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IT's quite clear to see from this forum that many people have developed affiliations and staunch support for console manufacturers over the past decade or so. Most gamers these days have their number one console, and they will die before a supporter of another firm will defeat them in an arguement.
This is a sad state of affairs for the games industry to be in, and surely it reduces the prospective growth of the industry. All this in-fighting within the industry isn't even really needed by the companies. If they spent more time looking at their own portfolios and trying to make themselves as attractive as possible to the consumer, then they would still make money.
Despite how hard I try to convince people that owning more than one system will broaden their gaming horizons and give them a much better scope to enjoy "gaming", I know it's not going to happen overnight, and it's down to some major factors.
The first is the gaming media.
Gamers are very heavily swayed buy the opinions of journalists. Gamers look to their favourite magazines and websites to build up their anticipations and opinions of games, and this is all well and good. It would be an attrocity of people didn't have information of the development of projects and the pending release dates of the most highly anticipated games, but this information comes at a price.
Other than the multi-format magazines, the gaming press is geared heavily towards single platforms. The most popular single format magazines are the officially licensed mags, and these are usually the worst offenders at slateing the work of companies other than their own beloved. Therefore as gamers are influenced heavily by magazine articles, they will forever be geared into the same train of thought as the editor and journalists of their favourite magazine. Their own opinions and arguements will be based up evidence obtained and diluted out of ofiicially licensed or single format magazines, and in the end it makes them look a little stupid.
The best example of stupidity thta I have come across this month is in PC Gamer. The guys there have done an article on the progress of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and have made some very interesting comments. When you hear about them, you'll understand my frustrations towards single format gaming press.
The first comment they picked up on was the graphics. Apparently they are so much better than the PS2 version. Fair enough, by the time GTA3 gets a PC release it will have been in development on the PC for 12 months longer than the PS2 version. The game will also have been changed and altered to support graphics cards inside PCs which blow away the graphical capabilities of any of the games consoles. The XBox is currently the most powerful console graphically, it's based on a Geforce 3. The geforce 4 now makes that look outdated and slow. So you would expect graphical improvements, but their comments don't stop their.
Apparently the game has a major advantage over the PS2 version because you can change the resolution and draw distance. Quite how these improve the standard of the game beyond the PS2 version is beyond me. Surely these are features added to the game to compensate for the large capability difference between a PC which cost £200 and a PC which cost £2000, not an improvement in gaming, but more a feature of functionality.
Then the article picked up on the controls of the PS2 version, and the fact that it was a bit mince because you couldn't use a mouse to look around. Fair enough, but the author labelled this as a downfall of the platform, quite odd consodering the PS2 has USB keyboard and mouse support. It would have been a development choice not to use these options for the PS2 release, and not a hinderence of the platform spec.
But, it gets worse. One of the major improvements of the PC version over the PS2 version is the ability to change the main characters skin(texturing). I'm not going to rant about that, make of it what you will.
The next big thing which stimulates zealotism is the manufacturers themselves. They know that the average teenage kid can't get a hold of two or more consoles, so they belittle the other and make themselves look better through advertising. Rather than focusing on the gaming side, gaming advertising has become increasingly more focused towards the cultural side of youths. It appeals to their coolness rather than what they can actually deliver. Sony has even went a bit further and implemented advertising that confuses kids, but intrigues their parents enough to sway them into the gaming arena. This has been very evident in the increase of the average age of gamers these days being in the late twenties early thirties. However, the fact that GTA3 has an 18 certificate definately bumped that up last year.
The last thing is arrogance and pig-headedness. Gamers are absolutely stubborn, and more set-in-their-ways than our war-veterans. Gamers are blindly led by companies into a gaming Utopia, and when they get their, the can only be let down. Nothing is as good as it seems, and no one is ever absolutely right. The next time your in a thread discussing the "power" of a console and the arguement is being won by someone who claims the Xbox is the most powerful because it has "733mhz". Ask them if they know how a processor works. Or even if they know the difference between an integer and a floating point number. 9/10 gamers don't know how to guage the performance of a computer based system, such as a PC. Never mind guage the performance of a non-standard piece of kit such as the PS2.
This is a sad state of affairs for the games industry to be in, and surely it reduces the prospective growth of the industry. All this in-fighting within the industry isn't even really needed by the companies. If they spent more time looking at their own portfolios and trying to make themselves as attractive as possible to the consumer, then they would still make money.
