I looked back at my (and my family's) history of buying consoles and pcs and found out that I (and my family) are franchise whores. We buy machines based on the release of a certain game. Here's our entire hardware history (note that the dates might be misplaced, as I don't have a perfect memory):
NES: Mario- Of course, everyone will admit to buying this thing after seeing a video of Mario at the store. I was too young to appreciate it really, but my brothers loved it. The only game to this day that we all totally agree on as wonderful (there are 7 of us brothers) is Mario 3.
Genesis: After Burner 2- (I begged my mom to get me a Sega for this, not Sonic) After Burner 2 was, and still is, my favorite air combat sim ever. I fell in love with air combat sims because of this, and I've never let go. I remember crying in a corner for days because my mom told me "BUT YOU HAVE A NINTENDO ALREADY", until she finally gave in and bought it for me (I was like 6 or something).
PC for games (our first): Warcraft 2- my brother came home from New Zealand around 1997 and brought with him his PC in a box that could play Warcraft 2, and at that time, it was the most amazing game I had ever seen. When I first said this to him, he was like "you don't know Warcraft?", and we simply had to get a PC of our own, since he lived in NZ most of the time. This resulted in another begging session with my mom (my other brothers and I), but thankfully she needed a new computer anyway.
PC upgrade (our first): Starcraft- by this time, the "Blizzard" logo had already entrenched itself on our minds, as we obsessively played WC2 till the end of time. When we heard of this new space based WC game, being Star Wars fans, we were ecstatic. We wanted to make sure our PC would be able to handle this new game, so we decided to beef up our system (only to find out later that we didn't really need to). That was the beginning of an intense relationship with Starcraft, imported from America on day 1, that led me to thousands of hours of Battle.net contests.
Playstation 1: Final Fantasy 7-we got this around 1999, during the time wherein I was rather obsessed with Starcraft and could think of nothing else. I was hanging around a friend's place and saw this game he was running of some dude with funky yellow hair doing some freaky anime-style 9999 combo. Then I saw the FMV (which, at the time, was godly), and I was hooked. My brothers and I decided to save up for Christmas that year and chipped in to buy a PS1 for the sake of FF7 alone, actually thinking at the time that this is the only game available for the thing (internet was sparse back then). We actually didn't buy any other game until maybe 6 months later, having exhausted every single possible thing in the game (all the armors, weapons, materia, max level, secrets etc.). Guess what game we bought next? Gran Turismo.
Playstation 2: Gran Turismo 3-this was largely my own decision because of my personal experience with Gran Turismo 1. When I heard of the impending GT3 on a "super machine" with this thing called the "emotion engine", I rode that hype till the inevitable "save allowance for a year" thing until GT3 was released, and ended up borrowing money from my mom too. I knew about the PS2 since before it was released, but held up on buying it until GT3 arrived in mid-2001, and didn't buy anything else for a LONG time (maybe a whole year). I actually still have the GT3 red bundle box in our attic (such a pretty box). The next game I bought totally blew me away though, which forced my next purchase. That game was Metal Gear Solid 2, then 3.
PC for games (our second, my personal first): Diablo 2- around the year 2000, my brother anticipated the release of Diablo 2 so much that he actually opened an entire LAN shop for the sake of the game, equipping the computers with the highest end Intel chip and graphics card at the time (at this time, to our inexperienced minds, this was the Pentium 4 and the Diamond Viper RIVA TNT2 Ultra, and they were hell expensive). I had played this game in his shop (again, the "Blizzard" logo) so much that I had my mom buy me a new PC with the same specs from my brother's shop for my high school graduation around 2002, as a deal for getting high grades, all for the sake of getting to play Diablo 2 at home.
PC upgrade (our second, my personal first): Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne- the LAN community's interest in Warcraft 3 back in 2002, while I was still working on my Paladin in Diablo 2 at home, shifted my interest away from D2 to WC3 almost instantaneously. It wasn't until the expansion set though, that I actually thought of upgrading. I had been playing WC3 in low settings, and I thought I needed a change. Thankfully, when the expansion came in 2003, there was a rather cheap ATI Radeon card and I was forced to let go of the Diamond Viper card I had (which was virtually obsolete at that time, but I still liked it).
XBOX (my brother's personal property): Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic- my brother (the shop owner) and I had a bit of a falling out around the same year when I upgraded my PC because I never returned to his shop again (he was pissed, because I was his number 1 customer, bringing tons of people to the shop as free word of mouth advertisement, along with serving as a part time accountant for him). When he got home one day, he had this big black box in his hands and announced that he had already sold his shop, this day in 2004. Shocker. He showed me KOTOR, the only game he had for his new XBOX, and I was jealous (again, we're all big Star Wars fanatics over here), and he wouldn't let me play it for over a year. The next game he got? Halo (yeah he got Halo later).
Xbox 360 (again, my brother's personal property): Halo 3- his experience with Halo 1 and 2 turned him into a really obsessive Xbox fanboy, which he kept until the release of Halo 3. This same day, he lined up at the store at midnight, and threw away his old Xbox (it's still in our garage). I hadn't realized how much of a fanboy he had become until I bought my next console...
Playstation 3: Metal Gear Solid 4-Our family didn't buy another a piece of hardware until June 12, 2008, the day when MGS4 arrived in our local game store (incidentally, that was also the day I started posting on this site). My experience with MGS3 virtually made this a no-brainer. Now at this time, my brother and I had a really big falling out already, and we weren't on speaking terms anymore. I would never be able to touch his 360, and thus there was a gaping hole in my gaming thirst. Thankfully, MGS4 arrived in time before I had to beg him completely. The PS3 was also the first console I bought completely with my own money.
PC for games (my personal second): Empire: Total War-some people on here might remember me asking multiple questions a few weeks ago, about PC specs and whatnot. Even with my extensive history with gaming hardware, I had no idea what good specs were nowadays. I had been thirsting for Empire since playing Medieval 1, 2, and Rome previously on my obsolete PC, and I knew I needed a more powerful rig to handle the new one. By this time, my PC was already 7 years old and desperately needed an upgrade. I was playing Empire on my brother's rig (we made up) and I went ahead and assembled one (with the help of a few members on here), got my copy of Empire along with it, and I've been playing it ever since, despite the garbage ass bugs.
So there you have it. In my entire history, I have been buying hardware just for the sake of 1 game for my entire life. I don't know why.. maybe I'm sick?
Anyone here experience this same thing?
