I know a lot of people who never bothered to swap their Xbox One or PS4 for current-gen tech. They just didn’t really have a good reason to. Neither PlayStation nor Xbox were releasing must-play current-gen-exclusive games that were worth the hundreds of dollars it would cost to upgrade to a newer console. Not enough people cared enough about Astro Bot, Alan Wake 2 (which was also on PC), or the Demon’s Souls remake to buy it for those games alone.
Most Popular Games Can Be Played On Last Gen Consoles
The average gamer mostly cares about the same couple of games that release every single year – your Call of Dutys and annual sports releases. For either Xbox or PlayStation to incentivise a majority of players to shell out for its top of the line tech, these games would have to be exclusive to PS5 and Series X/S.
Related
The End of MultiVersus Makes Me Want A New PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
Now that MultiVersus is dead, it’s time for another PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
This is far from the case. Call of Duty, the world’s best-selling video game franchise, has released its last five games on both current and previous generation consoles concurrently. In 2025, five years after the PS5 and Series X/S were launched, the most popular games in contemporary culture can be played on older tech.
It’s the same with EA FC, WWE 2K, Madden NFL, and until this week, MLB The Show.
You could see this as these companies trying to preserve their player bases. In May 2024, Sony revealed that about half of PlayStation users were playing on PS4 and not PS5 – cutting these players out might hurt sales, especially if these players aren’t willing to upgrade yet. But this is also very much a case of the snake eating its own tail. If Xbox and PlayStation aren’t willing to give players a substantive reason to upgrade, they simply won’t, and these players will still have to be catered to.
Sure, graphical upgrades and performance improvements are pulls, but I think most people are most willing to upgrade if there are games worth upgrading for. That hasn’t happened, at least up till 2024. But it looks like 2025 is shaping up to finally be the year that establishes the current gen as the current gen.
3:43
Related
The Xbox Series S Was A Mistake
Yet another developer has spoken out about the underpowered console.
Finally, Current Gen Exclusives Worth Upgrading For
We’re well into the current generation’s life cycle, and we’re only now starting to see games that create enough hype to get people to consider upgrading. Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2: On The Beach will only release on PS5, and both are highly anticipated sequels to successful PlayStation games. Avowed, Doom: The Dark Ages, Monster Hunter Wilds, and many more will also only be playable on current gen, though those three will also come to PC.
But let’s be real, current-gen exclusives have been in the mix for years now. The real problem is that none of them were Grand Theft Auto 6, likely the gaming event of the decade. There’s absolutely no chance that behemoth is going to run on an Xbox One or PS4. This will be the game to get everyone running to upgrade.
Related
Grand Theft Auto 6 Needs To Be More Expensive
There are very few alternatives to making the video game industry sustainable again.
It feels like corporations behind the consoles are wise to GTA 6’s game-changing potential. Sony announced last week that PlayStation Plus will offer fewer PS4 games from 2026, arguably because more people are starting to switch to PS5. That’s reasoning that makes sense, but I also think it’s because Sony is forecasting that with more big gaming events to push players towards upgrading, a tweak to PlayStation Plus’ offerings will help tip more people in that direction. It’s a preparatory move as much as it is a call to action for players.
Is it just GTA 6 causing this shift? No, but it sure helps. There simply isn’t a game that can rival it in terms of popularity and pure cultural cache, and its impending launch might change a lot of things in the industry. Maybe one of those changes will be that the PS5 and Xbox Series generation finally gets into full swing.