Despite how hard I try to convince people that owning more than one system will broaden their gaming horizons and give them a much better scope to enjoy "gaming", I know it's not going to happen overnight, and it's down to some major factors.
The first is the gaming media.
Gamers are very heavily swayed buy the opinions of journalists. Gamers look to their favourite magazines and websites to build up their anticipations and opinions of games, and this is all well and good. It would be an attrocity of people didn't have information of the development of projects and the pending release dates of the most highly anticipated games, but this information comes at a price.
Other than the multi-format magazines, the gaming press is geared heavily towards single platforms. The most popular single format magazines are the officially licensed mags, and these are usually the worst offenders at slateing the work of companies other than their own beloved. Therefore as gamers are influenced heavily by magazine articles, they will forever be geared into the same train of thought as the editor and journalists of their favourite magazine. Their own opinions and arguements will be based up evidence obtained and diluted out of ofiicially licensed or single format magazines, and in the end it makes them look a little stupid.
The best example of stupidity thta I have come across this month is in PC Gamer. The guys there have done an article on the progress of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and have made some very interesting comments. When you hear about them, you'll understand my frustrations towards single format gaming press.
The first comment they picked up on was the graphics. Apparently they are so much better than the PS2 version. Fair enough, by the time GTA3 gets a PC release it will have been in development on the PC for 12 months longer than the PS2 version. The game will also have been changed and altered to support graphics cards inside PCs which blow away the graphical capabilities of any of the games consoles. The XBox is currently the most powerful console graphically, it's based on a Geforce 3. The geforce 4 now makes that look outdated and slow. So you would expect graphical improvements, but their comments don't stop their.
Apparently the game has a major advantage over the PS2 version because you can change the resolution and draw distance. Quite how these improve the standard of the game beyond the PS2 version is beyond me. Surely these are features added to the game to compensate for the large capability difference between a PC which cost £200 and a PC which cost £2000, not an improvement in gaming, but more a feature of functionality.
Then the article picked up on the controls of the PS2 version, and the fact that it was a bit mince because you couldn't use a mouse to look around. Fair enough, but the author labelled this as a downfall of the platform, quite odd consodering the PS2 has USB keyboard and mouse support. It would have been a development choice not to use these options for the PS2 release, and not a hinderence of the platform spec.
But, it gets worse. One of the major improvements of the PC version over the PS2 version is the ability to change the main characters skin(texturing). I'm not going to rant about that, make of it what you will.
The next big thing which stimulates zealotism is the manufacturers themselves. They know that the average teenage kid can't get a hold of two or more consoles, so they belittle the other and make themselves look better through advertising. Rather than focusing on the gaming side, gaming advertising has become increasingly more focused towards the cultural side of youths. It appeals to their coolness rather than what they can actually deliver. Sony has even went a bit further and implemented advertising that confuses kids, but intrigues their parents enough to sway them into the gaming arena. This has been very evident in the increase of the average age of gamers these days being in the late twenties early thirties. However, the fact that GTA3 has an 18 certificate definately bumped that up last year.
The last thing is arrogance and pig-headedness. Gamers are absolutely stubborn, and more set-in-their-ways than our war-veterans. Gamers are blindly led by companies into a gaming Utopia, and when they get their, the can only be let down. Nothing is as good as it seems, and no one is ever absolutely right. The next time your in a thread discussing the "power" of a console and the arguement is being won by someone who claims the Xbox is the most powerful because it has "733mhz". Ask them if they know how a processor works. Or even if they know the difference between an integer and a floating point number. 9/10 gamers don't know how to guage the performance of a computer based system, such as a PC. Never mind guage the performance of a non-standard piece of kit such as the PS2.
People will become zealots when they only have regular access to one console. If this were not about consoles, but about other things, it may be criminal.
If we preferred some people because of the colour of their skin, thats racism.
If we prefer some people because of their gender, thats sexism.
The truth is its the same things that cause all of this; previous experience and upbringing.
In some areas, people of ethnic minorities are seen as inferior, and this is due to the way people are brought up, and the events of the past.
The same applies for gender, although this is mainly due to outdated views of the roles of women.
"Consolism" however is mainly caused by people owning one console, and no matter how stupid that decision may look in hindsight, refuse to remove their heads from their anus's, look at the wider picture, and they'll still proclaim their console to be the best thing since sliced bread.
Anyway, its the games that make a console, not the specs.
