Everyone disparages the ongoing console wars but in all honesty, if this gigantic aspect of the industry goes the way of the dodo, the entire landscape will change. And maybe not for the better.
Phantom Knight provides his thoughts on the futility of Console Wars.
Humans are competitive by nature, in life there’s winner and losers.
Console wars don’t hurt the industry.
I actually think the companies behind the systems encourage it too, as it drives brand loyalty, which in turn drives sales. It's definitely played up, but it turns what would normally be just another boring business rivalry into something people actually get drawn into.
On the company level though, it's often seen as corporate ribbing and not to be taken seriously. the heads of these platforms have respect for each other. The fans, however... not so much. They take everything seriously when in reality we are all in the same hobby for the same reason. We like to play video games. Can't we all just play along?
@darthv72
If you follow sports, this is normal.
Just search an argument of Jordan VS Lebron
2pacalypsenow
Sports has athletes representing nations, cities or communities ect, consoles are aimed for personal entertainment, a better comparison would be something like music.
Of course they encourage it. Big companies know exactly how people will react every time one of their execs get up on a stage, do an interview or tweet something. Everything is pre-calculated and deliberate. They know that engagement with their brand, good or bad is still engagement. Fan rivalry is an integral part of any entertainment business. This is fact, this is human nature.
Everyone has a team they root for , I don't see why having a preferred console should be any different.
“Console wars don’t hurt the industry.”
I agree. It’s just the most loyal fans having a go at it. Nothing wrong with that.
These are your biggest supporters which is a good thing. Some may go a bit overboard in defending their brand but you just have to look over those.
Those "loyal fans" are usually the one's who will disagree with a known fact that is also easy to look up and you think that there is nothing wrong with that lmao
To a certain extent its fine when it's kind of loose banter. I enjoy the debates and arguments but it doesnt take much for it to descend way beyond that. Console wars can hurt the industry when people take things too far.
Generally though, I do enjoy the banter and it's a good way to pass the time at work etc. But these things often go WAY past that
Jin
These are the fans who are buying consoles day one at full price so yes to these companies the core gamers matter especially early on
@Kiwi66
It’s 2020, facts don’t matter anymore, it’s all about someone feelings.
I think they help spread misinformation. But the "wars" themselves are used as a marketing device nowadays. Side effect of the social media age.
it will never die. It's not much of a war when Sony has won 3/4 of it's gens in historic fashion.
@TheEnigma313
It is war when there´s competition, when comes to console.
You can downplay competitors and say there´s no competition at all.
Until, of course, you hear the word "exclusive" from the other side. Then if you somehow felt unconfortable in any way, that´s when you´ll realize that competition exist, whether you like it or not.
Replies(1)I think this gen there is more warring going on than last. Seems like the vitriol is at an all time high.
Whether that has any effect on anything I won't say, because I think there would be a lot more than internet banter to have a major effect on the overall console industry.
Nintendo atari sega were all once in the dedicated home console race, them 3 are the og's and none of them make home consoles anymore, Sony and microsoft killed them all and nintendo's case they ran off to their handheld market because they could not keep up with the big 2 in the dedicated home console business. Ill continue to support the big 2 as long as i can.
Eh. Pretty sure Wii blew away everyone else that generation. Just because Nintendo pulled a Nintendo and made hardware vastly different to what else is out there, that doesn't mean they were pushed out of the console business lol. Nintendo has been around for decades. I don't think looking at the last 7 years or so speaks for the company as a whole.
Atari... their thing was against Coleco and Mattel. when they tried to come back against Sega and Nintendo they were pretty much ignored. Just like NEC, who was the real competitor of Sega and Nintendo at the time. All platforms are competitors because each company is vying for the consumers $$. Magnavox, Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Panasonic (3do), NEC, SNK and Sega were all once competition to each other. Only Nintendo has survived and keeps on trucking with new competition from MS and Sony. And that is just the ones that were in NA and JP. In EU you had others like Amstrad, Konica and others I cant recall.
NEC could have been a real force in the industry if they had any sense of how to market their console outside japan. Had tons of support, and a great system. Having Hudson backing was a big thing back in the day, as it was the only big 3rd party partnership for hardware with a console maker in console history.
Sega was eventually it's own worst enemy, and made a lot of bad business decisions. Sony just offered up a new and better paradigm for the industry. Nintendo was too stubborn with their hardware, which caused them to fall behind.
MS really didnt have much effect on any of the consoles pre-ps1. Nintendo was already having issues getting people to buy, and sega was already out when MS came in. If sega hadn't left, chances are, MS wouldnt have gone ahead with the xbox.
Gaming desktops are usually either big and heavy full-size beasts, or else miniaturized boxes that lack the power to impress. And whether you buy a complete system or an empty chassis to fill with components, they're often on the fugly side.
