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It is one of the most feared things in a gamers life, the thought that one day their machine, which they have forked out a lot of money for, would be dead and buried, with its rivals standing over the grave and throwing in the dirt. Gamers invest huge amounts of money on their console, often buying only one and creating a huge collection, only to find their machine has become obsolete.
It doesn’t always come quickly either, you notice less new titles on the shelf, stores pull out of selling the machine and the section you usually browse in your local game shop has moved to the dingy corner by the far wall. Sometimes, of course, it’s just not possible to ignore the impending doom even after a year of the console being out, other times they die gracefully in the shadow of new technology.
Sega have seen their fair share of this with both the Saturn and the DC fairing less well than the competition. They have come in for a lot of stick too over their lack of advertising and the support, but we all know it wasn’t all their fault. At one point in 1997 it looked as though Nintendo would be first to go, with limited support for the N64 while the Saturn and Playstation carried on supplying great new titles. Luckily Nintendo weren’t short of quality titles, even when the third party support wasn’t there, and this probably helped save them from following the Saturn down the dark path to the console graveyard.
Worse still are the horror stories of consoles failing to sell even months after their release. Take the Atari Jaguar, CD32 and many unfortunate owners who have found that buying a new console on release day perhaps wasn’t the smartest move they ever made.
Why does it have to happen at all though? Well, the main reason is technology. This is the driver for new consoles every 5 years or so and once these appear it’s goodbye old familiar, hello new super-console. Some people cling to their faithful machines for life and keep their dusty old games collections either for nostalgia or just because they can’t find anything as good on a new machine. Again, though the Saturn died before its successor could be born, it had some wonderful games which have secured it a place in the hearts of many a soppy gamer. The Playstation, of course, has become an excellent cheap way in to gaming now and is still bought for young gamers who are just starting down that road.
But it is not the natural death of a console which inspires such fear and loathing. It would be fairly easy to save for a new machine, given the advance warning we all have and the older consoles are often supported for a while. No, the worst case is the one already mentioned, where the console just stops getting supported. This is worrying if you’ve just bought it on the strength of someone’s recommendation and almost as bad if it’s your favourite machine. This is what drives people to become the fanboy supporters of a single platform. Those Nintys, Sonyphiles and Sega people are all just looking out for their console, thinking that if they stop supporting it, then so will everyone else. So they shout about how their machine is the best and how the others are all so unworthy of anyone’s attention, in the hope that they will make a difference.
The truth is that no matter how much you love a console, it can go quickly pear shaped and you need to get over it. Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went before and dropped early. They may have not been able to survive their full term, but they certainly made a difference while they were here. So, hold a glass to the consoles made obsolete and remember them fondly, lest we forget and witness another Atari Jaguar style crash and burn.
It doesn’t always come quickly either, you notice less new titles on the shelf, stores pull out of selling the machine and the section you usually browse in your local game shop has moved to the dingy corner by the far wall. Sometimes, of course, it’s just not possible to ignore the impending doom even after a year of the console being out, other times they die gracefully in the shadow of new technology.
Sega have seen their fair share of this with both the Saturn and the DC fairing less well than the competition. They have come in for a lot of stick too over their lack of advertising and the support, but we all know it wasn’t all their fault. At one point in 1997 it looked as though Nintendo would be first to go, with limited support for the N64 while the Saturn and Playstation carried on supplying great new titles. Luckily Nintendo weren’t short of quality titles, even when the third party support wasn’t there, and this probably helped save them from following the Saturn down the dark path to the console graveyard.
Worse still are the horror stories of consoles failing to sell even months after their release. Take the Atari Jaguar, CD32 and many unfortunate owners who have found that buying a new console on release day perhaps wasn’t the smartest move they ever made.
Why does it have to happen at all though? Well, the main reason is technology. This is the driver for new consoles every 5 years or so and once these appear it’s goodbye old familiar, hello new super-console. Some people cling to their faithful machines for life and keep their dusty old games collections either for nostalgia or just because they can’t find anything as good on a new machine. Again, though the Saturn died before its successor could be born, it had some wonderful games which have secured it a place in the hearts of many a soppy gamer. The Playstation, of course, has become an excellent cheap way in to gaming now and is still bought for young gamers who are just starting down that road.
