→This will be a long post
→English is not my mother languaje. Sorry if your eyes hurt a little sometimes.
→Talking about consoles, not handhelds.
I've been playing videogames since I was 6 or 7, really invested into them, probably my first source of entratainment at home and on my way to elsewhere since my college days.
This gen/last gen I ended up buying the 3 main consoles. I like them all, I use every single one of them quite a lot but I can't help but think that it was a lot of money spent on hardware that felt a bit unnecesary -specially as I see that 360 and PS3 were pretty much identical and that Wii games could perfectly run on either if they could use the Wii remote. I am glad I bought them, they all play awesome games. But I honestly feel ripped off.
As these three consoles expanded the market remarkably, there are more conversations than ever about games as art and games as part of our culture. But I think that there is a crucial difference between games and the rest of what composes pop culture and art: aviavility.
You can go into a store and buy a book, a film and the latest album from your favorite band and you don't have to worry about if they are compatible with your reading skills, your DVD player or your audio equipment. They only "culture container" that puts a restriction around what you can access are museums, but that makes sense since the objects exposed are unique and only and can't be on all museums at the same time, and require security and manteninance labors to be preserved. But this does not apply to games. And still we are forced to choose pay a museum ticket that costs between 250 to 600 $/€ to be allowed to just play a fraction of the existing games they have on display, and you have to stick to it until it stops working unless you have money to spare or you are willing to make a scrifice in your personal economy because you like games so much (what I did). How can so much people consider videogames art if the first choice you have to make regarding them is discriminating wich you won't play, even if you would like to? Would you imagine yourself crossing things out of a list like that with other media? "I bouth a phillips DVD player so I won't be able to see Warner movies" "I bought a Kindle so I wont be able to read P.D. James novesl" "I'm using Firefox, so making a gmail account is out of the question".
I don't think people would roll with this, but when it comes to games, somehow, we do. And it's not like we bear it with resignation. We almost cheer for it, specially younger gamers. As we are forced to make a decision, we make ourselves invested in a harware product, a brand. As there is no right choice when it comes to consoles people just choose based on the games they prefer. The problem comes when other people chooses other console different than ours, questioning our choice. We are invested in our decision and it feels right for us because it is, so this generates a cycle of defending our choices when there is no need to. This is known as "console wars".
Even if we choose consoles based on games, the thing we invested so much in the first place for, we don't spend too much time talking about games. Most talk it's console talk. It's like we walked out of the theather after watching a fantastic musical and all we could talk about was how the venue seats compare to the ones in the venue on the other side of the road. It's fucking retarded. And makes talking about actual games really hard when it should have not. It is detrimental to gamers and keeps them out of being able to enjoy games together to some degree.
It gets in our way playing, it gets in our way when trying to enjoy them as fans of the whole medium and mostly it gets in our wallets way too much. And I can only think of a single console future as the solution.
Somet people think that this "would kill competition, wich is good" but I rather think that it would redirect the competition in a beneficial way: it would be all about the software. I agree that competition is crucial, but I rather have it on the games side, pushing devs to make better games and publishers to not screw with us (because we probably will find an alternative because we could play whatever we want instead of being limited to what each console offer us). Others would arge that companies such as Nintendo or SCE would not make games as good without the need of prividing system sellers. But SCE and Nintendo still have business to run and they only know to make games. And with a much more crowded space and variety, maintaining the quality of their games is the only way they could stand out.Game prices could also be an interesting factor that could fluctuate in a scene when games need to be more competitive insted of just being what's new on your platform of choice this month. Even more interesting would be if this all-game-playing device could access online shops from each publisher for digital purchases, meaning they would be competing with each other for your attention. Wouldn't Virtual Console prices drop if they had to face GOG or Steam on the same platform? I'm inclined to think so.
In the end I have the feeling that multiple platforms are the ultimate anti-consumer practice. I know that this would sound really really naive, specially with mi kindergarden level of english, but I think the law should protect us from this. As an european citizen I dream of the united nations imposing a standard player for videogames. I may be fantasy and it may allways will. But I have the feeling we should ask for it before giving it up. I don't count on people doing it massively, though.
But what about that machine? Wouldn't make us stuck with some old tech forever? Well, it could be changed like we went from tapes to DVD to Blu-ray. But in the future I am not sure it would be even be necesary. There will be allways studios and companies capable of reaching new technical limits but it feels like we're reaching the ceiling right now and good tech is expensive tech. Requires lots of effort from lots of people that need to get payed for extended periods of time. It's clear that budget growth we had since 2006 its not substainable (specially with some CEOs mindset wich is all in AAA or budget mobile game) and maybe pushing the breaks in terms of tech will save some jobs. And it's not like the games we have been playing since 2008 look bad. I honestly struggle to find games don't look good since a handful of years now.
I don't know how the details of this hypothetical console could be like the controller, the OS (Steam OS variation? iOS? Depending on the manufacturer?) but I think it could really help gaming and gamers. Sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would take a hit, but all of them are selling their consoles at loss wich adds to the nonsense in my opinion.
How much of a stupid/desilusional/fool/Nintendo hater/ignorant am I? In wich things you think I am wrong? In wich am I almost right? let's have a conversation here.
EDIT: THIS IS NOT ABOUT HAVING A SINGLE CONSOLE MADE BY A SINGLE COMPANY, IT'S ABOUT HAVING A DEVICE ANY ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURER CAN MAKE THAT PLAYS ALL GAMES RELEASED AFTER IT IS LAUNCHED AKA KILL CONSOLE EXCLUSIVES AND FOCUS THE COMPETITION ON GAMES RATHER THAN HARDWARE.
