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I have often wondered where gaming is going, what it heading towards and how it has reached where it is now from its humble beginnings. Gaming has progressed from being a cult activity based in dank lofts with very slow machines and enormous loading times to a fully accepted part of today’s culture.
Gaming started off with machines such as the Spectrum and games that people can hardly remember anymore, except Pong which of course everyone remembers, and has improved and travelled along its winding journey ever since. Gaming has gone through many different ports of call, some good e.g. the SNES and the Playstation, and some undeniably poor consoles such as the Lynx. Overall though, gaming has dramatically improved over the years to become the phenomenon that it is now.
Some strange things have happened upon its journey. Many manufacturers of consoles have dropped by the wayside, discarded by gaming like chocolate wrappers. Most notable occurrences in gaming of recent times have to be Metal Gear Solid and of course Sega’s exit from console production to become a games developer.
What does the future hold in store for Gaming? Its decline? An even more dramatic upsurge in popularity? Who knows? What we do know however is the general direction that gaming is pointing in. It is towards PC gaming with the advent of modems, keyboards, mice and hard-drives. It is hurtling away from its roots at an alarming speed in its quest to become a worldwide spectacle ensuring that not one home is missing a games console or entertainment machine as they like to be called now, Pah! This somewhat shortsighted urge to make consoles and gaming as worldwide as TV’s, VCR’s and DVD’s amazes me.
I mean why bother with all this stuff? We play games on consoles more than PC’s because consoles are made for playing games. They have the best games, they give the best experiences and they are the best machines for playing games on. So why change? Why attempt to change a successful, tried and tested idea? What will these ‘advances’ bring to us?
Lets see…
Hard drive and modem-Hmmm, makes us shell out more money for something we think we want and need. We will supposedly eventually be able to download entire games from the Internet by paying the developers for a download. Oh yes, what a joy, now instead of spending obscene amount of cash on games from a shop we will be able to pay our money for something we can’t even see let alone touch. Excellent! I will be first in line for this pleasure. Oh and what are the gains of such a system. Well most obviously we do not have to undertake the chore of leaving our houses. Yes, we can become social recluses. No longer will we have to venture out into the scary world. Our next-gen consoles will do it for us.
Mouse and Keyboard-Yes! Now we can turn our consoles into fully-fledged PC’s. Wow I have always wanted to do that. With the sales of these peripherals will also come a free how to speak like a PC geek guide along with a wipe clean poster of the embodiment of PC’s the great bowl headed one, Mr Bill Gates himself. Excellent! I completely change my mind this is a good thing.
For those of you not too sharp on sarcasm that was about as good as it gets.
Now on a more serious note what good things will come out of gaming’s imminent move to the PC’s side? Well, multi-player gaming will be fun if we all had the same connections and ping rates, but lets face it we won’t have. Perhaps a hard-drive could be used to import MP3 files and pictures of our-self into our games but is this really worth Ł200, I think not. The improvement of games is already evident and this is brilliant but the move into PC territory and making GAMES consoles into ‘home entertainment systems’ is bound to be a bad move that could ruin gaming.
Gaming started off with machines such as the Spectrum and games that people can hardly remember anymore, except Pong which of course everyone remembers, and has improved and travelled along its winding journey ever since. Gaming has gone through many different ports of call, some good e.g. the SNES and the Playstation, and some undeniably poor consoles such as the Lynx. Overall though, gaming has dramatically improved over the years to become the phenomenon that it is now.
Some strange things have happened upon its journey. Many manufacturers of consoles have dropped by the wayside, discarded by gaming like chocolate wrappers. Most notable occurrences in gaming of recent times have to be Metal Gear Solid and of course Sega’s exit from console production to become a games developer.
What does the future hold in store for Gaming? Its decline? An even more dramatic upsurge in popularity? Who knows? What we do know however is the general direction that gaming is pointing in. It is towards PC gaming with the advent of modems, keyboards, mice and hard-drives. It is hurtling away from its roots at an alarming speed in its quest to become a worldwide spectacle ensuring that not one home is missing a games console or entertainment machine as they like to be called now, Pah! This somewhat shortsighted urge to make consoles and gaming as worldwide as TV’s, VCR’s and DVD’s amazes me.
I mean why bother with all this stuff? We play games on consoles more than PC’s because consoles are made for playing games. They have the best games, they give the best experiences and they are the best machines for playing games on. So why change? Why attempt to change a successful, tried and tested idea? What will these ‘advances’ bring to us?
Lets see…
Hard drive and modem-Hmmm, makes us shell out more money for something we think we want and need. We will supposedly eventually be able to download entire games from the Internet by paying the developers for a download. Oh yes, what a joy, now instead of spending obscene amount of cash on games from a shop we will be able to pay our money for something we can’t even see let alone touch. Excellent! I will be first in line for this pleasure. Oh and what are the gains of such a system. Well most obviously we do not have to undertake the chore of leaving our houses. Yes, we can become social recluses. No longer will we have to venture out into the scary world. Our next-gen consoles will do it for us.
Mouse and Keyboard-Yes! Now we can turn our consoles into fully-fledged PC’s. Wow I have always wanted to do that. With the sales of these peripherals will also come a free how to speak like a PC geek guide along with a wipe clean poster of the embodiment of PC’s the great bowl headed one, Mr Bill Gates himself. Excellent! I completely change my mind this is a good thing.
For those of you not too sharp on sarcasm that was about as good as it gets.
