Email: I’m officially too old for this shit…

I remember the Atari 2600.

 

I remember the Intellivision.

 

I remember the NES, the SNES, the Genesis, the PSX, the N64…

 

I remember the good old times when every time you wanted to play a videogame, you just had to turn on the console, put a game and play.

 

I remember when a videogame console was a videogame console and not a device that tried to do things I don’t require.

 

I remember when multiplayer was done by inviting your friends over.

 

I remember enjoying a game not for the graphics or the gimmicks, but because they were fun and captivated my imagination.

 

I remember all that. Those are now memories I treasure, because all that has disappeared.

 

With the Xbox One Announcement and all that implies, I think it’s official. I’m too old for this shit.

I said the same thing once. Then came the Wii. “Oh!” I squealed. “Someone made a game console FOR ME!” Then I realized people like myself were the great quiet majority.

I have faith in gamers. Every time someone puts out a console with big airy notions, gamers give them a lesson in reality. This lesson may come immediately or within time. But it will come.

My dark days were a couple of generations ago where *every* video game had to be 3d. I used to think that gaming has passed me by, that I was too old, and gaming wasn’t for me anymore. But the reality was that I was a member of a large under-served market who would be having another day in the sun.

Nintendo has always saw gamers as ‘savvy customers’. In other words, they aren’t idiots. If they were, there wouldn’t have been a 1983 crash, and PS3 would have risen to heaven. I only fear the hardcore who are entirely manipulated by marketing. I despise FPS games on consoles because of the crappy controls. But the hardcore think it is the ‘cool’ way to play because that is what the commercials said. The result is no more FPS games made for PC.

But even I question whether the Xbox One’s removal of game ownership is too much… even for the hardcore gamer. If the hardcore gamers buy the Xbox One, they deserve their future of being gaming serfs.