I never bought many 360 or PS3 games
I have these systems and a gaming PC but missed a lot of big games as they came out over their 8-year generation. Many years during that period I simply didn't have much time at all to play games, so I never went back and bought them.
I could buy many of them cheaply used today, many more of them on PC via Steam too, but usually remasters improve the assets beyond what the originally PC version does so I'd rather just have it on a current-gen console and easily accessible on the system I already own.
For example, I never played any of the Halo games before, I've never played God of War 3, and I never played Borderlands: The Pre Sequel. Now I can (or can soon) on a modern console instead of buying it on the old one.
The new games haven't slowed down *because of* remasters
Sure the number of new games on Xbox One and PS4 is fairly small compared to this point in the 360's and PS3's life, but it's not because of the existence of remasters from what I can tell. Developers are working on tons of amazing-looking stuff, it's just taking a really long time since budgets are so much higher and asset creation takes so much longer.
Most remasters appear to be in franchises which have new titles coming out or probably coming out (God of War, Halo, Tomb Raider, Arkham Knight, etc.) and there are original titles still coming too. Destiny, Bloodborne, Forza, Wolfenstein, Shadow of Mordor, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Evolve, Killzone, and many others.
In the meantime, it's awesome that the consoles have so many great indie games to tide me over.
Many developers could be in a precarious situation without remasters
Look at how many game companies regularly have to lay off employees or close entirely. The situation would be even worse if developers couldn't squeeze out extra revenue from existing games for minimal cost to offer them to a larger audience. Remasters also mean jobs for some developers who might otherwise not have any funding to work on anything, meaning even more layoffs / studio closures.
You don't have to buy them, and people aren't always "re-buying" games
I'm not scared to use the word "entitlement" here because I think many people feel entitled to have every game personally interest them. It's pretty selfish. I know I'm not the only one who likes remasters, because they're apparently selling well enough to justify their existence.
Not everyone is in the same situation of course, and most people don't or can't buy every single big game when it comes out. So now everyone has a better option to play them instead of hanging onto old consoles they might want to sell and buying worse/original-fidelity versions. And they're not "re-buying" the games, they're just buying it for the first time.
Remasters seem to be a win for almost everyone:
-Gamers who never had a last-gen console or gaming PC
-Gamers who simply never purchased certain games last-gen
-Developers like Naughty Dog who said they learned a ton about the PS4 while remastering The Last of Us. So they got extra revenue on TLoU while learning new stuff for Uncharted 4
-Developers who are financially-strapped and need more revenue from an existing game
-Less-successful developers who otherwise might be out of business entirely
And, of course, fans who happen to have a boatload of money and don't mind re-buying something they already played to get higher fidelity out of it.
I have these systems and a gaming PC but missed a lot of big games as they came out over their 8-year generation. Many years during that period I simply didn't have much time at all to play games, so I never went back and bought them.
I could buy many of them cheaply used today, many more of them on PC via Steam too, but usually remasters improve the assets beyond what the originally PC version does so I'd rather just have it on a current-gen console and easily accessible on the system I already own.
For example, I never played any of the Halo games before, I've never played God of War 3, and I never played Borderlands: The Pre Sequel. Now I can (or can soon) on a modern console instead of buying it on the old one.
The new games haven't slowed down *because of* remasters
Sure the number of new games on Xbox One and PS4 is fairly small compared to this point in the 360's and PS3's life, but it's not because of the existence of remasters from what I can tell. Developers are working on tons of amazing-looking stuff, it's just taking a really long time since budgets are so much higher and asset creation takes so much longer.
Most remasters appear to be in franchises which have new titles coming out or probably coming out (God of War, Halo, Tomb Raider, Arkham Knight, etc.) and there are original titles still coming too. Destiny, Bloodborne, Forza, Wolfenstein, Shadow of Mordor, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Evolve, Killzone, and many others.
In the meantime, it's awesome that the consoles have so many great indie games to tide me over.
Many developers could be in a precarious situation without remasters
Look at how many game companies regularly have to lay off employees or close entirely. The situation would be even worse if developers couldn't squeeze out extra revenue from existing games for minimal cost to offer them to a larger audience. Remasters also mean jobs for some developers who might otherwise not have any funding to work on anything, meaning even more layoffs / studio closures.
You don't have to buy them, and people aren't always "re-buying" games
I'm not scared to use the word "entitlement" here because I think many people feel entitled to have every game personally interest them. It's pretty selfish. I know I'm not the only one who likes remasters, because they're apparently selling well enough to justify their existence.
Not everyone is in the same situation of course, and most people don't or can't buy every single big game when it comes out. So now everyone has a better option to play them instead of hanging onto old consoles they might want to sell and buying worse/original-fidelity versions. And they're not "re-buying" the games, they're just buying it for the first time.
Remasters seem to be a win for almost everyone:
-Gamers who never had a last-gen console or gaming PC
-Gamers who simply never purchased certain games last-gen
-Developers like Naughty Dog who said they learned a ton about the PS4 while remastering The Last of Us. So they got extra revenue on TLoU while learning new stuff for Uncharted 4
-Developers who are financially-strapped and need more revenue from an existing game
-Less-successful developers who otherwise might be out of business entirely
And, of course, fans who happen to have a boatload of money and don't mind re-buying something they already played to get higher fidelity out of it.
