One question has gotten the retro gaming fandom up in a tizzy, and now the community is trying to decide what the biggest generational leap in gaming history really was.
The question was posed by Obsolete Sony, a Twitter account that specializes in waxing nostalgic about old Sony electronics. This account asked "Can we all agree that the upgrade from the PS2 to the PS3 was the most significant leap in gaming history?" Obviously, the answer is no - both because Twitter can never agree on anything and because suggesting that the leap from PS2 to PS3 was so grand is bordering on nonsense.
Jumping from PS2 to PS3 did give us a lot of things, like easy access to online play, downloadable games, and (marginally) high-definition graphics. But as Digital Foundry's John Linneman notes, there was a big cost: "We went from 60 FPS being the norm to it becoming a rarity. Even 30 FPS solid was uncommon that gen." If you're concerned with performance, the PS3 was a step back. Never mind the fact that the PS3 had a substantially smaller library than its predecessor, and despite its powerful for the time hardware, many multiplatform games ran much better on the competing Xbox 360.
- After the PS5 Pro's less dramatic changes, PlayStation architect Mark Cerny says the next-gen will focus more on CPUs, memory, and machine-learning
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That leaves us with a big question: what actually was the most significant leap in gaming history? Never mind the five PlayStation generations, what about console gens as a whole? If you scroll through the responses to that initial tweet, there are a lot of votes for the move from 16-bit consoles like the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive into the 3D era, and a fair few arguments that gaming peaked in the PS2 era. (Given the graphical leap from the PS1 to the PS2, that one's pretty strong.)
But there's a dark horse candidate that I've found particularly intriguing: the leap from GBA to PSP. Yes, we're talking about handhelds from two different manufacturers, but these platforms released just four years apart from each other. The GBA offered lovely 2D graphics roughly on par with the SNES, but those visuals were nearly a decade out of date even at the time. The PSP, in contrast, was nearly on par with contemporary consoles.
Not even close. That goes to the GBA to PSP. You will never see THAT type of gap ever again.People genuinely didn't consider handhelds having similar capabilities to consoles. The PSP evened out that gap. https://t.co/vWZNAEHekzJanuary 6, 2024
Game Boy Advance to PSP in the space of four years, and there will never be anything on that level again https://t.co/XpQnlvQEG2January 5, 2024
Perhaps the largest leap in visuals I can remember - going from GBA to PSP was absolutely insane at the time. Ridge Racers on PSP felt like jumping two generations ahead! https://t.co/L433iOD9L6 pic.twitter.com/i8G42cdXbOJanuary 5, 2024
I don't know whether the pace of technological advancement has truly slowed or whether we're just in an era where games already look so good that it's tough to be wowed anymore, but it's nice to remember a time when new gaming generations genuinely felt like generational shifts. Even if some of those shifts were bigger than others.
This does still make me want to revisit some of the best PS3 games of all time.
