Time for a new console generation?

Since I last wrote it’s pretty much been all Battlefield 3 for my gaming time. I’ve spent now approximately 7 hours on the PC and 8 hours on the 360 version. Because my friends are on Xbox Live I’ll ultimately spend more time with the console version in the upcoming weeks/months but I think, in almost every respect, Battlefield 3 is significantly better on the PC. Furthermore, as the title of this post alluded, it’s the first PC game that’s made me wish that my console were more powerful.

After playing some of the single player in Battlefield 3 on the PC, I think it would only be mildly hyperbolic to state that, visually, the PC version absolutely shits on the console version. Again, it’s not just the resolution, but the lighting, the animations, the textures, the particle effects and more. That’s not to say it’s an ugly game on the 360, far from it, it looks very nice but on the PC it is simply jaw-dropping.

Of course, Battlefield 3 isn’t the first PC game in recent memory to look better than it’s console port. Crysis 2, released earlier this year, was another stunner but graphical fidelity aside, the gameplay was more or less the same on the consoles as the PC. This is not the case with Battlefield 3. The (slightly) increased map size, increased number of capture points, and the more than double the player count makes the game way more intense and, on the major maps, much more fun. There’s also more vehicles and improved destructibility of the environments in the PC version as well.

It’s clear that the Frostbite 2 game engine that DICE created is a bit too much for the current crop of consoles but then again, should we be surprised? On November 16th, the Xbox 360 is going to be six years old! A top of the line PC from 6 years ago would probably struggle to run a quarter of newest PC games released today. There’s a finite limit to just how much power developers can squeeze out of the current crop of consoles and I think they are reaching that limit now.

Does that mean that I’m ready to buy the Xbox 3/720/Next/WhateverItsCalled tomorrow? No. There are still dozens upon dozens of games still to enjoy in this current generation but I also wouldn’t be surprised if at the next E3 Sony and Microsoft unveil their next generation of hardware for release in 2013. A looming next console generation is always an exciting time but the transition to the next generation should be even more intriguing as there are many questions that need to be answered that would never have been addressed before; What happens to digital distribution? Will either Sony or Microsoft have the stones to reject physical media or, at the very least, de-emphasize it? What happens to downloadable content? Will I be able to play my downloaded Xbox Live Arcade/PSN games on the next system? What will become of motion control? Will there even be true next-generation hardware or is the next step adoption of an On-Live style cloud-based streaming service?

Lots of questions and I’m hoping we’ll get an answer to some of them at the next E3. In the meantime, I am more than happy to run and gun on the 360 and PS3.......but oh the PC version of Battlefield is just so freakin’ good!

Lavan