The Irrationality of 360 Fanatics!
This blog post is meant to look at MS as a company, a for profit corporation who by law has to produce dividends for its shareholders just like Sony. I will be making the case not that being a fanatic of a particular system is not right, but that MS has done nothing to earn the loyalty of fanatics that aggressively defend MS and the 360.I have heard people try to make the argument about being American and only buying American made products, it seems to me like people forget that in this globalized world you have to be very careful when speaking about only buying American made products. When I have spoke to people about the console industry and they talking about the 360 and supporting American products, all I can say is look at all the different components that your 360 has in it and show me all the parts that are made in the US, I bet if they did they would find out that MS is an American corporation in origin alone.When I consider the 360 fanatic, it strikes me as though they completely ignore the facts such as reliability, lack of vision in the 360's design and tail end cost associated with the system in the form of add ons and accessories that the PS3 has because you they feel like that would be admitting your being wrong. This is a phenomenon that is not exclusive to the console industry, but can be seen in everyday situations, where someone uses a product, they have complaints but when you suggest something better they don't want to change, but its funny because once they do change they tell you " I didn't know it was this easy or this good".
Its human nature to want to feel like you made the right decision and inevitably when a wrong decision is made it becomes very difficult for some to admit they are wrong, to the point that they would lose money, or put up with situations that would normally be unacceptable.Track Record:I have always been an informed consumer, so when the 360 first came out I was on the message boards daily seeing what was the consensus, in my observation I noticed that though people seemed happy at first, as weeks passed more and more problems began to develop.
Add ontop of the initial and ongoing hardware problems the fact that MS dropped the old XBOX so readily and in my opinion you have a recipe for a company that is not doing justice to its consumers. The way MS abandoned their XBOX users is more damaging in my opinion than any amount of hype Sony made about its games or its system in the past. I am sorry, but based on past performance, Sony is the only company out right now with a track record of success and support for their products above and beyond the industry average, and I think when you look at it in terms of an educated decision, the PS3 is the only logical way to go.
Games:The lack of games argument has always struck me as ill conceived and irrational in the face of the year long lead the 360 had. Its as if people are expecting an employee who was hired a year later to have the same degree of comfort and proficiency in a job as someone who was there for a year, it doesn't happen that way. This is an argument that is held onto by only the most hard headed of 360 hardcore fans, and one that is irrelevant and pointless if you take the time to examine the 360 at the same exact point in its life-cycle. It just doesn't make any sense to believe that there will not be some snags and difficulties with a newly released piece of hardware, and lest not forget the 360 also had a slow start and as demonstrated by persistence of the RROD phenomenon as well as the spotty service that XBL has gone through, it is clear that even with a years head start MS is still struggling to iron out some issues.I have never been a person to have so much pride I can't admit I am wrong, I was a huge supporter of Sega, and when they fell off after releasing the 32X and Sega CD, both of which were failures thought they had some good games I was done with Sega after that. I never again purchased a Sega product and moved to Sony skipping the Dreamcast. If Sony begins to mess up after I have given them reasonable opportunity, then I would have no problem looking at the alternatives, its called being a good consumer,I think that opportunity with MS was used with first XBOX and the way they handled their consumers and their user base.Whether its 30% or 16% failure rate, I don't believe that this should be something that people should put up with.
Now don't get me wrong, can understand if this is the only system you can afford or that you like, then by all means go and buy your games and replace your system until you heart is content, but don't say that its ok because you have a 3 year warranty. A warranty should be like insurance in the RARE occasion something occurs, it shouldn't be an excuse to look past a problem that should have been caught and fixed in the R&D phase of a product.
In any other industry if I had a product and it broke on me 3 to 4 times in a short span of time, it would be considered a LEMON. Don't ever let your loyalty to a brand cloud the fact that you are their customer, and you should be expecting the same reliability from MS that people get from Sony and their system, especially when your paying around the same price for your piece of hardware.
In conclusion, MS has done nothing with the original XBOX to deserve the sort of loyalty some of you hardcore 360 owners show on this site, and at the best you have to admit that at the really huge PS3 fanatics on this site have two generations of console success to call on to justify their passion.I will politely ask for people to refrain from posting a bunch of ignorant responses about installation and rumble and whatever other diversion tactics you want to come up with, I like facts and intelligent discussion. I know many issues were not brought up but I just wanted this to be a conversation starter, I will try to bring up other issues in the near future that I find interesting and see if you all have any thoughts on it.
GAME ON....
That was truly an amazing post. I totally feel the same exact way. I dont get the loyalty to a product that is as faulty as the XBOX product or why a person would return it multiple times for another faulty one. Makes no sense. I love quality products. I look for things that work for long periods of time. And if it doesn't I want something similar that works just as good if not better.
Sure i like my ps3 better than my 360, but fanboys with tunnel vision are on both sides.
I agree with some of your points but I see it as being some what one sided. I am a Microsoft fan, not of their hardware per say but of the games that they have for their system. I went out and bought a 360 on day one and a lil over a year and a half later the DVD drive failed but they had excellent service on it and sent me a new one in two weeks, I still have that one. So I do realize that there are hardware issues, and by no means do I support them in that area but I really enjoy the games that they have on their system. It is also fairly cheap to buy and I would not have liked it if they put a HD DVD Drive in it because, I like many others, do not have a High Definition TV so I would be paying for something that I could not use. But to get back to the point the 360 and the PS3 are supposed to be primarily gaming consoles and in that respect the 360 is currently doing better. Now it could be because of its year head start but it also has a better online component (for a price) which I don't think one can argue. In my personal opinion Sony seems to have a lot of games but not very (notice how I say very many, they do have some) many great games. That is why I stick with Microsoft, not to say that I wouldn't leave them if something better presented itself. If Sony stepped it up a notch on the gaming end I would probably go with them. I realize that Sony has superior hardware but there is a problem with it and that is it wasn't designed for developers in mind. Not as many developers will make a game for the PS3 because its more costly and difficult to work with and takes more time to develop on. So far I have only seen a few games that look attractive to me on the Sony end and Microsoft has a ton of great games out as it is with many more coming. To put it simply I like Microsoft for the games not the hardware and I don't necessarily dislike Sony (I did have a PS1) but they just don't seem to be on par with Microsoft from a gaming perspective, of course this is all subject to change IF Sony scores many great exclusives (currently it seems doubtable with all the exclusives they have been losing).
Thank you for this article PS3 is the new next-gen system you cant deny that and yes i will continue to GAME ON!! with my PS3 that i dont have to buy anything for or pay for online games that i can get free demos and everything elts and i can also get cheats online for the game i am playing at the same moment since the ps3 has a web browser wich i think some people over look so i will continue to have fun battleing with friends and people oline
for all you 360 fans BUY A PS3 and WARHAWK WICH IS SOOOOO AMAZING and all those other CRAZYYYY online games all i had to do is install warhawk on my PS3 i dont even have a disk for the game!!! YOU WONT REGRET BUYING A PS3