If we preferred some people because of the colour of their skin, thats racism.
If we prefer some people because of their gender, thats sexism.
The truth is its the same things that cause all of this; previous experience and upbringing.
In some areas, people of ethnic minorities are seen as inferior, and this is due to the way people are brought up, and the events of the past.
The same applies for gender, although this is mainly due to outdated views of the roles of women.
"Consolism" however is mainly caused by people owning one console, and no matter how stupid that decision may look in hindsight, refuse to remove their heads from their anus's, look at the wider picture, and they'll still proclaim their console to be the best thing since sliced bread.
Anyway, its the games that make a console, not the specs.
Zealotism rules. It means I don't waste money on other products, have the best console owning experience of my life so far and get into huge arguments with other zealots which last way in to the night.
I pity you multi-owners, you have no loyalty, no leader, no soul.
Zealotism rules. Rar.
I pity you multi-owners, you have no loyalty, no leader, no soul.
Zealotism rules. Rar.
About a year ago I was completly pro Nintendo.
Nothing else mattered. nothing else even came close.
This place turned me around a bit, and within time I convinced myself to buy a PS2. Of course, now that Pro Evo is coming to the Gamecube I wont be needing a PS2...
Although, back in the old days, the "blind eyed" console wars with mans such as Turbonutter were quality.
Nothing else mattered. nothing else even came close.
This place turned me around a bit, and within time I convinced myself to buy a PS2. Of course, now that Pro Evo is coming to the Gamecube I wont be needing a PS2...
Although, back in the old days, the "blind eyed" console wars with mans such as Turbonutter were quality.
Zealotism makes an interesting argument but that's really as far as it goes for me.
Even if I'd rather play the Gamecube and insist that Nintendo's console is the best ever, I'd still jump on the chance to play MGS2 or Halo.
Even if I'd rather play the Gamecube and insist that Nintendo's console is the best ever, I'd still jump on the chance to play MGS2 or Halo.
True, very true.
I used to blast the PS2 like hell, in fact, at times I still do. But that's only because I know it's good and criticise it about things that aren't even true for a joke.
I think the reason most people criticise other consoles, is because they're trying to convince themselves that they've made the right decision. Having a GameCube and Not having an X-Box means you don't get to play HALO - but to Ninties, Perfect Dark 2 will blast HALO out of the water, so having an X-Box is pointless. PS2 owners blast the GameCube because of the crap library, but given a year the GC library will flourish, with all the big names seeing release, at least in Japan.
There's pros and cons to owning any of the consoles. Some games you can't get on others, some games you can get cheap in a platinum range, and some of the consoles themselves support this or that. But at the end of the day, like you said, being a Zealot will only mean you have less fun when you're gaming.
When I first saw an X-Box pad, I dragged my friend out of the shop saying: "We are not playing that! We're going!" that lasted for about 2 weeks, when he finally got me to play HALO - and i'm glad he did.
Just because a certain company's logo is or isn't on a game, doesn't give an indication of which games are right and wrong to play. If you like games, then you should play as many as possible. I hated the PSX, but the PS2 is a beast... MGS2, Pro Evo, GTA3, GT3 - come one!
But hey, at the end of the day we'll alays have the Zealots. Supporting Nintendo, or Sony is like supporting Arsenal, Chelsea or The Villa. It's just something you grow up with, or take to. You watch football if it isn't your team, you play a game even if it isn't on your console. 'Bítching' about other consoles comes naturally to patriots of a certain company... it's just part of the world of gaming.
Again, a good post - it should get a good response.
Game
I used to blast the PS2 like hell, in fact, at times I still do. But that's only because I know it's good and criticise it about things that aren't even true for a joke.
I think the reason most people criticise other consoles, is because they're trying to convince themselves that they've made the right decision. Having a GameCube and Not having an X-Box means you don't get to play HALO - but to Ninties, Perfect Dark 2 will blast HALO out of the water, so having an X-Box is pointless. PS2 owners blast the GameCube because of the crap library, but given a year the GC library will flourish, with all the big names seeing release, at least in Japan.
There's pros and cons to owning any of the consoles. Some games you can't get on others, some games you can get cheap in a platinum range, and some of the consoles themselves support this or that. But at the end of the day, like you said, being a Zealot will only mean you have less fun when you're gaming.
When I first saw an X-Box pad, I dragged my friend out of the shop saying: "We are not playing that! We're going!" that lasted for about 2 weeks, when he finally got me to play HALO - and i'm glad he did.
