Posted by Shawn M. on Apr 26th, 2007
I walked into Sam’s Club Saturday, excited, but with a hint of shame. I wasn’t going there to buy fifty pounds of pickles or a ten-year supply of restaraunt-grade napkins, but instead, a new gaming console. But, as a die-hard supporter of Sony and Nintendo, my intent was not to pick up a PS3 or a Wii. On this day, I had decided to switch sides. In my jump to the “next generation”, I would no longer be hanging with Mario or the various Sony mascots (Jak, Ratchet, Sly, Kratos, etc.). I’m sorry, Miyamoto, and accept my apologies, Mr. Hirai, but Master Chief is my co-pilot now.
Taking the plunge and getting an XBox 360 made me think, “What drives the gaming community to be so supportive of one console and not the other?”. Why does the Sony fan feel the need to try and drive the Wii into the dirt for its comparatively weak processing power, while the Nintendo fan points out the “imminent death” of the Playstation 3? And why would fans threaten to boycott a publisher because a once Playstation-exclusive game is now going multi-platform?
Video game culture isn’t the underground anymore. More and more people are gamers these days, and are proud to admit it. Now that being a gamer isn’t unique enough, we have to find something else to rally behind. It’s just like the ages-old “Ford versus Chevy” debate that goes on amongst car nuts. They’re essentially tools that are used to get you to where you’re going, and nothing more. Just like the consoles — tools used to play the games we want to play. If anything, we should celebrate the fact that we have the choice that we do. If there was only one system, do you think the quality of games would be as good as they are today? Chances are, we’d still be playing SNES level games, because without competition, where’s the drive to improve?
This isn’t a plea to stop the console bashing by any means. There’s a lot that has been said about the three major consoles and two handhelds that have been deserved. And it’s the gamers’ passionate and vocal nature that keeps the gaming companies on their toes. So keep giving them hell, fanboys and girls… it’s the only way they’ll ever learn.
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Devin de Gruyl
April 26, 2007 at 12:29 am
Personally, and this is just me speculating here, I think there might be yet another factor in here as well: Consoles are freakin’ expensive these days, and when you shell out that much lucre for a new system you absolutely want to feel like you got the best value for your money. This leads, inevitably, to your psyche trying to justify your purchase by only allowing your conscious brain to “hear” the good things said about your console of choice, and only the bad about the other.
Same thing happened to be back in the 16-bit days. I had a Genesis, purchased with my own money in June of 1990 as a present to myself for reaching the halfway point of my HS career, and was a die-hard Genny fanboy right up until the release of Final Fantasy III (as we then knew it) for the SNES. Right up until that moment I bought into all the Sega propaganda - well, I might have scoffed a little bit at the whole “blast processing” crapola - but I absolutely believed the Genesis to be the superior console, and ignored anything that said the SNES had the edge… mostly because I didn’t want to have to spend more money on another system when the Genny had already set me back a sizeable portion of my nascent life savings.
I think a lot of what we see today with the Wii/PS3/360 fanboyism falls into this same category. No one wants to think they made the “wrong” choice, after all…
Caldi-Chan
April 26, 2007 at 2:11 am
Maybe it’s just me, but as a gamer myself. There’s a whole lot in this gaming community that I’ve had the chance to observe.
Yes they are expensive, and yes the fans do get down right nasty about the bad points.
So I’m going to take the aspect of “casual Gamer” and look at it from this point of view.
Gamers like what they like.
I’ve played games on all kinds of consols as I’m sure you know by now. As I used to spew hate in the general direction of the Corperate booth babes aka Frag Dolls. However, I’ll be totally honest while I am a complete and total Sony Geek gaming girl these days I will NEVER buy a PS3, for the very obvious reasons. That’s money, and the simple fact that I think Sony has shot their won heads off, and I don’t mean the ones on the shoulders.
However I don’t want a X-Box either. It has nothing I want. And a Wii? Good lord no. I just don’t see what’s so dang appealing about holding a remote controll wand with motion sensors.
At this rate I’ll just go to a dang Arcade. :P
Even if it does mean I’m left with a massive headace like I have right now :D
Ranmoth
April 30, 2007 at 2:37 am
I’m gonna have to go with Devin de Gruyl on this one. As a half-ridiculed, half-praised owner of a legendary PS3, I can attest to how much consoles impact the pocketbook. I think more than just our brains trying to cope with potential loss, however, is our natural urge to join up with factions. Our instinct to join groups has been with us since the caveman days, when banding together as a tribe meant greater success in survival than going it alone. At its best, it shows itself in heroic patriotism; at its worst, it produces the street gangs that so plague today’s society; and when it’s driving down the road and veers into the median, it creates the phenomenon of console loyalty. Don’t try to look for any meaning in that last metaphor, because I don’t think there is any.
Another issue that has more of an effect on those who’ve been playing for awhile is that of familiarity. Having been raised as a wee tot with the SNES, then given an N64, and finally a GameCube, my loyalty to Nintendo ran pretty high for most of my early life. However, that began to change one fateful Christmas when my sibling’s PS2 arrived under the tree. I liked the games, I liked the controller, and I even liked the box design; I realized, for perhaps the first time, that maybe other consoles weren’t so bad. Several of you have probably gone through the same type of experience. Our consoles from way back when carry a certain nostalgia, one that we never truly lose even if we switch to something else later in life. Companies such as McDonald’s purposely try to create this feeling in the hopes of establishing brand loyalty, and evidently it works to the extent that they spend however much it takes to put the Play Place in the restaurant or the toy in the Happy Meal. Even when it’s not purposefully sought, which is hopefully the case with today’s console manufacturers (bless their widdle altruistic hearts), it still pops up. And even if it doesn’t come from childhood, we still like to stay with what’s familiar to us.
In reply, I say that we should get our inspiration from what scientists say is a chief element of what makes games so fun: discovery. Among other things, playing games releases dopamine into the brain, a hormone associated with both happiness and new discoveries. It makes poetic sense to align one’s console choices with one’s video game experiences, and what better way to do that than to discover something new? Not to say that you should go and buy the 360 core system just because it’s unfamiliar, but if you consider two systems to be on equal footing, and only one’s inside your traditional console family, I say take the risk: choose the other one. Who knows? It might be worth it.