It's Official: No More "Next-Gen"

AstroZombie

My apologies as I realize that I am several months late making this announcement. Henceforth, there is no need to use the term "next-gen" when referring to current games and consoles. In fact, you can just leave out the term "gen" all together. e.g- what is the polycount for game characters? or What is the texture size for a mailbox? also who is the winner in the console war?

I am still open to suggestions as to what we will call "last gen" so feel free to propose names for normal, specular, bloom and HDR-free characters, assets and environments.

Joseph Silverman

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I am still open to suggestions as to what we will call "last gen" so feel free to propose names for normal, specular, bloom and HDR-free characters, assets and environments.

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Art.

Rick Stirling

Icky.

Joshua Stubbles

History.

Old School.

arshlevon

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I am still open to suggestions as to what we will call "last gen"

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i believe skin gen is the term your looking for, been hearing that a lot latley. i think rockstar is the first person i heard say it.. he is so hip with the lingo.

Marine

yester-gen

ebagg

Past-gen
Geezer-gen

It's crazy to think what the next "next-gen" will be, the polycounts will be bumped up, the physics will be more insane, real time sub surface scattering, etc etc

CheapAlert

DirectX8/OpenGL1.5gen

almighty_gir

classic gen

AstroZombie

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It's crazy to think what next-gen will be, the polycounts will be bumped up, the physics will be more insane, real time sub surface scattering, etc etc

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fixed

rooster

so what was the gen before last gen?

adam

Although a broad term, 'next-gen' is the word to define this era in gaming. I agree it needs to be taken out to the woodshed and shot, but it'll be hard to replace it with something else, if anything at all.

KeyserSoze

You said to leave out the term "gen," but is "generation" okay? Because it's really hard to classify things without using the word "generation"... I guess I could just use "era" instead, but it still means the same damn thing.

Anyway, I would say you have the 8-bit era, then of course the 16-bit era, followed by the 1st era of 3D with the PSX, Saturn and N64, after that the 2nd era of 3D (Ps2, Xbox, Gamecube), and now the 3rd era of 3D. That's how I'd classify it.

diZzyWalnut

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so what was the gen before last gen?

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well I consider that there was the "BASIC GEN" ( not the first one , NON)

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simply the best :

"LAST GEN"(finished by HL 2)
"NEXT GEN" (started by DOOM3 and FAR CRY , non ?)

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but the problem go on for me 'cause I start ask myself how we are going to call the "gen" after "NEXT GEN" This is the question
....what's the nightmare.

Malekyth

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so what was the gen before last gen?

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In German, that would have to be Vorgestergen!

English has no equivalent, because it's a language of whores and beggars.

Penzer

Old school = nes, snes, genesis, anything pre "last gen"

last gen can be known as AstroZombieGen because you started the thread.

Current Gen doesnt need a name. Ever heard anyone say seen any good current movies lately?

conte

ancigen

Joao Sapiro

agreed !

HonkyPunch

I think that we just need to stop classifying this shit.

AstroZombie

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Current Gen doesnt need a name. Ever heard anyone say seen any good current movies lately?

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Exactly my point, sir! Although stated more directly and with less sarcasm

Emil Mujanovic

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I am still open to suggestions as to what we will call "last gen" so feel free to propose names for normal, specular, bloom and HDR-free characters, assets and environments.

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Art.

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I second this.

-caseyjones

acc

Movies aren't comparable because people didn't suddenly become twice as smooth this year than last year. We didn't all suddenly discover shadows and start adding lots of bumps to our clothes. It doesn't matter if a movie came out today or 5 years ago, the difference is negligible for the regular viewer. Games are different.

When the PS2 dies (and it's still got a lot of life in it) we can stop saying last-gen and current-gen because the distinction will no longer be relevant (everything will be current-gen). Until then, there is a distinction to be made and we should have words for it. Current-gen and last-gen are already the accepted standards.

Although I'm cool with calling them "brown" and "art", respectively.

Asherr

anno gen.

monster

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so what was the gen before last gen?

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In German, that would have to be Vorgestergen!

English has no equivalent, because it's a language of whores and beggars.

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I know you're not a beggar...

tygereye107

"Trinity-gen" b/c it established Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as the holy console trinity (a trend which has been carried over to the current gen).

"DVD-gen" or "Disc-gen" b/c all major consoles used DVD or MiniDVD formats (the preceding gen still had Nintendo using cartridges and PS1 used a data CD).

So far the current gen seems to be distinguished by it's wirelessness, so we could call it the "Wireless-gen" and the preceding gen the "Last Tethered-gen".

I'm fairly certain none of these will catch on but what we do call it will probably have something to do with a unifying factor across the 3 major consoles.

Whargoul

Yeah I'm sick of "next-gen" as well. From now on, I'll refer to it as "gen".

What will I call "last-gen"? I think I'll refer to it as "old shit".

Should be nice and confusing around the office now

KDR_11k

But... but... next gen doesn't start until Sony says it does and the PS3 isn't out in Europe...

Malekyth

I intend to refer to last-gen as Twinkles. Current-gen is named Jeremy O'Reilly, and next-gen, obviously, shall be known as Zeppelin Pigsteak.

Ruz

oestrogen?

Thegodzero

If you ask Microsoft each gen starts and ends with that operating system.

So there is pre win 3.1, win 3.1, win 98, win 2k, win xp, and now win vista gen.

Other ways to look at things are each gen now is a direct x version = gen.

I like to call the current gen the W gen as you have two systems that really push forward in the normal ways and one that stays back a bit thus the middle hump. Or you can call it the wiiner gen.

Option

I think the next major feature that needs to be widely included in first person games is the ability to look down and see the rest of your body, as well as arm models that are more than just the forearm/elbow, so we can have more movement in animations. I know that you can see your body in a few games (Chronicles of Riddick, Halo 2, etc.) but I think it should become a standard.

Rick Stirling

Why?

As in, what's the point of that?

Joao Sapiro

because the player aint supposed to be frylock with human arms holding a gun :P

Penzer

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I know that you can see your body in a few games (Chronicles of Riddick, Halo 2, etc.) but I think it should become a standard.

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Even before that, Tribes 2 had it. Tribes 1 might have even had it, I can't remember for sure. It made sense in tribes because you spend a lot of time looking down, while you're in the air, trying to spot your landing or shooting at heavys below you.

Just imagine what next gen would do to looking down, bloom coming off your groin hahahah.

Option

Oh yeah, completely forgot about tribes.

@Rick, because it's not terribly immersive to look down and see that you are indeed a disembodied set of arms.

BRUTICUS(CW)

thanks for the memo Zombie I was beginning to think I was trapped in a time loop.

I cast forth "ex-gen"