Consoles are old: Obvious news that needs addressed

“We like 360 and PS3, but their specifications are over five years old now, and that’s a lot in computer years,” Jonathan Blow explaining why his upcoming adventure The Witness’ will only hit PC and maybe iOS.

“Crap!” Me on trying to decide if this means I need a new PC.

But seriously, we are in need of some new consoles here, right? The PC games that don’t cripple themselves in order to be ported to consoles look beyond gorgeous. The instant consumption of cheap app games is lost on Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony as well as social integration. Despite the Xbox’s annual refresh all three current consoles are about as pleasant to use as a card catalog, relics from an age before Apple married emotion to a piece of hardware. Now it’s all about User Experience and “sticky” retention rates. Even oily fingerprints are analyzed to see how an app or game can be more appealing and where an ad would be most prominently placed.

There are plenty of articles out there on what the next generation of consoles should look like and I won’t bother to even hastily throw one together myself. I just wanted to toss my little bit of tinder on this end-times brush fire and point out that even developers are getting tired of the current gen. We’ll have to ride out this economic roller coaster first, though, because no one’s going to line up for a PlayStation 4 when there’s already a lineup for food.