Various publishers and companies have come out saying that they'll be offering a "Next-Gen Upgrade" for certain games that are going to be released in a way that straddles this gen and next - releasing as PS3 and PS4 games both, for example. Generally, the situation is that you have your current gen disc, enter a code, pay $10 and you get a digital copy (I believe) of the Next-Gen version of the game on your account which you can start using whenever you pick up your PS4 or XBone. The knowledge that all your Multi-player stuff will transfer over because it's half-hosted from a server is fairly common, so I figure at least some of us assumed (or simply didn't think about) Single-player working similarly across generations for some reason or another. Actually having it pointed out makes you wonder why you thought it was possible in the first place, when it probably should've been obvious that single player saves just won't carry over next-gen.
Then, if you're me, you think of the Vita and PS3 cross-save and realize that they're saves for the same game running on two completely different pieces of hardware and go right back to wondering why it won't work out. But that's really not the point, the point is that you're going to end up starting from scratch in anything but Multi-player if you jump in on this upgrade deal. Which, for games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, it's not a big deal, but for something like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Watch_Dogs, where the main content is Single-Player, well....it seems like a bad idea. Or at least one (more) reason to skip this gen's version of the game and jump head-long into next-gen which...okay, yeah that is probably the reason for this since we obviously know it -could- be done if they wanted it to be done. Most likely.
It's certainly turned me off from picking up Watch_Dogs until some random point in the future that I don't really know about just yet. It could be that I'll just pick it up in January when I grab my PS4 as something to tide me over until inFamous: Second Son, but I might even just skip it then as well - impressions seem to dwindle down more and more with each and every trailer and video that comes from the game as it seems to stray more and more from "Do cool shit with the internet" to "Shoot mans and pretend it's high-tech Grand Theft Auto". Which, there's probably nothing wrong with high-tech Grand Theft Auto, but it certainly seems a lot less interesting and innovative now than it did originally, with the whole 'internet' thing being relegated to a tertiary or even optional tactic when it really should be the main focus....and done so in a way that's not messy or obfuscated. That'll be the true test of the game, I suspect.
As for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, well, you already know my opinions on a good grip of the Assassin's Creed games, so I will be staying away from the game until it's bargain-priced as I do with every AC game except Liberation. Hell, I haven't even grabbed Assassin's Creed 3 yet, so by the time AssFlag is up for a purchase from me, I'll be getting the PS4 version anyway. I'm not sure I can think of any other games that straddle the gap that have announced an upgrade system like that, but it looks a lot less tantalizing now than it did in a lot of ways. You gotta wonder if there's going to be any games that buck this trend, however. Microsoft's Project Spark is a big one since it's coming out for 360 as well as the XBone and...well, it basically revolves around devoting hours of your life to create something, so I would imagine upgrading to a blank slate would be less than ideal and I doubt all of that information is going to be considered "Multi-player" so it would be stored on a server, but considering the original XBone goal...who knows?
It's just a weird situation halfway between "Well, duh" and "But wait", and it's only worth mentioning because it could very well impact your purchasing decisions on at least a couple games. Like I said, it's definitely pushed my purchase of Watch_Dogs back a little, and similar SP-heavy games will likely be bought on the Next-Gen systems straight-away rather than paying the $10 extra for a 'second' copy of the game. Because I really don't see myself as an edge case in this scenario.
it'd be different if the game was like Sleeping Dogs, I'd play the shit out of that twice
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