Despite the zeitgeist, older consoles usually stick around for years even after their newer, more powerful, brethren come out. In 2011 Madden football games were still being released on Playstation 2 because it still made business sense, thanks to the PS2’s immense install base. As we’ve seen the Xbox One and PS4 grow and their predecessors slowly fade away we’ve seen signs of the last generation finally waning. Shadow of Mordor didn’t have it’s incredible “nemesis system” in older console versions. Madden has stripped some of its features out in order to run on older machines. And now we add Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 to that list, possibly as the most egregious offender.
Black Ops 3 won’t have a campaign in Xbox 360 or PS3 versions of the game. While Treyarch, this year’s developer of COD, isn’t directly working on the older console ports they have explained that the campaign proved to be too much for the older hardware. Multiplayer and the beloved zombies mode will still be in last-gen versions, with the price dropped to $49.99, but it doesn’t heal the wounds of those who are late to adopt.
It’s hard to find a middle ground between old technology and new. Not everyone can afford to jump up to the current generation so easily but the tech that the 360 and PS3 were based on is absolutely ancient by today’s standards. It may be more amazing that current-gen games can still be ported over to the older consoles faithfully. This may be the beginning of the end for the last generation when the highest selling title begins to leave it all behind.