Just because a certain company's logo is or isn't on a game, doesn't give an indication of which games are right and wrong to play. If you like games, then you should play as many as possible. I hated the PSX, but the PS2 is a beast... MGS2, Pro Evo, GTA3, GT3 - come one!
But hey, at the end of the day we'll alays have the Zealots. Supporting Nintendo, or Sony is like supporting Arsenal, Chelsea or The Villa. It's just something you grow up with, or take to. You watch football if it isn't your team, you play a game even if it isn't on your console. 'Bítching' about other consoles comes naturally to patriots of a certain company... it's just part of the world of gaming.
Again, a good post - it should get a good response.
Game
IT's quite clear to see from this forum that many people have developed affiliations and staunch support for console manufacturers over the past decade or so. Most gamers these days have their number one console, and they will die before a supporter of another firm will defeat them in an arguement.
This is a sad state of affairs for the games industry to be in, and surely it reduces the prospective growth of the industry. All this in-fighting within the industry isn't even really needed by the companies. If they spent more time looking at their own portfolios and trying to make themselves as attractive as possible to the consumer, then they would still make money.
Despite how hard I try to convince people that owning more than one system will broaden their gaming horizons and give them a much better scope to enjoy "gaming", I know it's not going to happen overnight, and it's down to some major factors.
The first is the gaming media.
Gamers are very heavily swayed buy the opinions of journalists. Gamers look to their favourite magazines and websites to build up their anticipations and opinions of games, and this is all well and good. It would be an attrocity of people didn't have information of the development of projects and the pending release dates of the most highly anticipated games, but this information comes at a price.
Other than the multi-format magazines, the gaming press is geared heavily towards single platforms. The most popular single format magazines are the officially licensed mags, and these are usually the worst offenders at slateing the work of companies other than their own beloved. Therefore as gamers are influenced heavily by magazine articles, they will forever be geared into the same train of thought as the editor and journalists of their favourite magazine. Their own opinions and arguements will be based up evidence obtained and diluted out of ofiicially licensed or single format magazines, and in the end it makes them look a little stupid.
The best example of stupidity thta I have come across this month is in PC Gamer. The guys there have done an article on the progress of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and have made some very interesting comments. When you hear about them, you'll understand my frustrations towards single format gaming press.
The first comment they picked up on was the graphics. Apparently they are so much better than the PS2 version. Fair enough, by the time GTA3 gets a PC release it will have been in development on the PC for 12 months longer than the PS2 version. The game will also have been changed and altered to support graphics cards inside PCs which blow away the graphical capabilities of any of the games consoles. The XBox is currently the most powerful console graphically, it's based on a Geforce 3. The geforce 4 now makes that look outdated and slow. So you would expect graphical improvements, but their comments don't stop their.
Apparently the game has a major advantage over the PS2 version because you can change the resolution and draw distance. Quite how these improve the standard of the game beyond the PS2 version is beyond me. Surely these are features added to the game to compensate for the large capability difference between a PC which cost £200 and a PC which cost £2000, not an improvement in gaming, but more a feature of functionality.
Then the article picked up on the controls of the PS2 version, and the fact that it was a bit mince because you couldn't use a mouse to look around. Fair enough, but the author labelled this as a downfall of the platform, quite odd consodering the PS2 has USB keyboard and mouse support. It would have been a development choice not to use these options for the PS2 release, and not a hinderence of the platform spec.
But, it gets worse. One of the major improvements of the PC version over the PS2 version is the ability to change the main characters skin(texturing). I'm not going to rant about that, make of it what you will.
The next big thing which stimulates zealotism is the manufacturers themselves. They know that the average teenage kid can't get a hold of two or more consoles, so they belittle the other and make themselves look better through advertising. Rather than focusing on the gaming side, gaming advertising has become increasingly more focused towards the cultural side of youths. It appeals to their coolness rather than what they can actually deliver. Sony has even went a bit further and implemented advertising that confuses kids, but intrigues their parents enough to sway them into the gaming arena. This has been very evident in the increase of the average age of gamers these days being in the late twenties early thirties. However, the fact that GTA3 has an 18 certificate definately bumped that up last year.
