6 Gaming Misconceptions

Gamers can be a rather foolish lot sometimes, buying into all kinds of BULLSHIT they are told by the news media, worthless gaming sites like IGN or other gamers. So, I'm going to dispel some of the more popular myths I keep hearing right now...

1.) Console wars in general

Console wars as you know them are a thing of the past. In fact, Console 'wars' are a media-manufactured concept that never actually existed. It doesn't really matter which console sells the most. What matters is that a hardware manufacturer is making money from the console they marketed. In that respect, there has not been a true failure in the console marketplace for many years. Portables might be different. I don't know if Sony made or lost money on the PSPGo but, they are not making money on the PS Vita right now.

There is enough room in the market right now for anyone and everyone to make money. Microsoft and Sony will compete with each other for that fanboy dollar. Nintendo's fans and Portable gamers that want a dedicated system over a smart phone or iPad will keep that company rich with cash forever. Casual types will keep independent developers alive on smart phones and tablets. If Android-OS ever takes off as a serious gaming platform, the Ouya (or something like it) might also become a big sales success. Simply put, there is room for everyone AS LONG AS THEY DON'T SCREW UP AND MAKE CUSTOMERS FEEL CHEATED.

In fact, even when the term 'Console Wars' did mean something (like in the 8 and 16-Bit days), there was still enough room in the market for all comers. The only reason that Atari and Sega became 3rd party software developers is because they ran out of money after MANY years of making mistakes. The reason why Mattel and Coleco left the game business after the Crash of 1983 was because it wasn't making money for them at that moment. They incorrectly believed that video gaming was a fad that had worn out it's welcome. There are too many examples of successful platforms for any company to really screw up bad enough to get forced out of the market now. (Unless the company has some truly EPIC bad leadership...)

2.) WiiU only appeals to casual gamers and has few games?

Not quite. Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, Batman: Arkham Origins, Call of Duty titles and ZombiU are not casual at all. Neither are many 1st party Nintendo games. I suspect this misconception came from everyone releasing a lot of casual titles using the motion-control gimmick on the Wii and expecting it to carry over to WiiU. That didn't happen quite as much as some apparently expected. That cuts down on the number of titles available but, it also cuts down on the number of poor-quality releases.

As for the number of games available, Wikipedia says there are 216 available as of 17 Oct 2013. 216 is a lot of games to have available on a system that was less than a year old at that time. Nintendo also has a list/search feature on it's own site for all the games on all their current platforms. I wish there was one for all their previous systems as well.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_U_games

http://wiiudaily.com/wii-u-games-list/

http://www.nintendo.com/games/gameGuide?term=&source=search

Finally, as for the system's appeal... I don't believe that Nintendo was totally wrong for going after the family demographic. Whenever I see someone playing with the WiiU at an in-store display, it's usually a child or teenager whose parents often join them after a few minutes. I don't know what the 'hard core gamer' crowd thinks of that and I don't care. I play the games that I think will be fun and ignore what anyone else thinks. Following the crowd means playing Call of Duty or some RPG game that I don't even understand. That isn't fun for me. Also, I think people are forgetting that PS4 and XBOX One are getting lots of buzz right now because they are new. Will that buzz keep going in the future? Will they still sell? You'll never know until it happens. None of the so-called 'industry experts' expected the Wii to sell more than 100 Million units.

3.) Nintendo is NOT leaving the console market.

Recent remarks from Iwata-san about the successor to the 3DS acting as both portable system and a controller for the WiiU does not mean that Nintendo is giving up on the WiiU GamePad or slowly drifting away from making consoles, either. Nintendo has been finding ways to make their portable systems interact with the consoles and TV screens for more than 20 years now.

Remember the Super Game Boy on the Super NES?

How about those Game Boy Color games that could sync up with their N64 counterparts through the GBC's infrared port? (Perfect Dark did this, in addition to a few Pokemon games, I think...)

How about the Game Boy Player and GBA link cable for the Game Cube? I loved those accessories...

How about the Wireless interaction between the DS & the Wii?

These kind of actions on Nintendo's part is not even close to being new...

4.) Sony can do no wrong...

Bullshit. They have made mistakes with every console generation. Some have just been less well known (or less of a big deal) than others.

PS1 - They discouraged game companies from making 2D games for PS1. They were afraid it would make the system look out of touch with the latest trends in the market. All that really did was make Shoot'em ups and side-scrollers virtually non-existent on their platform. Maybe that's why PS1 didn't hold a lot of interest for me back in the 1990's...

PS2 - Only 2 controller ports when everyone else offers 4? Was this seriously a design oversight or just an attempt to make money from selling multi-taps?

PS3 - There's 2 things that kept the PS3 from just plain murdering the XBOX 360 in sales... Besides Microsoft having an ungodly amount of money to toss at the XBOX Division of their company...

A.) The Cell processor, while basically a Super-computer on a chip, was also very difficult to program. It also had poor documentation in the beginning of the system's life. That kind of oversight would have killed smaller companies. In fact, it did help to kill Atari with the Jaguar and heavily crippled Sega with the Saturn. Unorthodox hardware designs are not necessarily a death sentence but, if you do that, you better make development as easy as possible. Developers like to make use of the skills they already have. It costs less than having to devote time to learning totally new technologies.

B.) The price was too damned high at launch. $500 and $600 is a LOT of money. I can build a pretty good gaming PC for that kind of money. Or, I could buy a competing system and spend the money I saved on a selection of new games. If any other company had done this (except cash-rich companies like Microsoft), that company would suffer huge losses. And we all though that Sega selling the Saturn at $400 was extravagant...

PSP - Several things wrong here too...

A.) It costed too much at launch. (That seems to be a recurring theme for Sony...)

