The ninth generation of gaming has entered its fifth year now, and it’s been a bit of snoozefest, hasn’t it? Plus, it’s a largely sad state of affairs with a few exceptions that serve as a ray of hope in an otherwise dark tunnel full of false promises — grand scales, bleeding-edge visuals, and better games than ever before.

From barely any new IPs that stick, to egregious development times, there are plenty of complaints I have with this console generation that was supposed to be the greatest. Instead, all it usually makes me want to do is dust off my old consoles and go back to games from previous, better generations.

5 When did the ninth generation really start?

PS5 and Series X consoles were rarities for almost two years

The ninth console generation technically began in November 2020, but only on paper. In reality, it never even started for a couple of years after that, thanks to the global semiconductor shortage. All the way through 2021 and even early 2022, getting your hands on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X was like winning the lottery, and most people simply stuck with their eighth-gen consoles, myself included. Pair that with a global pandemic that tightened wallets and had people reconsidering getting new hardware, and developers had no choice but to keep supporting the aging PS4 and Xbox One.

Even as late as 2025, cross-gen releases are still a thing, barring a handful of games like Alan Wake 2, Spider-Man 2, and Returnal. With almost every major release still having a foot stuck in the past and limiting what these new consoles could actually do, the ninth generation only truly kicked off around late 2022 or early 2023. Of course, by that point, we’d already begun talking about the next wave of hardware.

4 Where are the new IPs?

Are they just in my head?

Look, I like a remake or remaster as much as the next guy, and I can’t deny that remakes are important to the gaming landscape at large. However, when they actively replace new IPs, that’s where I begin having problems. In the last few years, Sony has given us The Last of Us Part II Remastered for the PS5, along with remaking Part I, for like, the fifth time? Instead of making and releasing the next Horizon, or another new IP, we just saw Guerrilla Games give us a remaster for Zero Dawn. Add to that the Resident Evil 4 remake, the Dead Space remake, the Metal Gear Solid remake we’re about to get, and the Final Fantasy VII three-part remake, and I’m all about done. Remakes actively replacing newer IPs is one gaming trend that I hope we get past in 2025.

By the time the PS4 was in its fourth or fifth year, we already had fantastic games like Bloodborne, Uncharted 4 and its sequel, The Lost Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin's Creed Origins, GT Sport, Resident Evil VII, and my personal favorite, Wolfenstein 2: The New Order. These were just the tip of the iceberg, but they made the PS4 downright irresistible. When I cried to my parents to get an Xbox 360, it wasn't because I wanted "the latest console". It was simply because I wanted to play Halo 3, which made the console something I had to have. Now that we're at about the halfway point of this console generation, I just don't see a fantastic library on either the Series X or the PlayStation 5 that can only be enjoyed on these consoles.

3 Console ownership prices have touched the stratosphere in this generation

It’s genuinely better to just go with a PC instead

Back during the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One era, it used to be a rather simple argument to be made in favor of consoles over PC. These consoles were simply cheaper to buy, games cost the same, and they got you through the door at a far cheaper rate than a similar-spec PC. Now, however, that has changed. Not only did I spend $500 on my PlayStation 5 in 2021, but the moment I needed a new controller, it was another $75. Add to that a yearly subscription of PlayStation Plus or Game Pass Core, and since my time of purchase, I’ve already spent more on the ability to play online than the cost of the console itself.

Now, with over $1000 spent over my four years of ownership, a simple $1000 gaming PC would be better for anyone who doesn’t have a high-end PC already. Then, there’s the PS5 Pro — a $700 console that promises frame generation and 60fps 4K gaming (forget the 120fps experiences we were promised). For that price, a $700 PC is such a no-brainer that you’d struggle to justify the existence of the PS5 Pro, let alone its purchase.

2 PC hardware made these consoles outdated on arrival

Exclusives are dying, and equivalent PCs are just as affordable

When the PlayStation 5 was announced in June 2020, it took all of four months for the RTX 30-series graphics cards to come out swinging. In my opinion, even the 30-series cards made the PlayStation 5 look bad, and it would have been much worse had it not been for the sorry state of affairs regarding the availability of these new graphics cards that embarrassed the new Xbox and PlayStation before they even hit shelves.

With the ninth generation effectively beginning in 2023, Nvidia’s 40-series jumped into the fray, with upscaling tech and frame generation that consoles could only dream of. Budget PCs that match the cost of the consoles without attached strings like paid online multiplayer have become respectably powerful, and with exclusive games making their way to PCs, what’s even the point of considering a gaming console anymore? I do believe that game exclusivity dying is a good thing, but it’s also taking away one of the only reasons to go with a PS5 or a Series X.

1 Terrible industry trends have been a blight on this generation

The latest generation has been the worst for devs

One of my biggest gripes with this generation is how brutal it’s been for the people making the games — developers, designers, entire studios. Mass layoffs have been relentless, but it wasn’t until I started digging deeper that I realized just how widespread the bloodbath was. Thousands of devs lost their jobs, studios have been closing left and right, all because games have become massive corporate investments instead of creative endeavors. When budgets stretch into the hundreds of millions, publishers set absurd sales expectations, and the moment a game doesn’t meet them, it leads to disastrous and expensive gaming failures. The result? Studios start becoming risk-averse, releasing safer sequels of established franchises, leading to a gaming landscape where innovation is a liability, barring a few brave exceptions.

Where is the current state of gaming going?

At the end of the day, gaming is supposed to be exciting. A new console generation should bring with it the thrill of uncharted territory, the promise of experiences that weren’t possible before. But instead, we’ve spent most of this generation waiting — waiting for consoles to be available, for games to feel truly next-gen, for studios to get their act together, and for the industry to stop eating itself alive. And now, just as it feels like we’ve finally arrived, the conversation is already shifting toward what’s next.

It's taken over four years for this console generation to get the ball rolling — something that would have been unfathomable in past generations. I'm not going to pretend as if we aren't getting great-looking games, but boy did they take their sweet time. Perhaps this generation, unlike any other before it, will last 10 years instead of the usual seven or eight, or perhaps that's just the way things are now. Maybe we’ve outgrown the idea of a console generation feeling truly revolutionary. Or maybe, just maybe, we should be expecting more. Because as things stand, the ninth generation didn’t just fail to reach the heights it promised — it barely even showed up. I'll just go finish my backlog instead.