One question has excited retro gaming fans, and now the community is trying to decide what the biggest generational leap in gaming has ever been.
This question was asked by an account Obsolete Sony в X, specializing in nostalgia for old Sony electronic devices. The account asked:
Can we agree that the transition from PS2 to PS3 was the biggest leap in gaming history?
Of course, the answer is “no” – first of all, because X can’t agree on anything, but also because the progress between PS2 and PS3 certainly wasn’t that great.
The transition from PS2 to PS3 gave us a lot: easy access to online games, downloadable games and HD graphics. But as Digital Foundry’s John Linneman points out, this came at a big price:
We’ve gone from 60 FPS being the norm to being rare. Even a stable 30 FPS was unusual for that generation.
When it comes to performance, the PS3 was a step back. And this is not to mention the fact that the PS3’s game library was significantly smaller than its predecessor. And despite the powerful hardware at the time, many cross-platform games worked much better on the Xbox 360.
This leaves us with the question: what was the biggest leap in gaming history, really? Five generations of PlayStation aside, what about gaming consoles in general? If you scroll through the replies to the original post, there are a lot of votes for the transition from 16-bit consoles like the SNES and Mega Drive to the 3D era, and a lot of arguments in favor of the peak of gaming being in the PS2 era. Considering the graphical leap from PS1 to PS2, this is a compelling argument.
But there is also a dark horse that looks interesting: the transition from GBA to PSP. Yes, we are talking about portable consoles from different manufacturers, but these platforms came out with a difference of only 4 years from each other. The GBA offered great 2D graphics on par with the SNES, but those visuals looked dated even for the time. The PSP impressed with its 3D graphics and beautiful effects.
What do you think was the most significant leap in technology for the gaming industry?
