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Life After the Videogame Crash
Clark Hall writes "Is it 1983 all over again? E3 is over and millions of gamers are realizing they can't afford a PS3, or an HDTV. Is it time for a steep and painful correction in the gaming market? Pointlesswasteoftime has been tracking what is looking like a Hindenburg voyage for console gaming, with HDTV playing the role of Hydrogen." From the article: "There's going to be a lot of money lost the next few years, a lot of articles written, a lot of panic, a lot of changes. And when gaming comes back, it will hopefully be different and innovative and based on something other than eye candy and the shock value of blood and guts and hookers. Hopefully it will allow for creativity from the players, and room for small, independent game makers to create content. Hopefully it will be something every working person can afford. "
My $1500 computer plays all the games from this generation (the occasional F.E.A.R. aside) and all the games of the previous generations- along with all the console games from previous generations. I guess I could pay $500 every five years for a new console that plays only a small selection of games, but that seems silly.
Because selling extensions to play "more advanced" games is a business practice that was never done before.
The last console I owned was a CBS Colecovision. Before you begin laughing, my younger brothers have owned every other console since the SNES, while we were living in the same house.
;-)
I would have bought a SNES myself if I had been moving out at the time; I'm not prepared however to say that I'd put money down for any other console that's been produced that I've seen. I know there have been a number of rants written about how the SNES was the holy grail of consoles; I agree with them.
A few other reasons though:-
1. Versatility.(This is the main point) A console plays games. A PC plays games, surfs the net, does LAN stuff, plays multimedia, and does office work. (Printing, spreadsheets, etc) I can also run different operating systems as well as just Windows.
To me, advocating the purchase of a PS2 to someone who already has a 2 Ghz+ PC is like suggesting they buy a pushbike when they already own an aircraft carrier.
2. Cost. I can spend around $400 AUD for a used xbox, and presumably close to twice that for the new 360. Or if I've already got a PC, I can spend the same amount (or marginally even less) on a high-end graphics card for said PC that will be *much* more powerful than the one I'd get inside a console, which I can then also use for other applications (like say, 3D graphic editing) as well.
3. Horrible TV resolution. Although yes, I'm hearing that HD-TV will rectify that problem.
The single refutation to these that I've heard before is that you can't get the same range of games with a PC. If you care about that and have the money, then for you that might justify getting a console...but for me, personally, it doesn't. I have WoW, War3, GTA: San Andreas, the Sims 2, Simcity 4, UT2004, and XCom, and they're already far more than I've got time to play.
Granted, the above is only part of the equation. It is also true I believe that the gaming industry has relied way too much on teenage male sociopathy to sell games, and said practice has now come back to haunt them. The other problem is when the only companies that are apparently able to survive are staffed with amoral, soulless bean counters who insist purely on uninspired sequels, and to whom the phrase "artistic integrity" is entirely unheard of. (EA, I'm talking to you. Valve have also sold their souls in this direction, IMHO)
The demoniac bean counters have to go, the stuff that provides grist for the mills of the Jack Thompsons of the world has to go, and the truly creative people (the Will Wrights, Richard Garriots, and Peter Molyneuxs) need to be put firmly back in charge. Unfortunately however, I'm not sufficiently naive to believe that that's going to happen. The aforementioned demoniac bean counters currently rule the roost, and for them, things are going just fine, thank you very much...and in their minds, as long as they keep making billions of dollars, the rest of us can go screw ourselves.