The human element to war?

[J_Jay2000]

Ok, so there is a lot of debating going on here, some of it logical, some of it logical fallacy, some of it argumentative, and some of it just pure bashing. But why do people debate the topic of "which console is best" so vehemently? From what i can see it seems to be part of being human. As has been raised before, most people that are fanboys (of any console) are fanboys predominantly because they saw something in a certain piece of hardware, or a certain IP that has attracted them on some level, this attraction being a human trait, this then has to be combined with other human elements. In modern society, the act of buying and owning items, especially electronic goods is becoming more and more a sign of a person's social standing. The way this works is that a person's job; of which time, effort, education and intellect all play a part in deciding what job you have; relates directly to how much money they earn. The spending of this money on items then is a display of social standing and affluence. This would have been the end of the story except for credit. Now people can use credit to make up for a lack of social standing. This is all perceptual by the way and arguably at an ego or super ego level, just outside concious thought for most people. Most people are aware of this, and the tried and true axiom "keeping up with the jones" is a saying that arose from simple observation and truth. So... A videogame console, generically speaking, is another item that people can add to their list of haves. On a social level this needs to be treated generically. To the person who buys a console it is a little bit more than a generic item. It now represents time and effort through the accrual of money in order to buy that console, or rather a choice to place oneself into debt if using credit. This personalises a person's choice of console, even if the initial driving factor for buying that console was a specific IP. When one person expresses their opinion that they like their console better than the one you have chosen there is the natural human response to debate this as it is a passive aggressive attack on your own choice of console. To go further and have people say that your choice of console is bad, elevates the response. Again this response needs to be considered at the ego or super ego level and accounts for percieved social standing. Considering these elements its is perfectly natural that PS3 owners will defend their console, as it represents a significant investment. The same to a slightly lesser extent for XB360, and the same again for the Wii. Mind you this is all just a hypothesis. Making things even more difficult is that it is a hypothesis based on the human psyche/mind. So to extend this "human element" to the console war i ask the question of whether or not any one can predict who will win (remembering win is a very loosely defined term, is it win by sales, win by profit, win by consumer loyalty?) without considering the soft carbon element at the end of the sales line. The consumer. Using iPod as an example of the human element an it's importance. The iPod is by far and away not the best MP3 player out there, or the cheapest, yet it is the most popular and most profitable. Many have put this down to the fact that Apple considered the human element. The menu system on an iPod, compared to other MP3 players at the time, was relatively simple. Indeed it applied simple HMI (human machine interface) concepts in order to make it more appealing. (Apple was one of the first companies to apply the strick 3 click rule to menu systems, Nokia previously did it, but not to such a simplified level.) This alone would not have been enough though. So Apple made the iPod attractive on a base level. Clean, simple, minimalistic in design, almost a fashion accessory. The combinatino of these two elements won over the human element in terms of people buying an MP3 player (talking about the massese here). Given this sites focus on sales we'll use sales to define a winner. I would then hypothesis that from this generation the winner will be decided by who caters to the human at the end of the line the best, accounting for base human emotions. Compared to the Wii and PS3 i personally "feel" (note the emotive word) that the XB360 is ugly. This is just one example of all the subconcious elements that will go into a person making a choice to buy a console. Other things like evoking fond childhood memories of "retro" games is another element. Finally the general social element plays a big part. For example, if enough people buy a certain system, and they are seen to enjoy that system (even if they are not games that you would personally enjoy) there comes a human element of jealousy. DS with kids is a perfect example. More kids have a DS than a PSP at schools. Although the PSP is superior in terms of performance does that really matter? Not entirely, not unless it can evoke a jealously in the onlookers. Rather the PSP has set itself apart and essentially ostrisized itself from the child market. Kids want to be like all the other kids, and if most kids have a DS, then why do you want to be different? Mob mentality. A very similar mentalitly applies to the adult market. DS is for games, if people buy a handheld console it's for games (generally) as the primary, and most people that are going to buy one of these consoles will already own portable DVD players, MP3 players, phones with MP3 players, etc. The general consumer is going to want games. Quick enjoyable games and with relative fashion sense. In this regard the DS Lite wins over. Again i am talking GENERALITIES. The numbers on the front page are my evidence of this generality. In these early days i don't feel any system can be written off. I do think however that certain trends can be seen, but these trends are fickle as they count on the people at the end of the line. N64 is a good example of this. After a period of time, people that bought the N64 felt a little bit betrayed by the lack of support shown to their console and so it slowly died and PS took off as it garnered more support. The community was willing to change because they felt betrayed, note again the emotive words. All the manufacturers have taken gambles of some sort this generation in hopes of trying to predict the ever fickle human element. Realistically the only way the can succeed is to forget about the competition (not entirely obviously) and focus on you and me. The company that does that best will win. At the moment the Wii seems to be doing that best. However this can stall like the N64 did if Ninty does maintain it's focus on keeping you and me happy constantly and consistenly. I want to feel that my spending was warranted. Sony are behind the eight ball in this regard based on pricing point and the percieved trojan horse of BluRay. They HOPE and gamble that they have thought of the customer of the future, but it has come at the cost of the current customer. Remember people this is all generalities and looking big picture here. If people turn around and see DVD as adequate, and don't want to spend hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars updating their current movie library to BluRay, then PS3 has in part tied itself to what may turn out to be a flop format. To all those that may keep an eye on formats consider just some of the technically superior and very good formats that never really took off, Beta, MiniDisc, LaserDisc (LP sized CD for movies) DAT Tape, DVHS and countless other smaller formats. If BluRay joins this heap, along with HDDVD, because people really are content with DVD's and have intvested their money in this format, then PS3 will have its fate tied in part to BluRay. Of course the saving grace will be that it plays games, but it will need to be priced appropriately. Ok, i have had my rant. Apologies to all that feel gipped by having read my "long winded" psychobabble i have presented here. Please remember these are purely hypothesies. As always i am open to intelligent discussion.