But it is not the natural death of a console which inspires such fear and loathing. It would be fairly easy to save for a new machine, given the advance warning we all have and the older consoles are often supported for a while. No, the worst case is the one already mentioned, where the console just stops getting supported. This is worrying if you’ve just bought it on the strength of someone’s recommendation and almost as bad if it’s your favourite machine. This is what drives people to become the fanboy supporters of a single platform. Those Nintys, Sonyphiles and Sega people are all just looking out for their console, thinking that if they stop supporting it, then so will everyone else. So they shout about how their machine is the best and how the others are all so unworthy of anyone’s attention, in the hope that they will make a difference.
The truth is that no matter how much you love a console, it can go quickly pear shaped and you need to get over it. Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went before and dropped early. They may have not been able to survive their full term, but they certainly made a difference while they were here. So, hold a glass to the consoles made obsolete and remember them fondly, lest we forget and witness another Atari Jaguar style crash and burn.
It is one of the most feared things in a gamers life, the thought that one day their machine, which they have forked out a lot of money for, would be dead and buried, with its rivals standing over the grave and throwing in the dirt. Gamers invest huge amounts of money on their console, often buying only one and creating a huge collection, only to find their machine has become obsolete.
It doesn’t always come quickly either, you notice less new titles on the shelf, stores pull out of selling the machine and the section you usually browse in your local game shop has moved to the dingy corner by the far wall. Sometimes, of course, it’s just not possible to ignore the impending doom even after a year of the console being out, other times they die gracefully in the shadow of new technology.
Sega have seen their fair share of this with both the Saturn and the DC fairing less well than the competition. They have come in for a lot of stick too over their lack of advertising and the support, but we all know it wasn’t all their fault. At one point in 1997 it looked as though Nintendo would be first to go, with limited support for the N64 while the Saturn and Playstation carried on supplying great new titles. Luckily Nintendo weren’t short of quality titles, even when the third party support wasn’t there, and this probably helped save them from following the Saturn down the dark path to the console graveyard.
Worse still are the horror stories of consoles failing to sell even months after their release. Take the Atari Jaguar, CD32 and many unfortunate owners who have found that buying a new console on release day perhaps wasn’t the smartest move they ever made.
Why does it have to happen at all though? Well, the main reason is technology. This is the driver for new consoles every 5 years or so and once these appear it’s goodbye old familiar, hello new super-console. Some people cling to their faithful machines for life and keep their dusty old games collections either for nostalgia or just because they can’t find anything as good on a new machine. Again, though the Saturn died before its successor could be born, it had some wonderful games which have secured it a place in the hearts of many a soppy gamer. The Playstation, of course, has become an excellent cheap way in to gaming now and is still bought for young gamers who are just starting down that road.
But it is not the natural death of a console which inspires such fear and loathing. It would be fairly easy to save for a new machine, given the advance warning we all have and the older consoles are often supported for a while. No, the worst case is the one already mentioned, where the console just stops getting supported. This is worrying if you’ve just bought it on the strength of someone’s recommendation and almost as bad if it’s your favourite machine. This is what drives people to become the fanboy supporters of a single platform. Those Nintys, Sonyphiles and Sega people are all just looking out for their console, thinking that if they stop supporting it, then so will everyone else. So they shout about how their machine is the best and how the others are all so unworthy of anyone’s attention, in the hope that they will make a difference.
The truth is that no matter how much you love a console, it can go quickly pear shaped and you need to get over it. Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went before and dropped early. They may have not been able to survive their full term, but they certainly made a difference while they were here. So, hold a glass to the consoles made obsolete and remember them fondly, lest we forget and witness another Atari Jaguar style crash and burn.
It doesn’t always come quickly either, you notice less new titles on the shelf, stores pull out of selling the machine and the section you usually browse in your local game shop has moved to the dingy corner by the far wall. Sometimes, of course, it’s just not possible to ignore the impending doom even after a year of the console being out, other times they die gracefully in the shadow of new technology.
Sega have seen their fair share of this with both the Saturn and the DC fairing less well than the competition. They have come in for a lot of stick too over their lack of advertising and the support, but we all know it wasn’t all their fault. At one point in 1997 it looked as though Nintendo would be first to go, with limited support for the N64 while the Saturn and Playstation carried on supplying great new titles. Luckily Nintendo weren’t short of quality titles, even when the third party support wasn’t there, and this probably helped save them from following the Saturn down the dark path to the console graveyard.
