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September has been a rough month. As such, we have not managed to come together to discuss Attack of the Clones as promised, and the one episode we had recorded is sitting in a hard drive to gather dust. Nonetheless, we managed to scrounge together this conversation on next-gen gaming, though we are quite unenthused about the future of either machine.

I expected 2020 to be an incredible year for announcements. One where Sony and Microsoft would finally unveil their many major projects that had clearly been hidden behind the curtain, crouched in wait to ambush us with an onslaught of next-generation wonderment. Not that I anticipated much actual excitement for the next generation’s technical capabilities. With proper asset management and code refinement, companies like Capcom have proven you can create excellent games that look gorgeous and play at a smooth framerate without sacrificing mechanical complexity. Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2 proved that even a PlayStation 4 from the launch timeframe can run some seriously wonderful looking games.

It took until August for Sony to properly demonstrate what the solid state drive provides for Ratchet & Clank, a game whose “next-gen” features are mostly calculated in the number of moving objects in the background. So long as you’re paying attention, it looks beautiful and neat. However, there is a point where all that visual chaos becomes noise and the brain starts parsing only the important details. The gameplay – what matters – can be achieved not just on current hardware, but the hardware we’d been playing on at the start of the millennium.

As a result, we aren’t so much excited for the next generation of hardware so much as we are excited for a single game. Steve is right, however: does Final Fantasy XVI look like it could not be done on current hardware? Given that it doesn’t look much more impressive than Final Fantasy XV, I’d respond with a solid no. It most certainly can be made on current hardware.

Are you hyped for the next generation? Or are you just as disenfranchised as we are? Please leave a comment below or send us an e-mail with what you’ve been playing.

Opening theme music by my buddy Brandon, a.k.a. Fallen Prophecy.