→English is not my mother languaje. Sorry if your eyes hurt a little sometimes.
→Talking about consoles, not handhelds.
I've been playing videogames since I was 6 or 7, really invested into them, probably my first source of entratainment at home and on my way to elsewhere since my college days.
This gen/last gen I ended up buying the 3 main consoles. I like them all, I use every single one of them quite a lot but I can't help but think that it was a lot of money spent on hardware that felt a bit unnecesary -specially as I see that 360 and PS3 were pretty much identical and that Wii games could perfectly run on either if they could use the Wii remote. I am glad I bought them, they all play awesome games. But I honestly feel ripped off.
As these three consoles expanded the market remarkably, there are more conversations than ever about games as art and games as part of our culture. But I think that there is a crucial difference between games and the rest of what composes pop culture and art: aviavility.
You can go into a store and buy a book, a film and the latest album from your favorite band and you don't have to worry about if they are compatible with your reading skills, your DVD player or your audio equipment. They only "culture container" that puts a restriction around what you can access are museums, but that makes sense since the objects exposed are unique and only and can't be on all museums at the same time, and require security and manteninance labors to be preserved. But this does not apply to games. And still we are forced to choose pay a museum ticket that costs between 250 to 600 $/€ to be allowed to just play a fraction of the existing games they have on display, and you have to stick to it until it stops working unless you have money to spare or you are willing to make a scrifice in your personal economy because you like games so much (what I did). How can so much people consider videogames art if the first choice you have to make regarding them is discriminating wich you won't play, even if you would like to? Would you imagine yourself crossing things out of a list like that with other media? "I bouth a phillips DVD player so I won't be able to see Warner movies" "I bought a Kindle so I wont be able to read P.D. James novesl" "I'm using Firefox, so making a gmail account is out of the question".
I don't think people would roll with this, but when it comes to games, somehow, we do. And it's not like we bear it with resignation. We almost cheer for it, specially younger gamers. As we are forced to make a decision, we make ourselves invested in a harware product, a brand. As there is no right choice when it comes to consoles people just choose based on the games they prefer. The problem comes when other people chooses other console different than ours, questioning our choice. We are invested in our decision and it feels right for us because it is, so this generates a cycle of defending our choices when there is no need to. This is known as "console wars".
Even if we choose consoles based on games, the thing we invested so much in the first place for, we don't spend too much time talking about games. Most talk it's console talk. It's like we walked out of the theather after watching a fantastic musical and all we could talk about was how the venue seats compare to the ones in the venue on the other side of the road. It's fucking retarded. And makes talking about actual games really hard when it should have not. It is detrimental to gamers and keeps them out of being able to enjoy games together to some degree.
It gets in our way playing, it gets in our way when trying to enjoy them as fans of the whole medium and mostly it gets in our wallets way too much. And I can only think of a single console future as the solution.
Somet people think that this "would kill competition, wich is good" but I rather think that it would redirect the competition in a beneficial way: it would be all about the software. I agree that competition is crucial, but I rather have it on the games side, pushing devs to make better games and publishers to not screw with us (because we probably will find an alternative because we could play whatever we want instead of being limited to what each console offer us). Others would arge that companies such as Nintendo or SCE would not make games as good without the need of prividing system sellers. But SCE and Nintendo still have business to run and they only know to make games. And with a much more crowded space and variety, maintaining the quality of their games is the only way they could stand out.Game prices could also be an interesting factor that could fluctuate in a scene when games need to be more competitive insted of just being what's new on your platform of choice this month. Even more interesting would be if this all-game-playing device could access online shops from each publisher for digital purchases, meaning they would be competing with each other for your attention. Wouldn't Virtual Console prices drop if they had to face GOG or Steam on the same platform? I'm inclined to think so.
In the end I have the feeling that multiple platforms are the ultimate anti-consumer practice. I know that this would sound really really naive, specially with mi kindergarden level of english, but I think the law should protect us from this. As an european citizen I dream of the united nations imposing a standard player for videogames. I may be fantasy and it may allways will. But I have the feeling we should ask for it before giving it up. I don't count on people doing it massively, though.
But what about that machine? Wouldn't make us stuck with some old tech forever? Well, it could be changed like we went from tapes to DVD to Blu-ray. But in the future I am not sure it would be even be necesary. There will be allways studios and companies capable of reaching new technical limits but it feels like we're reaching the ceiling right now and good tech is expensive tech. Requires lots of effort from lots of people that need to get payed for extended periods of time. It's clear that budget growth we had since 2006 its not substainable (specially with some CEOs mindset wich is all in AAA or budget mobile game) and maybe pushing the breaks in terms of tech will save some jobs. And it's not like the games we have been playing since 2008 look bad. I honestly struggle to find games don't look good since a handful of years now.
I don't know how the details of this hypothetical console could be like the controller, the OS (Steam OS variation? iOS? Depending on the manufacturer?) but I think it could really help gaming and gamers. Sure Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would take a hit, but all of them are selling their consoles at loss wich adds to the nonsense in my opinion.
How much of a stupid/desilusional/fool/Nintendo hater/ignorant am I? In wich things you think I am wrong? In wich am I almost right? let's have a conversation here.
EDIT: THIS IS NOT ABOUT HAVING A SINGLE CONSOLE MADE BY A SINGLE COMPANY, IT'S ABOUT HAVING A DEVICE ANY ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURER CAN MAKE THAT PLAYS ALL GAMES RELEASED AFTER IT IS LAUNCHED AKA KILL CONSOLE EXCLUSIVES AND FOCUS THE COMPETITION ON GAMES RATHER THAN HARDWARE.
. more value) and a lower price, just 12 months later.