Worse still are the horror stories of consoles failing to sell even months after their release. Take the Atari Jaguar, CD32 and many unfortunate owners who have found that buying a new console on release day perhaps wasn’t the smartest move they ever made.
Why does it have to happen at all though? Well, the main reason is technology. This is the driver for new consoles every 5 years or so and once these appear it’s goodbye old familiar, hello new super-console. Some people cling to their faithful machines for life and keep their dusty old games collections either for nostalgia or just because they can’t find anything as good on a new machine. Again, though the Saturn died before its successor could be born, it had some wonderful games which have secured it a place in the hearts of many a soppy gamer. The Playstation, of course, has become an excellent cheap way in to gaming now and is still bought for young gamers who are just starting down that road.
But it is not the natural death of a console which inspires such fear and loathing. It would be fairly easy to save for a new machine, given the advance warning we all have and the older consoles are often supported for a while. No, the worst case is the one already mentioned, where the console just stops getting supported. This is worrying if you’ve just bought it on the strength of someone’s recommendation and almost as bad if it’s your favourite machine. This is what drives people to become the fanboy supporters of a single platform. Those Nintys, Sonyphiles and Sega people are all just looking out for their console, thinking that if they stop supporting it, then so will everyone else. So they shout about how their machine is the best and how the others are all so unworthy of anyone’s attention, in the hope that they will make a difference.
The truth is that no matter how much you love a console, it can go quickly pear shaped and you need to get over it. Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went before and dropped early. They may have not been able to survive their full term, but they certainly made a difference while they were here. So, hold a glass to the consoles made obsolete and remember them fondly, lest we forget and witness another Atari Jaguar style crash and burn.
pb wrote:
> Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went
> before and dropped early.
I think we should. Being a gamer is tough, it's about making the right choices at the right time and coming out on top. Those who make the wrong choices get left at the wayside. They are the faulty gene carriers amongst the gaming community, and deserve all the derision they get as they fall behind the elite who forge the way ahead for the future of gaming. They are the weakest link in gaming evolution, and we should, quite rightly, throw taunts at their passing for getting it so wrong.
It's a part of what makes us competitive, it's a part of what makes us trail blazers along the road to gameplay innovation, and it's a part of what makes us gamers.
Only the best will come out on top, only the popular will prevail.
*Goes back to reading Mein Kampf*
> Still, we should not laugh and deride those that went
> before and dropped early.
I think we should. Being a gamer is tough, it's about making the right choices at the right time and coming out on top. Those who make the wrong choices get left at the wayside. They are the faulty gene carriers amongst the gaming community, and deserve all the derision they get as they fall behind the elite who forge the way ahead for the future of gaming. They are the weakest link in gaming evolution, and we should, quite rightly, throw taunts at their passing for getting it so wrong.
It's a part of what makes us competitive, it's a part of what makes us trail blazers along the road to gameplay innovation, and it's a part of what makes us gamers.
Only the best will come out on top, only the popular will prevail.
*Goes back to reading Mein Kampf*
Thank you, heir FantasyMeister. ;-)
To me the Dreamcast was an example of a console that didn't deserve to die as early as it did, and I still feel that it could go up againsts the current consoles.
To me the Dreamcast was an example of a console that didn't deserve to die as early as it did, and I still feel that it could go up againsts the current consoles.
I have a 3d0 and cdi, but i swapped em for videos.
Anyway I'm glad the 3do failed because it was EA's machine and every decent person has to hate EA (even if just a little)
Anyway I'm glad the 3do failed because it was EA's machine and every decent person has to hate EA (even if just a little)
No I cant hate EA. They own Westwood who brought us Command and Conquer. For that I am eternally greatful. And Theme Hospital.
I've been playing my old Game Gear recently, and it's amazing how far ahead of its time it was. It was released two years after the original Game Boy, and yet had an eerily similar design to the Game Boy Advance, a full colour screen (which was much larger than the Game Boy's), and the screen was lit. And somehow it failed. Sure, it was chunky, but apart from that it could more or less compete with the GBA SP. Oh, and it required 6 AA batteries for about 2 hours play time, but we'll forget about that. It had a mains adapter and a battery pack. Shush.