In another plane of existence, in a world beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, a war is raging. It’s an age-old conflict, behemoths of the gaming industry duking it out through countless rounds. I picture the Storm Giants scene from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; massive, faceless entities whaling on each other, ourselves being the onlooking dwarven heroes, powerless and insignificant to their bout. As a player I can relate to this feeling, which can only be described as unimportance, when it comes to the console wars. But it’s not just that, I don’t necessarily enjoy seeing conflict between the companies that bring me such entertainment.
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The basic thinking is romantic yet superficial: videogames are a good thing, if people worked together instead of against one another, wouldn’t videogames be better overall? My boyish naivety screams out “can’t we all just get along!?”, but like so many others my pleas fall on deaf ears. Unfortunately the world doesn’t work like this, and for good reason! As humans we thrive and advance thanks to two things: social interaction through forging communities and competing against each other. The most pertinent to this conversation being the latter.
For a long time it was a battle between many nations and production studios, popular machines were constantly trading places among the sales charts. Fairchild, Atari, Arcadia, Vectrex, and later Sega, Nintendo, Turbografix, and Dreamcast. Most modern battles are between the big three, which may soon be reduced to just two.
The Wii-U, Nintendo’s latest console, will be deemed a failure unless a smash hit is revealed relatively soon, “The fate of a video game system is often influenced greatly by the introduction of a single title,” Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata claimed during an investor briefing. The company’s groundbreaking tablet software was an interesting idea, but failed to gain traction with gaming communities raised on controller-based gameplay. Phasing out Nintendo would limit the big name home console conversation to just two producers (in the foreseeable future).
The only fighters left in the room are the two tyrants, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Spinosaurus, Godzilla and Ghidorah, the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One. In the past months we’ve seen steadily similar profits for both consoles, with Sony edging out over Microsoft in terms of units sold worldwide. Both sides have avid followings on social media, and their respective communities seldom see eye to eye on public forums. Only after years of development, brand marketing, and decadent funding have we arrived at such a time where one of our primary identifiers as gamers is our console of preference.
The console wars will rage on, and I can’t say for sure if either of the current contenders will ever “beat” the other, or if that’s even a desirable outcome. There’s always the chance that a new challenger may appear (Steam console?), and the future is in no way set in stone. I urge console gamers to stay informed to differentiate fact from rumor, this also lessens friction among communities. For PC gamers, we’ll try to keep the cynical mockery to a minimum. Ciao for now!