Kid Sidious Ponders: What happened to us as gamers?

^{I remember a time when I had my NES and would frequent my cousin's house to rock his Sega Genesis for some Joe Montana Football.  Or when one of my friends from school would come over and joke how he would "kiss the cheerleaders" while floating out of bounds making 3 pointers in Double Dribble.  And the times when I marveled at the Town's Game Master as he beat 50 games in a day right before my eyes.  Now when I look around we're choosing sides, arming ourselves with controlers and resolution information to do battle against the forces of fanboys and thier many insults.  While there is nothing wrong in having pride of ownership and explaining why you love the system which you invested in.  It's a whole other thing to put someone down for not choosing your system, or feel differently about it.  We all have lost our way.  There was a time when those differences in systems and games were cherished.  Gamers at the core have always been able to enjoy a plethora of games regardless of system, specs, resolution.  At one time you could of consider us as the digital form of a postal worker and there creed.  Now it's not "Regardless of controller, system, bits, pixels this game is going to get beaten", but more along of the lines of "You're being duped into playing an inferior product one which I will never touch with a 10 foot pole".  So I ponder how did we lose our way?  Xbox 360, PS3, Wii are games machines each with there own strengths and weakness, but at the end of the day when all is said and done they all do what was intended of them to do.  Play Games!!!  The systems are just the means to provide us with the hobby that we enjoy and are passionate about.  I'll be the first to say that I love Halo 3, but Killzone 2 looks Hot to Death.  Does it deminish how I feel about Halo 3? Nope because in the grand scheme of things Killzone 2 will make the next developer push to make a game on par of better then it.  And that is what we as gamers want.  We want to see innovations, and boundaries pushed.  I know that it's because of games like Doom and Wolfenstein that a game like Halo, Killzone, Crysis exsist.  Developers looking at something that was done and now with technology so adanvce, they wonder what they can do.  So before each of us take the task and engage in comment bashing of each other, take the time to remember the commonality that brings us all together.  Maybe then instead of bashing each other we can start enjoying each other's experiences.  So I'll close this by saying while I don't own a PS3, I look forward to when I go back home for a visit.  Catching up with the only Game Master I ever knew, and playing his PS3 because I know he's gonna have all the hottest games for it.  And sit around all day eating pizza, playing games, and cracking jokes.  This is Sidious.  Play on Playas.}

[fan_of_gaming]

well your blog is a bit hard to read but it makes an excellent point. i think there will always be fanboys, just as there is in many other things (sports for example), but i know that i will just play games because they're fun.

[Teek_15]

If only we could go back to the old days...

your font is a little small btw.. but you're right. we are all lost in this system competition.

[Gue1]

but the PS3 is the one that has less weakness compared to the others.

X360 has RRoD, no blu-ray, you have to pay to play online, you have advertisments on your menu-interface, it makes too much noise and it is already outdated.

The Wii is a GameCube with a pretty high price for what it has(GC = like $100, X360 = $200). Most of its games are crap, the online is mega sh1t, the graphics are worse than Xbox1, the fancy controller makes most of the games harder to play than with a normal controller, it doesn't plays DVD's nor higher resolutions above 480p. Not all the games are in 16:9(a big problem for those with widescreen tv).

The PS3 only has a justified high price, for others the controller is a problem, installations and.... What more? It doesn't has games? XBL is not that much better than PSN and it is free.

-Fanboy wars have existed since, mmmmm, forever? Maybe you just were too young to understand.

[Jinxstar]

I stand on both sides of the fence man. To say "What happened? We never used to argue" is an outright lie. I recall arguing for days about which is the better system SNES or Genesis. They had Multiplats and Exclusives. They were both viable but some had a preferance, albeit many times unjust, to one system. Thats just in console look at "Horde vs alliance"(This is a huge one) or "Red vs blue" or almost anything else in the gaming industry. It's always competition. It's always forum wars. It's always "Thats cheap and unfair" It's like rooting for your favorite football team but instead of dozens of teams there are 3. One is full of kids, the next teenagers and the final is full of grown ups. Each, like you said, having certain benefits and failings... A kid system is fun all around for any age too, a teenage system can be annoying but your sure to get some damn good competition, an adult system may not be as aggressive or high paced but has viable options all around... You go for the one you like most and that suits you...

It's always been a battle man, MK vs DC, Marvel vs Capcom, casual vs hardcore, FPS addicts vs Wii gamers... We just see systems because they tend to encompass what makes you a gamer. While I love EWJ and old SNES games there are people out there who would call me a retard and that I have no clue what I'm talking about... Why because of the #1 rule of the intervebz

Normal person + Audience + Annonimity = Total Douche bag... just look around here for a while.

You say you love halo but think KZ is gonna be sweet. Which do you prefer though? Thats how you will be judged. If you were stuck on a desert island for a month and had one game to take with you. Which would it be. Your choice will be ridiculed no matter which one it is.

My only thing is seeing how people argue a point. In my blog I feel I made some very good points... True or not I have yet to receive any kind of constructive rebutle....

