A lot of information about Resident Evil Village was released during a recent livestream – a May release date, the release of a PS5 demo and more details about the very tall, very hot vampire woman. But beyond that, one thing about the live stream that really stuck with me was the description of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S versions of the game as ‘next generation’ and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions as ‘current gen’. “
It made me think about when we’re no longer going to the PS5 and the Xbox Series X | S should not be referred to as ‘next generation’. Both consoles have been out for more than two months now. They are no longer something that is on the way, they are actually here in quite a few people’s homes. But people – sometimes even me – still seem to think that the console generation has not actually switched.
To be honest, I’m not sure when I’m going to start Xbox Series X | S and PlayStation 5 as the “current gen”, despite the fact that I have both a Series X and PS5 and have been using them since November. I at least started referring to them as ‘new gen’ instead of ‘next generation’ when I had to write about it, but my brain did not switch the subconscious to refer to Xbox One. and PS4 as the old hardware. I still have to stop and remind myself of that.
So the new consoles will be considered ‘current gen’ as soon as they are readily available for purchase, and you can just roll in a store and pick one up instead of apologizing to yourself in the middle of the workday to talk about you phone to move? in the bathroom and press refresh on a link in the hopes that a console will end up in your cart before a bot uploads it? Or is the PS5 and Xbox Series X | S only ‘current’ once the PS4 and Xbox One become obsolete hardware and new games are no longer made regularly for those two systems? Is this new generation only ‘current generation’ once Microsoft and Sony stop making Xbox One and PS4 units, is not the option to even buy it? Or does society use a different baseline to measure the transition? Because whatever the deciding factor is, you did not tell me, and I would like to know.
It does not really matter, but I still think it’s weird. I can not remember that it took so long after their respective editions for people started referring to PS4 and Xbox One as ‘current’ and the PS3 and Xbox 360 as ‘last gen.’ Why the same has not happened for Xbox Series X | S and PS5 not?
Either way, refer to the PS5 and Xbox Series X | S? Do you think they are current generation, next generation or new generation, or do you think we need a new label for this particular console generation? And what is the transition in console generations for you?