Deville Louw put together a list of 10 memorable and sometimes very difficult video game boss encounters. Do you remember these?
Most of the games listed span more than two decades. Why even add that in the title?
There's a lot more bosses that were memorable than just this list. Tough to narrow it down to just 10.
Are you okay? The most of them are from games that were released over 20 years ago.
That first boss fight in God of War was totally Legendary. I felt like it was a last boss fight.
Truly one of the best boss fights I ever played in a game.
Psycho Mantis fight also was Legendary.
The console war is the competition between the companies.Why would that disappear even if some PR pretend they are angels and put that on the gamers back?
Futile little fanboys wars are something completely different altogether IMO
Its just childish play thinking they actually accomplish something.
Console wars from gaming sites agendas is something worth debating though.
Edit:
@fonger I agree. Its all the more dumb that IMO they actually have not much or no influence at all.
But like I said above, gaming sites agendas is worth debating since they do have some influence.
Most gamers just like me want to talk about games and the continued rise in quality of games from better animation, physics,draw distances, lighting, A.I., textures, story, controls, uniqueness, fun factor, etc. There's nothing wrong with choosing a side sometimes for friendly rivalry. That's part of the culture of competition. But choosing sides out of necessity is paramount.
My beef has always been BAD POLICY and dumb ideas that not only effects gamers, but effects **ME** as a gamer. If you were on the opposite side of that, then that's when we do battle.
Nintendo's policy to control developers and lock them in to only making games on their system, that effected me as a gamer as I liked Sega, NEC and Nintendo. I wanted to see what those developers could do on those systems and Nintendo tried to stifle them. Putting me at odds with them and gamers who didn't like Sega or NEC.And Nintendo again tried to control the market with expensive cartridges when the industry was moving to cheaper but higher quality sound discs that held more memory.
As much as I love Sega, they had the dumbest executives that over extended the company again and again with too much hardware. Hurting my chances each time of getting more games for their systems because they always fizzled out after the Genesis.
Leaving me to move on from them to PlayStation where the games were. Because I was RED E. But with PS2, Sony seemed to be trying to kill 2D gaming and pushed 3D games. 2D games had to be compilations.I hated that they went out of their way to stifle 2D.
I got into Microsoft's system not because of Halo. But Tecmo, Sega etc bringing games over to the system. And the built in HDD. But then Microsoft showed their true colors. Charging for online. Then when they released 360, not only did they know it was rushed, they put things behind a pay wall. Pushed the proliferation of micro transactions, DLC etc because they couldn't fit on one disc like bluray. But didn't stop there, they then tried to take away game ownership and wanted constant 24 check ins and watching gamers for advertising purposes with a camera.
If you are for something or a company that effects me as a gamer, that takes more money out of my pocket than needs to as I come from a time where all your content, including secrets, were on the disc, then I'm against you. I don't hate games. Even on competing consoles. I disagree with what should be complete agreement among gamers that some of these things developers and companies do hurts gamers which hurt me. And when you see gamers supporting bad ideas, I have to challenge them. Because I've been around long enough to see the results.
I'm surprised that the CES streaming tech isn't more of a story here b/c it will be the death of consoles eventually! We stream everything these days. Other than sports, I can't remember the last time I watched cable or put a movie disc in a machine. For some, it may take longer, but it's coming quickly.
Enter GTX 1060 and 1080 streaming on PC or MAC as well as mobile. Yeah, streaming of ultra setting PC titles with little latency. Are ya kidding me? Would you not pay a monthly fee to have access to any game you wanted at anytime, no updates or dlc to buy, no installation OR loading screens! Now comes the reason consoles won't die this year! The price. It's very expensive at this moment, like $25 for 10 hrs for a GTX 1080 and 25/25 for 1060. But it will fall and it won't take too long. Another downside for some is that it's only 1080p/60fps ATM.
At the very least, this is a great way to experience PC games, or games that take under 50 hrs to play. Even better if it's one of the many games that last 8-12 hrs. Anyway, Sony has PSNow and this is why I have argued that it is head and shoulders above backwards Compatibility, as it is the future. Imagine if Sony gets smart and actually provides this on their Experia and actually marketed it or partnered w Verizon etc. They could make their TV and Phone divisions successful again! The Experia is an amazing device for gamers, one of the best mobile devices on the market, but few know about it! They have the software to sell their hardware but they choose not to. Why not leverage the popularity of the one device that is making money?
Anyway, I love my console but I am getting older and have less and less time. Imagine if you could play as much as you wanted for $49.95/month. Would you do it?
This is what Nintendo should have done. No hardware, just streaming to any device you own, every game, any time!
The console war doesn't exist. It's just some marketing ploy to get people gabbing about their products.
It's childish and has caused nothing but division within the gaming community.