Whatever your choice though. Game on man. Just realize it's always been around and is here to stay. If you don't like it hang out with friends and not here. Because just like that rule above a normal 360 fan boy or PS3 fanboy from this site IRL would probably be a pretty good drinking buddy no matter your choice or how bad you argue with them.

[khsmooth]

First off let me say that I'm sorry about the small font. It was my first time posting a blog on this site and I don't quite have the hang of thier site's interface. And I do agree with you that at the end of the day it comes down to preference and that preference is what you're going to be judged on. And yeah we did throw jabs back and forth about which system is better, but I don't think or remember it ever going so far as a gamer not wanting to play games on the opposing system. They'll grumble for a little bit about not being use to the controls but after awhile they would get the hang of it and play. Not only that but would come back to play some more.

What I'm saying is yes it was always a battle but that battle never seemed as heated as it is now. It could be due to the annonimity of the interwebz and the feeling that you were able to one up someone on a comment by belittling them. The point is that at one time even with the jabs there was still the common ground that we were all gamers and we wanted to play games regardless of what the system was.

You have people here who act like they wouldn't touch an Xbox 360 or a PS3. That's ridiculous. I may not own a PS3 and I may never even buy one, but I can garauntee that if someone offer it to me play I'd be front and center. lol

@WiiManiac

While I do agree with some of your points about the weakness of the Xbox 360 and the Wii, we may have to agree to disagree that PS3 has less weaknesses. Not to say that it has more but I think they are all equal. 360 is hardware, MS should of outsource the building of the 360 to a hardware company like Toshiba, or Panasonic. Wii is forgetting where it came from, it's great that Nintendo is catering to a whole new audience of gamers but by not doing more for the gamers who kept supporting them when that audience wasn't around is heartbreaking. PS3 weakness is Sony, yeah I know what most people are going to say to this. That they made it future proof and you should pay money for good quality yada yada yada. Sony has time and time again got in the way of the succes of the PS3. Entry cost started out high and stayed that way. Marketing for games is none exsistent most likely due to the losses it's taken from the PS3. They can't end support of the PS2 because it's a viable revenue stream. Because the PS2 continues to sell well most people are not going to be convinced to upgrade to a PS3 until that price is right. Things that the PS3 should of had out of the box from day one it didn't and still don't. I mean PSN is free, but still no cross game invites, to chat across different games have now become basic things that it should be able to do. Which is why I say Sony is the PS3 weakness. The PS3 has the power and is capable of having an online community that is on par with the 360 but Sony can't seem to grasp it just yet. It'll get there eventually, when I don't know but I do know that all things tend to come to an end. And the 360's lead in building an online game community is only going to last until somebody else comes up with the next best thing.

[Jinxstar]

Thanks for the reply bud. I agree that it seems a little over the top and I have had people come to my house who are hardened 360 fans thinking the PS3 is a total waste. Once I fire up LBP and follow it up with a bluray that all goes out the window.There is a lot of animosity that is uncalled for but maybe it is to a certain level. You may not be like me and had a few RRODs before and been given the run around by a bunch of people I could not understand via 360's customer service... To me as a gamer if I call sony, I get a rep I understand and who isn't reading steps off the same website I was... means a lot to me as a customer... I feel at least my reasons are better then sales figures and junk that most of these people go on about.

While Wiimaniac's comment is a little harsh I agree but for a different reason. I feel dedicated servers are amazing. Warhawk has the, Resistance 2 has them and they provide so much more and regulate so much better. As opposed to playing a game where people purposfully slow thier BW in these games they pay for it with death as opposed to being invincible in say gears... Barring cross game chat and custom soundtracks it is a free service. A free service with dedicated servers is unheard of... To me as a hardcore MP player thats where it lies. KZ2 will be fantastic because of that. Unlike my experiences in Halo and Gears via a pier to pier network...

Thats why I went with PS3 and PC...

[khsmooth]

That dedicated servers are the way to go, there is no arguing that at all. I feel like Microsoft can learn a lot of things from Sony. They have learned a few things but can still take pages from their playbook and vise versa. I think it's good that there's more than one game system on the market cause that is what's going to fuel true innovation.

I am like you in that my 360 red ring, but the customer service support I got was understandable and quite pleasant. I was up and running in two weeks. I know a lot of people give greef to MS for the hardware problems and I almost wanted to burn them down myself. However when they eventually admitted that something was wrong, it was their fault, and that they were gonna pay for it; helped alot. My friend the GameMaster went through 7 ps2's and he didn't even hear a peep from Sony. But, at the time it was the best option for games around because it had all the third party support which made it hard for me to stick with sega (Saturn and Dreamcast: I loved this machine to death).

I'm glad to see that Sony is better with their support this time around then before. It's just tough to see people calling the kettle black when the pot is the same color. But we all had tricks like the towel trick to keep things running that's what made us gamers.I've seen my friend set one of his fat ps2's on a boxed ban to keep it cool enough for a lil longer to play and his slim had to be turned upside down to play it. Was it inconvenient? Yeah, but you keep playing and move on. lol

[khsmooth]

That this is just my honest opinion on how the Manufacturers of these consoles are doing.