Now on a more serious note what good things will come out of gaming’s imminent move to the PC’s side? Well, multi-player gaming will be fun if we all had the same connections and ping rates, but lets face it we won’t have. Perhaps a hard-drive could be used to import MP3 files and pictures of our-self into our games but is this really worth Ł200, I think not. The improvement of games is already evident and this is brilliant but the move into PC territory and making GAMES consoles into ‘home entertainment systems’ is bound to be a bad move that could ruin gaming.
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Consoles are turning into aerosols!!!
Its true!
Its true!
Armitage Shanks wrote:
> Not another Consoles becomming PC's post?!?
Arrg... I written a
> load of these a couple of weeks back....
Lets see where they are
> now...
:)
Why is this sort of thing done? In nearly every post someone writes something along the lines of 'God, this has been done before' or 'Oh no not another >insert name here< topic'. If we all stuck to this rule that topics are only allowed to be done once and by one person then there would be no new threads. Besides the posts are not the same. They are written by other people who are just expressing their views on a subject.
> Not another Consoles becomming PC's post?!?
Arrg... I written a
> load of these a couple of weeks back....
Lets see where they are
> now...
:)
Why is this sort of thing done? In nearly every post someone writes something along the lines of 'God, this has been done before' or 'Oh no not another >insert name here< topic'. If we all stuck to this rule that topics are only allowed to be done once and by one person then there would be no new threads. Besides the posts are not the same. They are written by other people who are just expressing their views on a subject.
Not another Consoles becomming PC's post?!?
Arrg... I written a load of these a couple of weeks back....
Lets see where they are now...
:)
Arrg... I written a load of these a couple of weeks back....
Lets see where they are now...
:)
It's got to be considered a major plus that all these capabilities can combine in a small space (DVD movies, games, etc).
Just like washing powder and detergent 'all in one'. Saves a lot of hassle, and if you have one of the ingredients, you'll most likely want the other too - provided the quality is good.
As for the 'metamorphosis of consoles to PCs' thing, everything that's happened has been for the purpose of better gaming, gradually depleting the advantages of PC's over consoles. Keyboard and mouse controls are very, very useful for many types of game - they give you a lot more control in first person shooters, for example. With communication over the net, they help also (unless for some bizarre reason you like the 'onscreen keyboard')
If you don't like these optional extras, which enhance your gaming experience (note the words 'optional' and 'enhance'), then... well.... fine - don't buy them.
Anyone who has played many PC games will argue that all the changes in consoles are for the better.
Another question - to anybody here that plays PC games: Do you buy joypads for your PC games, to make them more like consoles?
Just like washing powder and detergent 'all in one'. Saves a lot of hassle, and if you have one of the ingredients, you'll most likely want the other too - provided the quality is good.
As for the 'metamorphosis of consoles to PCs' thing, everything that's happened has been for the purpose of better gaming, gradually depleting the advantages of PC's over consoles. Keyboard and mouse controls are very, very useful for many types of game - they give you a lot more control in first person shooters, for example. With communication over the net, they help also (unless for some bizarre reason you like the 'onscreen keyboard')
If you don't like these optional extras, which enhance your gaming experience (note the words 'optional' and 'enhance'), then... well.... fine - don't buy them.
Anyone who has played many PC games will argue that all the changes in consoles are for the better.
Another question - to anybody here that plays PC games: Do you buy joypads for your PC games, to make them more like consoles?
Wow I thought that I was the only one who thought all this mouse, keyboard and 'home entertainment system' was bad news. Oh and if Bill Gates does bring word and publisher to his X-box then I reckon we should all chip in to have him assasinated. ;-)
I get the feeling consoles are being turned into, as YH said, into 'home-entertainment systems,' or even PCs at some point.
With all this keyboard and mouse stuff (a waste of money, in my opinion), how long will it be before we're getting stuff like printers as well!?!
If Bill Gates announces he's bringing programs such as Publisher, Word, Excel etc to the X-Box, I wouldn't be surprised.
Then again, I could be completely wrong. I normally am.
Thanks for reading, Ant.
With all this keyboard and mouse stuff (a waste of money, in my opinion), how long will it be before we're getting stuff like printers as well!?!
If Bill Gates announces he's bringing programs such as Publisher, Word, Excel etc to the X-Box, I wouldn't be surprised.
Then again, I could be completely wrong. I normally am.
Thanks for reading, Ant.
Good post! Very amusing, well done!
I think that we are getting towards a stage where people will just buy an "entertainment system" rather than either a computer or a console.
As you say, consoles are coming out with hard-drives and mice and internet cpapabilities etc.
But theres more! My PC also holds music, as i suspect many peoples do, you can listen to the radio over the web and watch TV, big brother for instance.
Relatively soon, ie in the next 10 years or so, i think someone will release a machine which will handle all home entertainemnt. Games, DVD;s, music and radio. You'll even be able to do your home work and print it out. After all, if the GBC can have a printer, why can't the 'Cube, or the XBox, or the PS2?
I think that we are getting towards a stage where people will just buy an "entertainment system" rather than either a computer or a console.
As you say, consoles are coming out with hard-drives and mice and internet cpapabilities etc.
But theres more! My PC also holds music, as i suspect many peoples do, you can listen to the radio over the web and watch TV, big brother for instance.
Relatively soon, ie in the next 10 years or so, i think someone will release a machine which will handle all home entertainemnt. Games, DVD;s, music and radio. You'll even be able to do your home work and print it out. After all, if the GBC can have a printer, why can't the 'Cube, or the XBox, or the PS2?
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