The Battle of the Console Prices

Point Three: Save up, it's not going to get better

My last point is this- that you, as a gamer, better be ready to dish out more cash now. With the advent of new technology, games are requiring more and more work- the graphics that used to take two pixel artists now take a team of ten men, and so on. With that comes the demand for money- no-one is going to willingly work harder for less money than before, which means in total, they need more money. Long story short, you will be paying more for your gaming experience.

But don't fear- there is a cap. Obviously, you will never pay $100 for a game, and you will never see a MSRP of $1000 for a console. But, the issue is that you will probably not see a console for UNDER $200, nor will you ever see games released for under $40 that aren't made by “ValuSoft”. When you want quality, you have to pay for it- which is why I would pay $100 for Final Fantasy 1, when I wouldn't pay $2 for Final Fantasy X-2.

So, let's pretend it's back in the early 90s, and we all are running around watching Nickelodeon and wearing DARE t-shirts (Well, just me). If I had $500 back then, and had to choose, I would know without a doubt- I would blow the $500 on a SNES and the right games, not on a Virtual Boy, or anything else I would know to fail. In fact, I know of some collectors that, if they could, would pay hundreds of dollars to go back in time and purchase an old console, like the NES- which is now about the power of a wristwatch. But the real reason we're going back in time is to look at the prices that the consoles were- and pretty much how much it cost to get started. A SNES, even when it was rather old, was at least $300, at least where I lived- and plus a game or two, that amounted to a huge chunk of change, just to play Mario in “stunning” 2D. And, now, with the technology in a system I can pay the same amount of cash for, I can play these games- and also games in 3D that looks real.

In Closing

In closing, this article is just somewhat of an outlet, especially regarding the new console wars that have started. It irritates me to hear all this complaining from ANY side- it's almost like a gamer has to convince himself every other system sucks just to bolster his preference in one particular console. But let's face it- remember back in 2001 when everyone was arguing about the PS2 vs the Gamecube vs the XBOX? Now look at us- THERE IS NO WINNER. THERE WAS NO WINNER. Sales wise, the PS2 won- but technologically and generally in different markets, the Gamecube and XBOX both were superior. They leveled each other out. There was no winner, period. And the same thing is going to apply. Read my (online) lips:

THERE WILL BE NO WINNER TO THE CONSOLE WAR, PERIOD.

People will never agree. There will always be a new system, there will always be competition, and no system is going to drop out. We all thought the Gamecube was stupid when it came out, and it still weathered well. None of us thought the XBOX would survive- and it even beat Nintendo's Gamecube by a small margin, at least in some markets (EG: Not in Japan). All of the systems that are releasing this year, including the already released XBOX 360, will live and prosper- there will be no winner, no-one will lose, and in the end in 2010, when Gametrash is hopefully kicking IGN's rear, I will be kicking back reminiscing about how stupid we were for complaining about the consoles.

So stop it. Stop assuming that the price matters. Stop assuming that the CONTROLLER matters. Remember- all the companies involved are a lot smarter than you, and also have the money to back up these projects. So just kick back, save up, and get all three consoles. Because that's called having some geek cred right there.

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