first off, i know that there may have been a hundred or so posts that say the same thing. i just want to say my piece for the benefit of delusional fanboys who may see some light in this post.
i'm basically bothered by the idea that a consumer who bought a console that is not selling as well as its competitors made a wrong decision. my question is, why should it matter to gamers how much their particular console is selling, when its pretty much clear that the games they want are coming out anyway?
i'm a playstation 3 owner. i bought it on june 12, 2008 to coincide with the launch of metal gear solid 4. i didn't even know what this site was before then. i had no idea what the charts were saying, nor did i have an inkling (or i didn't care) about a console war. since then, i've bought gran theft auto 4, gran turismo 5: prologue, resistance: fall of man, heavenly sword, folklore, and uncharted: drake's fortune. i'm heavily anticipating resistance 2, littlebigplanet, and the full release of gran turismo 5. i'm already waiting patiently for the 360 price drop so that i can play ace combat 6, forza 2, and later on fable 2. basically, i buy consoles to play the games that i want.
however, from what i've seen in some ridiculous threads in this forum, some people seem to have a different reason for buying the console, which i have summed up to the exact opposite of my reason: they buy the games to justify buying the console. this basically means that they don't really care all that much about playing the games really. they only want to show that their purchase was right, because of blah blah blah various reasons. now why would a real gamer want to do that?
360 owners keep going on and on about how it has better exclusives etc. when we all are aware of it already. why do we need to be reminded? no real reason except for a fanboy's insecurity about sony beating microsoft in successive weeks. on the flip side, ps3 owners keep talking about how much more powerful their hardware is, that it will beat the 360 in this gen, etc. when their posts are all based on pure speculation, which have been said already countless times and only reiterated to again, secure a fanboy's insecurity.
in an even worse train of thought, fanboys tend to shun great games on other systems just because their console doesn't have it. i've seen hundreds of "halo 3 is nothing" or "mgs4 is overrated" from fanboys on either system, even if they haven't even played them, and their decision stems purely from their dislike of the other console. sure, if someone has played both of em and he or she didn't like em, he or she can go ahead and say they suck. however, seeing negative reviews from someone who hasn't even played them yet is an obvious indication that someone just doesn't care about games all that much.
the opposite is also true when giving positive reviews to games that belong to one's own system and won't be in another's. i've also seen hundreds of "resistance 2 > gears 2" and vice versa ideas, even when obviously the games aren't even out yet. how do these fanboys know what a game would be like months before the release? they don't. its all a matter of again, justifying a console's purchase to one's insecure psyche, this time through future releases that they might not even buy.
probably they only wanted to be just on the winning side in the first place, and they find their console woefully in third place. this means that they are only bandwagon jumpers who can't seem to jump freely because of the cost of the purchase, so instead, they just defend the console that they possess to the death.
but seriously, people, are gamers really supposed to be like this? i'm led to the conclusion that fanboys are simply not real gamers because i define a gamer as someone who buys a console in order to play the games that he or she wants, not someone who shuns the games in favor of justifying a console's purchase.
are we really supposed to be concerned more about defending our purchase meaninglessly over playing the games that we want?
are we really supposed to say that great games on another console are shit just because they're not on the one you bought?
(EDITED for some accuracy. thanks for comments :D)
