baka on 19 February 2007
J_Jay2000 said:
Yes it's an indepth look into a totally beneign subject. but 1) i'm bored and 2) most importantly i've read the same old arguments fought from different shades of grey time and again, thought it was time to bring something new to the table. A different way to play maybe?
Maybe. My pet theory is that people are naturally competitive, and gamers (especially the 'hard core' variety) tend to be more competitive than average. This competitive spirit is likely what attracted them to gaming. A console company really is like a sports team for hard core video game players, that was an excellent analogy on fishamaphone's part. Of course, as consoles tend to have shorter lifespans than sports teams we purchase a console based on what it brings to the table, and how well it caters to what we want to see in future games. It may be graphics, it may be the controllers, it may be the past performance of the company. That's the hook, and in a room full of competitive people with differing opinions, you're going to see these sort of disagreements. It's no different from a room full of football or basketball fans arguing their favorite teams. Apart from the console, I see these gamers divided primarily into four camps in these sort of discussions:
As you mentioned, there's the different way to play camp. I'm squarely in this one myself, so I'll describe my reasoning. I grew up with games that weren't full of eye candy, but packed a lot of fun. Particularly the multiplayer games, starting with the first Pong console I owned. As more types of games arrived, game play had to be innovative if a game were to do well. I want to see more of that, as I see the trend toward me-too games differentiating themselves with improved graphics continuing ad nauseum if the current set of hard core gamers are the only people who are catered to. (Additionally, I want more games that my wife and I can enjoy together, so she doesn't feel ostracized while I'm playing games. I suppose that's another discussion however.)
There's also the graphics camp. These people want as much eye candy as a console can pop out, pushing their displays to the maximum resolution while drawing the individual beads of sweat that come off the characters they're controlling. My guess is that they're looking for the maximum suspension of disbelief so they can further "get into" the game so to speak. Graphics will continue to improve the most on consoles with the most horsepower, and that's where these people are going to flock. There are a lot of hard core gamers in this camp, witness the progression of high end graphics accelerators in PCs.
It needn't be said that there is also the brand loyalty camp. These people purchase their console from the same company, regardless of what it brings to the table, based on the company that makes it - loyalty which is typically earned by a well-performing product in the past. There are a few of these, but I find that gamers are a fickle lot in general and loyalty is the exception rather than the rule. The existing ones are very vocal however.
Finally, you have the price camp. These people have purchased a console, and simply don't have the sort of funds necessary to purchase another if the ship sinks. They're going to push their console very hard, whatever the flaws, because if it doesn't succeed they're going to have a difficult time getting another. Money is a powerful factor when you don't have much of it.
There are plenty of other stances to be sure, but most people seem to fall into the aforementioned camps. Some fall into multiple camps, although it's usually possible to pick out one. Who's to say which is the most correct? They're all based on personal preference, even if the preference is how much one wants to spend, and as with any product game companies will design their console based on their vision of the most desireable item on the market.
