tons of fun indie games out there for any platform. And there's even niche hardware these days like the Playdate, a system that is the opposite of cold and sterile!
Yes, you're not wrong. It's just not the same and unsure how to explain it. Consoles had love, warmth and now they're cold and sterile as I said before. They were a lifetime purchase and now you're expected to buy each new revision.
It was different and you felt it. As the old internet to the new internet. Something the new generations won't understand.
Consoles have always been about the games. It was the dedicated hardware for. So my gripe is not that it can't do what a PC can do. I own a PC for that.
Games were creative, imaginative and this was before "AAA" was a thing.
There is no magic to be found.
I find more enjoyment playing old DOS and Amiga games. Which luckily there are sites for that.
The playdate is a thing and true but it's a device i've not used but know I'll use once and put down. It's not in the shops where I can try before I buy.
Indie games are cute. However what I find with indie games, which I own more than a dozen on my steam list are fun for the while and then never get touched. Not my thing.
It's not about the game play, it's about the hardware.
I don't know if I'd describe the difference as "love" or "warmth." But older consoles' design decisions were definitely more varied and developers had to tailor to those limitations and features. Sure, now the Switch has less power than a PS5 and is portable, but that doesn't matter much when it comes to game development unless you need to push graphical boundaries. Very different than old systems with unique input methods, controllers, capabilities, etc. As you said, hardware used to matter. Which is why I find the Playdate a neat system.
Large expensive games need to appeal to the lowest common denominator and feel like they are designed by committee, much more so than they used to due to the huge increase in development costs. But I'm happy with the variety in the indie scene, which includes games that hearken back to older games (e.g, Ringlorn Saga, which takes old Japanese computer RPGs as its inspiration), and games that provide totally new experiences with plenty of creativity. Plus there are niche games that would have never sold back in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., ones with more serious emotional or more adult themes).
Despite that, games tend to follow design trends, so it certainly makes sense that you might just prefer games made during a particular era. I love exploring older games too (I've spent way too much time messing around with old consoles on my MiSTer), but I still find plenty of interesting new experiences as well.