The Real Reason PewDiePie Isn't Excited For Next Gen Games
It appears as though PewDiePie isn't exactly thrilled with modern gaming. In fact, in his latest video, he expressed to his viewers that he wasn't very excited about the next generation of video games.
In a video titled "This Video Is Wholesome," Pewds went through a series of memes sent to him by fans and offered his honest reactions to them. For gaming fans, one moment in particular stood out from the video. PewDiePie saw a meme referencing the size of modern games that depicted Alfonso Ribeiro as Carlton in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, smiling widely. The caption on the meme read, "When you revisit a game which you played in your childhood and there's no 40GB update."
The meme is essentially referencing how fun it can be to fire up an older game and not have to worry about installing an update. Oftentimes, modern video games will have accrued a ton of new content if you step away from it for any significant length of time.
Pewds clearly got a kick out of this one, but it seemed to also hit a little bit close to home. He chuckled and then told his viewers, "I'm not even excited about the next gen stuff, because of all of this."
The meme is referring to how often games have to go through different patches and updates. Older games were complete packages, for better or worse. What you bought was usually the final product. It does kind of spill over into "old man yells at cloud" territory, but there are some very good reasons for people to have an issue here.
Many modern games have run into an issue with their file sizes becoming ridiculously large. This can lead to a number of problems, including player frustration and lack of space on a console's hard drive. For example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has come under fire for its ballooning file size in recent months. This file size has led to fans making memes of their own regarding Infinity Ward's apparent desire to take up everyone's storage.
Likewise, Bungie has found a way of halting the exponential growth of Destiny 2's file size. The company recently announced that future updates of Destiny 2 would utilize a system called the Destiny Content Vault. This new system will enable Bungie to cycle new and old content in and out of the game with monthly updates. This way, the game can allow players to revisit older material and look forward to new maps and missions without having to constantly add to Destiny 2's ever-growing file.
However, there is at least one advancement in the next console generation that may make Pewds happy. According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, the PlayStation 5 has accomplished "a multi-order magnitude increase in storage bandwidth and reduction in storage latency."
In other words, the console can process more information at a faster rate than previously possible in console gaming. The idea here is to reduce loading times across the board, making games run smoother and download quicker than ever before. This may prove to be extra helpful with the new disc-less Digital Edition of the PlayStation 5 that was just announced by Sony.
There are other reasons why PewDiePie personally isn't super excited for next gen gaming. It should be mentioned that PewDiePie has also expressed a desire to move away from gaming-related content in the past. Back in 2017, he told fans that he just didn't particularly enjoy playing video games anymore. The main reason he had done so many game-related videos in the past was because his viewers really liked them.
At the time, he said that some video games "are so popular that people play them regardless of whether they enjoy them or not." However, he felt that it would be disingenuous for him to create content based around things that didn't much interest him.
As Pewds himself put it, "Yes, it is my job to entertain you guys ... But I also think you guys don't want a fake version."
As many PewDiePie fans know, he did eventually return to playing video games regularly on his YouTube channel. In particular, PewDiePie found great success in making videos centered around Minecraft. However, PewDiePie recently decided to step away from Minecraft again because he felt as though it was growing stale.
Other than his beloved Terraria, it appears as though video games aren't really something that PewDiePie gets hugely into these days. Despite the popularity of his gaming videos, it makes total sense that he would be reluctant to jump on the hype train for the new generation.