The Seventh Generation of Gaming: The New Retro Consoles

The seventh generation of video games was an interesting time for gaming. Online capabilities became much more established in this generation than in the previous one. It was a time of massive change for the industry as the experience of gaming and the way we played games changed. We saw the integration of online play for the first time as a major feature of consoles. We saw online stores as well, which changed how we purchased and consumed games. There was also a change to how we stored games, through storage media, which revolutionized how we handled things like game ownership. Lastly, we saw the trend of downloadable content (DLC) made mainstream. These features helped to cement the seventh generation as a literal game-changer for the video game industry.

The Xbox and PlayStation 2 (PS2) both played around with online play, but the focus was still on local play. The Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 (PS3) made playing online a core aspect of their consoles, with Sony even putting Wi-Fi in all but their initial Japanese models. Microsoft initially did not build in wireless connectivity into their consoles, but began to with later models of the Xbox 360. Nintendo included Wi-Fi as a standard feature at launch for the Wii, but this was less for connectivity of players to each other and more to connect to Nintendo’s services, which will be discussed later on. This new focus on internet play changed how we interacted with gaming.

Players could now play a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with another player halfway around the world or even just across the street, rather than having to lug around a console, controller, and a power brick (if using an Xbox) for local play. This opened people to new kinds of play that were initially limited to only PC players. On the PS3, you could play Final Fantasy XIV (since discontinued on the PS3), an MMORPG, with other players in the game. While this was not a novel idea, as this was possible with Final Fantasy XI on the PS2, this was the first time an additional peripheral (not included with the console) was not necessary to be able to play it.

This was also the generation where online stores for video game consoles became normalized. Each of the three major consoles had its own approach to online purchasing.The standout here is Nintendo’s Wii Shop service, which allowed players to purchase and download a number of classic titles, as well as some original titles. The Virtual Console was a legal emulation market for the masses, where you could purchase games from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafix 16 libraries. This gave many players access to games that had not been commercially available for many years, as well as a chance to download and play some imported titles, such as Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, or as we know it in the United States, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Outside of the PlayStation Portable remake of the game, this was one of the only two legal ways to play this game. Konami even released a few original titles for the service, which makes the loss of the Wii Shop worse, as these games have never been ported or otherwise re-released. The Virtual Console was truly a great way for players to get access to older libraries of games without having to shell out tens or hundreds of dollars for an after-market copy.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Sony chose to focus on their online marketplaces for their current games. This platform allowed players to access games from the comfort of their homes. This really changed how we consumed games in general. For the first time, we had access to almost the entire library of games (some games still did not have digital releases) that were available on a system. If a game went out of print, chances are you could still purchase it on the online storefront. Many games were also being made available digitally for the first time on consoles, which made buying games even more convenient. This ended up being an industry standard for the eighth and ninth generation consoles. The 360 and PS3 marketplaces also had their fair share of classic game ports, which added to the value of those storefronts.

In conjunction with this, gaming consoles began to include storage space on the consoles as a standard feature. This helped players save more data, as well as store needed patches, DLC, and even new games. This would allow players to not need as much space on shelves for volumes of games. While the downside was that people were now just purchasing licenses rather than complete ownership of a game, this helped some be able to have their entire collection in one space and ready to go at any time. This is particularly true for the PS3, which started to require game discs to install content onto the console itself, thus creating a roadblock to being able to play new games right away.

Downloadable content and patches have also become a standard feature of gaming in this generation as well. Games have become much bigger and more expensive to produce, and often a lot of content has had to be left out of the game. DLC rectified this issue somewhat. Stories could be expanded upon through an additional, optional purchase, or new items and/or bonuses could be acquired from DLC. However, the darker side of this was that this content was tied to the storefront. Unless it was later released on a disc, it lives as long as the storefront allows it to be downloaded. The same can be said for patch content, which often fixes instability and/or adds in new data for players. As such, games reached a point where they were no longer released as a full, unchanging product. Games could be modified at any time a glitch was found, rather than releasing a new piece of physical media. This also meant that a game could be very buggy at launch, and then fixed afterwards, an arguably bad practice that has become somewhat normalized by the industry. However, on the positive side, companies could respond much more quickly to issues that were missed in the quality assurance and testing stages. Games, as a result, have become much more living products, not as much as live-service games, but gave them a time frame where constant fixes would be prioritized by the company that developed the games.

With all of that in mind, the seventh generation was definitely a precursor to some good and bad practices by the industry. We were able to access and play games in a much more dynamic way. Games could be bought online and played after downloading, instead of having to go to a store, where the game may not be there or be out-of-stock. We had greater access to total libraries of games, instead of piecemeal selections like in older generations. Our concepts of game ownership were forever changed in this generation as well, with digital purchases and content being tied to online stores, as this content could be endangered if a storefront goes down or stops distributing content. We also saw a trend toward games being more in line with standard development cycle practices, such as constant patch updates, upgrades, and DLC becoming normalized. This all culminated in a generation that was defined by its embrace of the internet as a core feature of the gaming experience, and has forever changed how we consume and play games.