Sunday, September 22, 2013

GTA V, PS4, Xbox One and Why It's Coming

  
              Possibly the biggest game to drop this year was Grand Theft Auto V, it pulled in roughly $800 million in the first day alone and rounded out the $1 billion mark just 3 days after.  Just take a second to let that sink in for a bit, that is enough to buy the Chicago Cubs or build the Real Madrid Island Resort and is more money than any movie has ever made in an openning weekend.  Clearly this game is fantastic, everyone I talk to said that they love the story, the characters; even the graphics look great considering that the hardware is eight years old.  It seems Rockstar took all the things we wished they put into GTA IV, added it to the things we already liked and topped it up with some fresh shiny features.   

                I am dying to get my hands on this game, I LOVE the Grand Theft Auto series.  The amount of time that I spend glued to the screen playing Vice City would probably make an optometrist cringe and might have something to with the thickness of my glasses, but that is beside the point.  San Andreas and GTA IV were also excellent games, so naturally I was particularly excited for the release of GTA V.  I stayed up to date (or so I thought) with the news and watched all the trailers and videos but somehow I seemed to have missed one small detail.  The fact that there was a version planned for the PS4 or Xbox One
               

                As I wrote about in my premiere post I traded my Xbox 360 in during a deal at my local EB Games and put it all towards the purchase of my Xbox One.  So when I finally found out that I would be missing out I was a tad bit disappointed.  Then I got to thinking, why any company that has put would has much money into a game as Rockstar has, release for current generation consoles without any plan to port onto the new systems?  I understand why they released it on the 360 and PS3 because the player base on these consoles is huge as you would expect after 8 years but in three months’ time a good portion of that player base is going to be moving up. 

                Rockstar stated that they believe that GTA V feels next-gen.  When I read this I immediately thought that the comment seems like a cop out, the reason it feels that way right now is because next gen consoles haven’t been released.  The moment we are all sitting behind our bright and shiny new consoles I can guarantee you that no one is going to be talking about how awesome the graphics in GTA V are.  Some of the new features are very cool and the idea of switching seamlessly between the characters during missions or whenever is absolutely cool I do not think it is ground breaking enough to hold players to an outdated system. 

                To me it seems like Rockstar has two choices when it comes to how it is going to attack this problem with the new consoles.  The first choice is do nothing, keep the game on the current consoles and never work on a port to the new systems and walk away with a huge profit while their game is slowly forgotten after three months after release.  I would like to hope and do believe that game designers/developers actually do care about the longevity of their game and don’t want to see something that they spent five years of their lives creating disappear in the flood of new consoles and new titles. 

                The second option that I see is that they take a small chunk of that $750 million profit they made and develop the port to the new consoles and maybe a port for the PC gaming guys (which I am slowly becoming).  I think it is fair to assume that some people would buy the game again just to play it on their new console and the people that have been holding out would finally pull the trigger and purchase it.  I think it would extend the life span of their game exponentially.   I know that I would absolutely buy this game if they announced it for Xbox One, but I can also say that nothing will make me go back and buy another 360 or PS3 just to play it.  Because I would rather spend that money on my Xbox One and really I don’t want to own two consoles, I want all my games on one gaming platform. 

                When it comes down to it I think that just after the big excitement about the new consoles has died down and just before Christmas we will see GTA V make the transition to next gen. 

                By the way if you are like me and don’t own a GTA V but want to get a look at everything it has to offer, I have been watching Lefty’s videos on YouTube.  He has a good mix of “walkthrough” and random gameplay.  I will leave a link to his channel HERE.

                How do you feel about Rockstar’s decision? Do you think it is something they will stick to or will they go back on their word? I would love to hear your feedback, and as always thanks for stopping in and see you in game!

               

No comments:

Post a Comment