Don’t Give Up on PS3 and Xbox 360 Just Yet
This year's Electronic Entertainment Expo made one thing perfectly clear: There are a lot of great-looking games on their way to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2015. There will come a time when you'll have to buy a new console if you want to keep up with new releases, but for now, there are lots of excuses to avoid the inevitable and hang on to your PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Free Games
Microsoft's Games with Gold and Sony's PlayStation Plus program continue to offer free games for last-gen consoles on a monthly basis, and there's no sign of this trend declining anytime soon. Recently, Microsoft's offered popular titles such as Dark Souls and Super Street Fighter IV to Gold subscribers, and Sony's offered up games such as Dead Space 3, Tomb Raider, DmC: Devil May Cry, and Bioshock Infinite, to name a few. These services do dole out free games to next-gen console owners as well, but neither Microsoft nor Sony has yet to offer full-priced, next-gen, retail releases for free through their respective programs.
Cheap Games
Used copies of games, including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and Halo 4 cost less than $10 dollars at retailers like GameStop, and there are dozens of other games that fall within that price range. Some, such as Gears of War 2, cost only $1. Beyond small downloadable titles, you won't be able to find retail games that cheap on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 in the near future. Chances are, given the massive library of games that are available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, you can find a suitable selection of cheap games to stave off the costly leap to a next-gen console, if you look hard enough.
Huge Multiplayer Base
At the moment, Sony and Microsoft have sold over 80 million units each of their respective last-gen consoles. Compare that to the seven million PlayStation 4s and five million Xbox Ones that have sold thus far, and it's pretty telling that there are far more last-gen consoles in the wild. Granted, some of those customers could have sold their old consoles, or lost them to dreaded hardware malfunctions like Xbox 360's red-ring or PlayStation 3's yellow-light-of-death, but chances are, for the moment, you'll find more people populating lobbies of cross-generational games on old consoles than on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
All the Games You Want in 2014 Will Still be on the PS3/360
Third-party publishers know that there are still plenty of customers who aren't willing or able to upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware. With so many potential customers holding strong with their last-gen consoles, it makes sense that a lot of 2014's biggest games will also make their way to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. These are the cross-generational games that you can look forward to for the rest of 2014.
| Game | Release Date |
|---|---|
| Sniper Elite III | July 1 |
| Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty (PlayStation 3) | July 22 |
| Hohokum (PlayStation 3) | August 12 |
| Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition | August 19 |
| Madden NFL 15 | August 26 |
| Tropico 5 (Xbox 360) | September 2 |
| Destiny | September 9 |
| Natural Doctrine | September 16 |
| NHL 15 | September 23 |
| FIFA 15 | September 23 |
| Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox 360) | September 30 |
| Skylanders Trap Team | October 5 |
| Alien: Isolation | October 7 |
| Dragon Age: Inquisition | October 7 |
| Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor | October 7 |
| NBA 2K15 | October 7 |
| The Walking Dead Season Two | October 14 |
| Just Dance 2015 | October 21 |
| Fantasia: Music Evolved | October 21 |
| Battlefield Hardline | October 21 |
| The Evil Within | October 21 |
| WWE 2K15 | October 28 |
| Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare | November 4 |
| Far Cry 4 | November 18 |
| The Wolf Among Us | November 18 |
| Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 | December 31 |
| Guilty Gear Xrd - Sign- | December 31 |
| Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham | December 31 |
| Disney Infinity Marvel Super Heroes 2.0 Edition | December 31 |
Last-Gen Exclusives
Even though we're nearing the end of the last console generation, there are still a handful of games on the way that were designed exclusively for the PlayStation 3 and/or Xbox 360 which won't make an appearance on next-gen consoles.
| Game | Date |
|---|---|
| Dynasty Warriors: Gundam Reborn | July 1 |
| One Piece Unlimited World Red | July 8 |
| Saints Row IV: National Treasure Edition | July 15 |
| Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed | August 5 |
| Ultra Street Fighter IV | August 5 |
| Sacred 3 | August 5 |
| Risen 3: Titan Lords | August 12 |
| Tales of Xillia 2 | August 19 |
| Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution | September 8 |
| MX vs. ATV Supercross | September 9 |
| Fallen Skies: The Game | September 20 |
| Persona 4 Ultimax | September 30 |
| Fairy Fencer F | September 23 |
| Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 | October 1 |
| Borderlands: The Pre-sequel | October 14 |
| Arcana Heart 3: Love Max!!!!! | Fall 2014 |
| Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Remix | December 2 |
| Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2nd | December 31 |
There Are More High-Profile Games Coming in 2015
Once 2015 rolls around, we will finally start to feel the effects of a last-gen game drought, but there are a handful of promising AAA games coming out that will cap off one of the longest, and greatest, console generations before the year's out.
| Game | Release Date |
|---|---|
| Dying Light | February 2015 |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider | Fall 2015 |
| Mortal Kombat X | 2015 |
| Mad Max | 2015 |
| Dragon Ball Xenoverse | 2015 |
| Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain | 2015 |
| Persona 5 | 2015 |
What are you to do once the games mentioned here have come and gone? Well, there's a chance that there may be more games on the way that we haven't heard about yet. Microsoft said late last year that Microsoft will "continue to invest in Xbox 360." Xbox chief marketing and strategy officer Yusuf Mehdi also said that "if you look at 360, that platform lasted for seven to eight years and it's going to go for another three years. It's incredibly profitable now in the tail."
Just a few days ago, Sony promised to continue supporting the PlayStation 3 so long as it's profitable. PlayStation software product development head of America Scott Rohde noted that "all the different parts of the world just adopt new technology at different rates. We don't know how long the PS3 tail will last. We don't know how it will be compared to the PS2. The PS2 lasted very deep into the PS3 cycle. There was a broad price difference between PS3 launch and PS2 end of life. We don't know where all this is going to go, but we will continue to support the PS3 through first and third parties as long as there is a good business there for us."
If you want to get a birds eye view of everything that's coming to last-gen consoles, check out our PlayStation 3 2014 Games Release List and our Xbox 360 2014 Games Release List.
Are you holding onto your Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for the foreseeable future, or are you ready to trade them in towards a next-gen upgrade? Let us know in the comments below!