B.) They tried turning UMD into a new format for portable media, not just for games. That might have succeeded if I couldn't just put a digital file on the memory sticks that the PSP uses for game saves and play them on my PSP from there.

C.) The PSPGo. Basically, a PSP that is download-only and uses no physical media for its games. Not hard to see why this thing failed... Good for hacking and running emulators, though...

PS Vita - Again, several things wrong...

A.) Price is too damned high! (Seriously, Sony. WTF?)

B.) Lots of games available but, the whole library is almost all 3rd party stuff. Even worse, I can find almost all of them on EVERY OTHER PLATFORM  ON THE MARKET. That's not good. You won't challenge the 3DS that way... However, I do like how I can connect one of these to a PS3 or PS4 to enhance various games and features. That is pretty cool...

PS4 - So far, it's just a matter of $400 being too high of a price for me and a lack of interesting games in it's library. It all seems to be more of the same stuff that was/is available on the PS3. I'm sure this will change with time.

5.) Publius is a Nintendo fanboy?

Bullshit. If that were true, I wouldn't own any games from other companies like Atari, Coleco, Jakk's Pacific, Magnavox, Mattel, Microsoft, Sega and/or Sony, to name a few. I wouldn't own any computer games, either. Have ANY of you ever known me to criticize a person for their choice in games or platforms? I don't care if you like different games than me. Or, is there something about the 'fanboy' mentality that I just don't understand?

Yes, I am very fond of Nintendo. They make excellent games and very innovative hardware. They have been a faithful companion over the years as I have grown up and they have a very special place in my heart. However, Atari and Sega have a place like that in my heart as well. Yet, no one accuses me of being an Atari or Sega fanboy. I've also collected 3 Sony systems and around 70 games for various Sony platforms in the last year. Yet, no one accuses me of being a Sony fanboy. Why does Nintendo get that unique attention?

Also, I am not a fanBOY, dear readers. There's nothing boyish about your not-so-humble Mad Scientist with a blog around here. I don't know why any of my friends or readers would ever get that idea. I don't even like the term 'fanboy' because it is often used in a VERY pejorative sense. Contrary to all popular beliefs about Aspies in general and me in particular, I do have other interests and hobbies. I'm even developing something of a social life. Kinda hard to emulate those proverbial losers living in their parent's basement when you don't live with the parental figures and actually leave the house on a regular basis. Also, there are no basements where I grew up, kiddies. Most of NOLA is too far below sea-level to make that idea viable.

Anyway, here's the rundown on just how much stuff I have for my game collection as of 8 Feb 2014, including all duplicate copies of various games on various platforms. After looking through it, you can decide for yourself whether or not I should be classified as a gamer who sticks to one company (or an handful of them) at the exclusion of all others...

Atari Consoles

Atari 2600 - 141
Atari 5200 - 16
Atari 7800 - 13
Atari Jaguar - 6

Atari's 8-Bit pre-Crash of 1983 Competition

Colecovision - 11
Mattell Intellivision - 12

Computers of all kinds

Atari ST - 6
PC (includes all DOS, Windows, MacOS & Linux Titles) - 51
TI-99/4A - 12

Microsoft

XBOX - 27
XBOX 360 - 3 (These were included on the same discs with their XBOX counterparts)

Nintendo Consoles (Physical copies only, no downloads)

NES - 90
SNES - 27
N64 - 58
GameCube - 46
Wii - 40
WiiU - 10

Nintendo Portables (Physical copies only, no downloads)

Game Boy - 14
Game Boy Color - 6
Game Boy Advance - 35
DS - 31
3DS - 10

PROPRIETARY HARDWARE

Atari Flashback
Atari Flashback 3 - 6 units
Atari Flashback 4 - 2 units
Atari Flashback 64 - 2 units
Intellivision 2nd Edition: 10 Video Game System
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Activision
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Atari 2600
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Atari Paddles
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Mortal Kombat
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man
Jakk's Pacific TV Games: Space Invaders
Magnavox Odyssey 3000
SEGA Genesis Classic Game Console: Special Edition

SEGA

Master System - 9
Game Gear - 4
Genesis - 40
Saturn - 6
Dreamcast - 20

Sony

PS1 - 26
PS2 - 39
PS3 - 24
PSP - 11

Imagine that... The system for which I have the most titles just so happens to be the Atari 2600 with a whopping 141 titles. And the closest competitor here, NES, is a distant second with only 90. Who would have guessed? :P

6.) The 'fanboy' mentality...

You think your system is superior to all others because of it's game library or sales numbers? You also think that makes you better than other people? Please, pull your head out of your ass.

The sales numbers only matter to the business end of things. That doesn't matter to most gamers. When you buy a system, it should be because you like the games it has or will have in the future. NOTHING else. This kind of elitist snobbery is not helping to disprove the stereotype of the lonely nerd living in his parent's basement. QUIT BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Also, having System A instead of System B does not make you superior or inferior to anyone. Just imagine if I had behaved that way when my younger brother got a SEGA Genesis for his 8th birthday in 1993. I would have missed out on the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games, Eternal Champions, a version of Mortal Kombat with the blood and gore intact, a good Jurassic Park game, Vectorman, Earthworm Jim and numerous other classics I played on that console. Instead of being pissed that he didn't get a Super NES (which is what I had thought he would get at first), I was just happy that we had a new games. Plus, I was curious to see what this console had to offer. Thanks to that kind of open-mindedness on my part, I went on to form some of my happiest gaming memories. Playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and all the games he rented that weekend is probably the happiest thing about being 11 that I can still remember.

So, to quote an old 90's cliché: Don't hate, appreciate!


- Lord Publius