The last thing is arrogance and pig-headedness. Gamers are absolutely stubborn, and more set-in-their-ways than our war-veterans. Gamers are blindly led by companies into a gaming Utopia, and when they get their, the can only be let down. Nothing is as good as it seems, and no one is ever absolutely right. The next time your in a thread discussing the "power" of a console and the arguement is being won by someone who claims the Xbox is the most powerful because it has "733mhz". Ask them if they know how a processor works. Or even if they know the difference between an integer and a floating point number. 9/10 gamers don't know how to guage the performance of a computer based system, such as a PC. Never mind guage the performance of a non-standard piece of kit such as the PS2.
This is a sad state of affairs for the games industry to be in, and surely it reduces the prospective growth of the industry. All this in-fighting within the industry isn't even really needed by the companies. If they spent more time looking at their own portfolios and trying to make themselves as attractive as possible to the consumer, then they would still make money.
Despite how hard I try to convince people that owning more than one system will broaden their gaming horizons and give them a much better scope to enjoy "gaming", I know it's not going to happen overnight, and it's down to some major factors.
The first is the gaming media.
Gamers are very heavily swayed buy the opinions of journalists. Gamers look to their favourite magazines and websites to build up their anticipations and opinions of games, and this is all well and good. It would be an attrocity of people didn't have information of the development of projects and the pending release dates of the most highly anticipated games, but this information comes at a price.
Other than the multi-format magazines, the gaming press is geared heavily towards single platforms. The most popular single format magazines are the officially licensed mags, and these are usually the worst offenders at slateing the work of companies other than their own beloved. Therefore as gamers are influenced heavily by magazine articles, they will forever be geared into the same train of thought as the editor and journalists of their favourite magazine. Their own opinions and arguements will be based up evidence obtained and diluted out of ofiicially licensed or single format magazines, and in the end it makes them look a little stupid.
The best example of stupidity thta I have come across this month is in PC Gamer. The guys there have done an article on the progress of the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and have made some very interesting comments. When you hear about them, you'll understand my frustrations towards single format gaming press.
The first comment they picked up on was the graphics. Apparently they are so much better than the PS2 version. Fair enough, by the time GTA3 gets a PC release it will have been in development on the PC for 12 months longer than the PS2 version. The game will also have been changed and altered to support graphics cards inside PCs which blow away the graphical capabilities of any of the games consoles. The XBox is currently the most powerful console graphically, it's based on a Geforce 3. The geforce 4 now makes that look outdated and slow. So you would expect graphical improvements, but their comments don't stop their.
Apparently the game has a major advantage over the PS2 version because you can change the resolution and draw distance. Quite how these improve the standard of the game beyond the PS2 version is beyond me. Surely these are features added to the game to compensate for the large capability difference between a PC which cost £200 and a PC which cost £2000, not an improvement in gaming, but more a feature of functionality.
Then the article picked up on the controls of the PS2 version, and the fact that it was a bit mince because you couldn't use a mouse to look around. Fair enough, but the author labelled this as a downfall of the platform, quite odd consodering the PS2 has USB keyboard and mouse support. It would have been a development choice not to use these options for the PS2 release, and not a hinderence of the platform spec.
But, it gets worse. One of the major improvements of the PC version over the PS2 version is the ability to change the main characters skin(texturing). I'm not going to rant about that, make of it what you will.
The next big thing which stimulates zealotism is the manufacturers themselves. They know that the average teenage kid can't get a hold of two or more consoles, so they belittle the other and make themselves look better through advertising. Rather than focusing on the gaming side, gaming advertising has become increasingly more focused towards the cultural side of youths. It appeals to their coolness rather than what they can actually deliver. Sony has even went a bit further and implemented advertising that confuses kids, but intrigues their parents enough to sway them into the gaming arena. This has been very evident in the increase of the average age of gamers these days being in the late twenties early thirties. However, the fact that GTA3 has an 18 certificate definately bumped that up last year.
The last thing is arrogance and pig-headedness. Gamers are absolutely stubborn, and more set-in-their-ways than our war-veterans. Gamers are blindly led by companies into a gaming Utopia, and when they get their, the can only be let down. Nothing is as good as it seems, and no one is ever absolutely right. The next time your in a thread discussing the "power" of a console and the arguement is being won by someone who claims the Xbox is the most powerful because it has "733mhz". Ask them if they know how a processor works. Or even if they know the difference between an integer and a floating point number. 9/10 gamers don't know how to guage the performance of a computer based system, such as a PC. Never mind guage the performance of a non-standard piece of kit such as the PS2.