We're used to seeing consoles die off pretty much 1 year after their next generation is released.
By that I mean we don't get to see new AAA titles, exclusives or games that can still interface with the newer generations.
That has recently changed however.
Before when we got the PS4, the PS3 was already outdated.
Got the Xbox One, the 360 was a brick.
Got the Wii U, the Wii was now ancient.
Of course there were exceptions to this, such as GTA V coming out in 2013 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 - Twilight Princess on the Gamecube, and Breath of the Wild for the Wii U. But still, it's the general rule of thumb.
Now, at least coming from Sony and Microsoft, their older consoles, 3 years after their expected "demise" are still going rather strong.
The amount of new titles is certainly starting to dwindle year after year, but it's crazy to see that things are still going on like this.
We've seen games that look and feel truly next gen arriving on these older consoles, such as Gran Turismo 7, Like a Dragon: Gaiden, Modern Warfare 3 and more.
And games aren't the only thing that are keeping these systems alive, their online services are also quite robust and with cross-gen titles, they're generally cross-play too!
Cross-play and having online services still up isn't the only thing however;
PS Plus and Gamepass are proving to be extremely worthwhile investments with great libraries of great titles.
If Sony and Microsoft can keep the games coming, even older titles, I can see many people sticking to their subscriptions well into the life of the 9th generation consoles whilst owning previous gen consoles.
Of course there's one element here that is unfortunately true coming from these big companies and that is greed. There's no reason as to why Sony couldn't just up and close the PS Plus services for PS4 simply so more people would buy the PS5 - the backlash would be enormous and not as many people would upgrade as they'd like but they could do it, same goes for Microsoft.
For now it's still a mystery if we'll be seeing other consoles do what the PS2 did and live on for at least a decade after their new generations came out. I wouldn't necessarily keep my hopes up, but I certainly don't plan on upgrading to a PS5 anytime soon.
If anything, I'd just be more likely to sell my PS4, stop paying for PS Plus and upgrade my PC instead.
Anyway, that was a quick, short and sweet post from me pondering about the future of the systems some of us still currently own and where they'll be in a couple of years time, thanks for reading!
