Console wars date as far back as 1989 when the Sega Genesis dropped.  Remember the blast processing ads featuring Sonic?  Sega and Nintendo went at it pretty hard, trumping each other every step of the way.  Sega pretty much held it’s own until Street Fighter II was released on the Super NES.  While it didn’t kill Sega’s success, it did put Nintendo on top as THE system to have.  The forums were nasty.  rec.games.video was a haven for flame wars.  It went from Sega vs. Nintendo to Sega vs. Nintendo vs. Sony and so on and so forth.  The only ones affected by the so called system wars were the gamers.  There were never any losers or winners as far as the game companies were concerned.  They didn’t give a shit about us gamers as long as we were spending our money on their games.  These wars continue to this day and so do the idiotic flamewars in game forums all over the net. 

In essence, the gamers are the losers because we keep forking out money every 5 years for new game systems.  No matter how much you hate on another system or Johnnygamer for using that system, eventually it will phase out to make room for a new and more powerful system.  Just think about when you were in gaming bliss with your Xbox and PS2.  The games were good, the libraries were huge and developers were still making good use of outdated hardware.  Think about how awesome Halo 2 and God Of War looked and played.  They were games that put each systems hardware to the test and passed.  Then before you knew it, the Xbox 360 and PS3 were announced.  WTF?!?! 

I was adamant against buying either system.  I didn’t care about what MS was doing with XNA and I didn’t give a hoot about CELL.  I was happy with what I had and didn’t want to fork over money for either of the systems.  I boycotted them for many months…until they were released.  As of this moment in time, I own a 360 and a PS3.  I seriously hadn’t thought of buying a PS3 until 2010 when the price got down to at least $299.  Thanks to slow system sales and price drops, I picked up a 60gb at a pawn shop for $399.  What a steal! 

So here I am once again with 2 new systems.  I’m $800 out of pocket and couldn’t be happier.  The Xbox 360 gets more rotation than any of my other systems and the PS3 is slowly catching up.  I’m completely in love with this generation.  The developers keep pushing the limits and in return I get the best entertainment each system can offer.  As happy as I am owning both systems, it vexes me to see so many fanboys wishing death on computer hardware.  It’s so completely mindboggling, that it has turned into a form of entertainment for me.  For instance, there was a person who commented on an article I wrote stating that he would stop gaming if Tekken 6 came out on the Xbox 360.  If you truly love gaming would you ever make such a ludicris statement like that?  I mean who would stop gaming because a game goes multiplatform? 

There’s something to be said about product loyalty.  I love Pioneer DVD players.  I’ve bought Pioneer since 1997 and will continue to do so because they make a wonderful product.  Fanboys take product loyalty to complete new idiotic levels.  I mean, isn’t it just a computer encased in colored plastic?  Don’t you want to have the best of both worlds?  How about having your cake and eating it too?  I’ve seen forum posts where people are adamant about not owning the opposing game system.  Xbots won’t buy PS3’s and PSboys won’t buy Xbox 360’s.   

I know we don’t all have enough money to buy both systems.  Sometimes we have to settle for what we think is the best value for our dollar.  Even if you can only afford one system, why waste time flaming on another system? Unless you just got a breast enlargement, it makes no sense to have such an emotional attachment to silicone and plastic. Do you honestly think Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo care about you?  They care about what’s in your pocket. 

I remember when some idiot made a petition against Capcom to get them to stop production of DMC4 for the 360 and keep it PS3 exclusive.  What planet did this person come from?  Don’t they realize that in order for Capcom to maximize it’s profits for the development cost that it makes sense to go multiplatform?  They threatened to boycott Capcom all together.  Why on earth would you boycott a company who has given you so much enjoyment over the years?  Is it wrong for Capcom to maximize their profits?  Let’s say for the sake of argument that DMC4 will sell to 5% of the installed base for each system.  On an installed base of 6 million for the PS3 and 12 million for the 360, they’d stand to sell 300,000 copies to PS3 owners and 600,000 copies to 360 owners.  Isn’t it smart for them to go multiplatform?

So the bickering goes on and on and never stops.  In the end, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will deliver all new systems sometime in the near future.  At that point in time our investment in last generations technology begins to lose it’s worth.  We’ll plunk down our dollars eagerly jumping into the next generation.  The end result?  The game companies win and the gamers lose.  It is however, for the sake of entertainment.  So have we really lost anything at all?

Games can be like crack.  If you’re a gamer, you’ve gotta have it.  It’s why we spend millions of dollars a year.  Nintendo openly screwed everyone up the ass with the Gameboy Advance.  They released the GBA and sold millions.  After everyone wondered why they didn’t include backlighting, they release the GBASP and give us FRONT lighting.  After selling millions of those, they give us a GBASP with a backlight right before releasing the DS.  After selling millions of that huge ugly brick, they released the beautifully ergonomic DS Light.  My dumb ass bought every incarnation of the GBA with the exception of the backlit version.  Then I bought the ugly DS and finally DS Lite.  Nintendo has all my fucking money and they don’t even know my name.  They win, I lose.  No wait, I win because I love my DS. 

As I’ve said before, what we need to do as gamers is start using the power of the internet to make changes that appeal to us.  We waste far too much time fighting this console war in the forums.  Everyone’s got an opinion so that goes without saying.  What do you want to see as a gamer?  Do you want to see a thriving industry where you get what you want?  Why is it that EA released Madden 08 on PS3 at 30fps when they could have done it at 60fps if they spent more time on it?  Did you send emails and bitch to EA or did you take that decision up the ass?  As gamers we can do one of two things:  We can waste our time flaming each other in the forums or we can spend the year pestering game studios to make better games for all of us.  There is no reason we should settle for less and if we keep doing so, we will keep losing and the game companies will keep winning.¼/p>

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