PS4 reveal signals a new generation | 10 Years Ago This Month

gamesindustry.biz:

The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, GamesIndustry.biz runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago.

We talked a bit last month about the rash of doomsday predictions for console gaming, and how they were growing in popularity during a particularly uninspiring stretch for the console market. After all, it had been more than seven years since the last generation of consoles kicked off, and the next generation of consoles still hadn't been announced.

Yes, the Wii U had actually launched the previous November, but it was not exactly rekindling any spark of excitement around gaming. The launch had a number of red flags, and the months that followed only brought more.

February of 2013 saw Wii U exclusives Rayman Legends and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge being quickly moved to multiplatform launches while major third-party partners threw shade on the console. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told investors he was "somewhat disappointed with the launch of the Wii U" and EA CEO John Riccitiello suggested to them that the Wii U shouldn't even be considered a next-gen system.

"A lot of devices come in and represent themselves as the next generation," Riccitiello said. "In many ways what we're describing as Gen 4 is yet to come, and that's what we're excited about and that's what we're investing in."

While the Wii U may have been floundering, the console space did receive a significant