The Next Gen – The Climb #566

Thursday 10^th September 2020

The release of new consoles is always a big moment in gaming. It represents an evolutionary step in gaming, where the everything is reset to zero and gamers get to decide their eco-system for the next generation.

Last gen was the first time I really embraced console gaming. Whilst I’ve had just about every console since the Atari 2600, it wasn’t until the advent of the Xbox 360 that I went full in with console gaming.

I loved that console. Gamerscore, the interface, Xbox live… it all combined into the perfect console experience for me.

However, when it came to the Xbox One, the lack of backwards compatibility from the start, put me off. I didn’t like the idea of my games becoming obsolete. So I went back to PC Gaming, narrowing my gaming down to Warcraft and a few Steam sales.

I recently bought a Xbox One, and that was mainly due to an offer I found for the Gamepass Ultimate package.

Now, we have a hybrid gaming ecosystem, where some games are better suited to console, others better suited to PC. And with cloud gaming coming down the line and being tied to Ultimate, it does start to feel that Microsoft finally have embraced PC gaming as more than an ugly cousin and put it at the heart of their gaming ecosystem.

Gamepass was an experiment for me. At worst, it was something to keep busy during lockdown. At best, it was a trial for the next gen.

I’m already sold. I’ve found myself both playing Xbox games as well as PC games. The lack of needing to pay for individual games makes me feel I am under less pressure to complete games I don’t enjoy, and is resulting in me trying more games.

Whilst I won’t be going to Xbox Series X at launch, the backwards compatibility ensures I’m not under pressure to do so, and therefore conversely am already likely to do so in time due to the lack of pressure. Also, it’ll be well into 2021 before we see any must-have games (most of which will come out for xbox one and offer smart delivery to automatically upgrade to XSX when I migrate).

Of course, I’ll continue to play PC games, even those like Warcraft that are not part of Gamepass.

I think I’m going to enjoy the next gen experience. I just hope I’m not too busy playing games to slow my writing down.