Playing retro games from and before the PlayStation 2, Original Xbox and GameCube generation is a relatively simple thing to do today. There are even handheld devices designed specifically for retro gaming and if you have a PS Vita or Steamdeck you can play almost every game released before 2000 with relative ease.
But things won’t be as simple in 12 years time.
Let’s say is 2035 and everyone is looking forward to the PlayStation 7 and the 6th Xbox. The PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 will be considered “retro consoles” by then and this is where the problems start.
The PlayStation 3 will have long since had all its online support terminated and the 22 year old PS4 store will probably be closed too. We already know Microsoft is closing the Xbox 360 store next year and support for the Xbox One will likely have ceased by 2035.
So what about all the games that require a constant internet connection to work?
Obviously multiplayer games like Fortnite, Rocket League and Apex Legends won’t last forever and that makes sense. But there are games that can be played solo that will also stop working.
For example the first 4 Grand Turismo games are just as functional now as they were the day they released. Gran Turismo 5 & 6 have had their multiplayer shutdown but the bulk of the games are perfectly playable. Then there’s Gran Turismo Sport and 7. Those games simply don’t function beyond a few arcade races and time trials without an internet connection because all progress, even the single player portions of the game are saved on a server with no local save option. It’s the same story for The Crew 1, 2, Motorfest and the upcoming Forza Motorsport.
All games that have rich and full single player modes that will be inaccessible when the servers are eventually turned off.
The devs claim it’s to prevent cheating and spoiling the experience for others. In Multiplayer modes that makes sense but we all know that in single player modes it’s to stop people getting things like credits for free that can be bought with real world money.
Make no mistake. Always online requirements have nothing to do with making the experience better for the players. It’s to make sure you’re not getting stuff for free.
Then there are the patches. More and more developers are shipping discs with a tiny fraction of the game on them. The rest must be downloaded in the form of a hefty day one patch.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II (the 2022 one) has less than 100MB on a disc with a capacity for 100GB. With the rest downloaded in a 100GB “update.” The game could be on the disc but again for money reasons it’s not. They can’t be having people buy the game on disc for cheap once the servers are off. They can’t make money from you then and how dare you have fun without them getting access to your wallet.
So even buying an old game on disc in the future won’t guarantee you can play it. A lot of games will simply cease to exist when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo pull the plug on the online stores.
It’s already happened. Once Nintendo closed down the Wii Shop Channel even games you’d bought couldn’t be downloaded. If your Wii dies then those digital only games you’ve bought are just gone.
Some people say “who cares if old games stop working. Nobody plays them anyway.” Well I still play NES games regularly and I know there are a lot of people that do. I will still want to play my PlayStation 4 and Xbox One games in 12 years time but will I be able too?
Some games have already disappeared for good. Did you buy Overwatch? Try and download it now. You can’t.
Maybe I’m being overly dramatic but it bothers me that a good portion of the games we all like playing today have an expiration date and in the case of Gran Turismo Sport that date is January 31st 2024. It’s not a decade in the future. It’s 4 months from now.
If it wasn’t in GamePass I’d be passing on it too.