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Soundwave on 13 May 2017
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RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

You don't have to play any game on disc (or cartridge) today though if you don't want to. 

I don't really think that's the appeal. I went over to my buddy's house, he's 38, and this dude used to be a freaking hardcore of the hardcore gamers, played Unreal Tournament all night, multi-monitor PC setup, ripped through Gran Turismo, poured hours into GoldenEye on the N64 on a 12-inch black and white TV. 

He has an XBox One, but doesn't use it for anything other than Netflix anymore. Doesn't have anything against the XBox (he bought it after all), it's not anything "wrong" Microsoft did, life is just a bitch and it changes a lot when you have real responsibilities. He just had his first child. I brought the Switch over and he was able to play on the TV, and then move into the baby's room to check on his kid while still playing. He was impressed with the system. 

I see this all the time. I see a lot of my friends too from college who were hardcore PS2 gamers who basically don't play at all anymore or play the odd war straategy game on their Android phone to work but that's it. When I was in Japan a year ago I met up with my friend and we went shopping for retro video games, and it was just .... sad, lol. He doesn't play any games anymore, he basically quit after he got married and had his first child, I remember in college he played Final Fantasy X one night literally 12 hours straight. 

Anything other than anecdotes to back up what you claim?

Well aside from the general statistic, if a PS2 owner was 19 (Sony's own self proclaimed target age) in 2000, they would be 37/38 today. I'm willing to bet life changes a fuck-ton from 19 to 37 for most people. It's very hard to play games the same way the older you get and the more responsibilities you have in life, I don't think that's something ancedontally unique to me. 

For people who don't understand this, you will understand it when you have a commited relationship, full-time job, etc. Forget just gaming, clubbing, partying, going out just to dick around at Denny's until 3 in the morning ... all that stuff sadly becomes more and more rare the older you get. 

But it's not like your skills, or ability as a gamer really go away. You do anything from age 5/6/7 for 20-30 years straight and have hundreds/thousands of hours of practice at it, odds are that ability to play never goes away and you are always going to be pretty good. 

I'd be willing to bet for at least a decent chunk (doesn't have to be a majority or even close, just a chunk) of these people who gamed in the 90s/early 2000s, a Switch or next revision Switch could be more attractive than a Playstation 5. Not because Sony has done anything wrong, just because their life style is so radically different in their 40s than than it was in their early 20s and Switch simply fits their gaming needs better.  

We're headed into an era in the 2020s where you're going to have a bunch of 40 year olds who can still play virtually any type of game, the question is more whether or not gaming fits into their lifestyle.