First off, this isn’t a fan-boy article, just one gamers perspective on the future of gaming. We are all in this together when it comes to how this all plays out the next couple years. It doesn’t matter if you play on the PS4, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Playstation Slim, Playstation Pro, Xbox’s Scorpio, or any upcoming variations of literally anything. It’s your and my pocket that predicts how Sony & Microsoft play their hands.
Have we really become a cattle of gamers that follow trends at the blink of an eye? Is there even such a thing as a console war — or is it an illusion created by us trying to justify our purchase? Sure, the companies have direct competition for the money in our pockets, but there is no competition between us — the gamers. We’ve created that all by ourselves.
This console war that we created —
I can’t scroll down a page on a YouTube video, a Facebook Group, a Yahoo! article, Reddit post — even something on a Destiny forum (yes, I still play that game) without comments attacking each other over which console plays our favorite third party games better. Little things like that, and things as big as console-tied exclusives to barley better frame rates making little to no difference on an overall experience. Guess who benefits from the extra clicks, extra chatter, extra coverage — it’s not us.
There will NEVER be an even playground with consoles that are released. The PS4 will run games a little smoother than the XB1 — the XB1 S will play 4K movies, while the PS4 Pro won’t — the Scorpio will be the most powerful console on the market next holiday — and I’m sure something “more powerful” will come after it — it’s a never ending flip-flop affair.
Let’s pretend for a minute that you had a Playstation & an XBOX sitting in front of you right now. Both played games in full 4K 60fps, both had the same amount of teraflops, expandable memory, 4K Blu-Ray — the works, which one would you grab? To cap it off — let’s also assume that they have the same price tag and have the same amount of exclusives. Which one you taking home?
The way you will make your decision will most likely be the lineup of exclusive games that platform has… but, every gamer is different. For example, I own a Xbox One & PS4, but I would gladly take the XB1 in a heartbeat if I had to choose because my favorite franchise of all time is Halo. Take others in my family that own a XB1 who simply love the UI and use it for third party sports games like Madden, NBA 2K, FIFA, etc — oblivious to “console wars” and don’t pay attention to any video games news what-so-ever, they just enjoy playing games on Xbox and popping open Netflix or HBO Go when they get home from work. On the other side of the spectrum I have friends that own a PS4 for Uncharted & God of War alone, but still obviously use it for third party games I have already listed and other apps daily — they really like the UI from Sony better.
The real question is why does it matter at all?
I think Halo is the best franchise of all time — you may think Uncharted is the best franchise of all time — do we really need to waste time proving why one is better than the other? Your favorite game of all time could be ‘No Man’s Sky,’ does it matter what anyone else thinks? Do you need to put people down and hype up the ‘invisible ghost’ of the console war between players?
If all of us can get home from work and put in some late night hours on our favorite game(s), does it matter which platform we play it on?
Those words create some sparks right!? What about frame-rates, platform exclusives, etc? MY CONSOLE IS BETTER THAN YOURS! Turn off the fan-boy inside for a minute and think of it the way I do…
If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you have a preferred platform for one reason or another. Pretend — for a moment — that the console sitting in your entertainment center plays every single game at a little lower of a frame-rate, pretend — in the scheme of the next couple years, your platform has less exclusives and pretend — just for fun, the next ‘hardware’ upgrade for your platform will be a couple years behind. So, in every possible shape and form — even if it’s at the slightest degree, your platform is the lesser of the two available on the market…. Would you trade it in and swap to the other side?
If I had to guess your answer would be no, because if you step back from the ‘made up hype’ we have all created, (me included) nothing matters because you buy your platform for your favorite games, period. You don’t care if it plays third party games slightly better or worse than the other — you get it for the exclusives, the games you love to play.
Let’s turn our attention and make these companies create BETTER games and MORE exclusives for a BETTER experience on all of our consoles. As soon as we do that, we can go back to watching conferences and meetings that have a focus on EXCLUSIVES and what’s coming to console next. We can have game developers come out and actually show us GAMES! If I have to watch another conference mainly focused on hardware and HIGHLY specific specs, I will lose my mind. If you need all that, great, buy a PC… I understand all the tech terminology, but I don’t want to ever see this as a focus. Show me the games!
Let’s just wait till it’s something like “The SUPER-Ultra 4K, HDR, 60 fps, extra-terafloppin’ 10 TB ,VR 2.0 Capable” console upgrade comes. We will make that happen if we don’t change.
Cheers, Matt.
