I'd like to
talk to you about "Fanboyism" and the turbulence it seems to
sometimes cause in the gaming community. Competition is very useful because it is what drives both people and
corporations to innovate and be fair. While some organizations (I'm looking at you FCC) and corporations (I'm
also looking at you, every pharmaceutical and media company left) would just as
well like to see our antitrust laws disappear so that the conglomerates can
charge us whatever they want with as little quality control as they need. Fortunately for us, our government (with
exception to many of our most recent leaders) for the most part agrees that
fascism is bad and competition between many corporations is the best thing for
the common consumer. I find this message
to be most relevant to the games industry. Okay so there may only be three major players making game consoles right
now but that seems to be enough when you look at the innovations they have
brought to the industry.

I'm not
writing this to warn you of the dangers of monopolies or to bad-mouth the FCC,
PTC, and other d-bags of censorship (I have another blog for that), but to warn
you and tell all those self proclaimed fanboys that you need not take your
preferred console so seriously. While for us it's a game, for the people who
make and market these machines, it's a way to make lots of money. Corporations like Sony, Nintendo, and
Microsoft aren't your buddy they just want to please you enough that you'll
want to buy their machine over the others. There's no need for us (as consumers) to become emotionally invested in
them and their PR stunts. It's like when
(here in NYC) our public transportation workers went on strike. Both the Transit Workers Union and the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority were trying to get average New Yorkers to take a side
when neither were ever on our side, on the contrary, the MTA wants to suck just
enough money out of the public that we'll still pay while the TWU can do the
least amount of work necessary. It's
something that should be painfully obvious to anyone who's had to negotiate a
fare hike into their paycheck or has had a bus driver ignore them & blow
past while waiting in the snow.

I've found
many fan comments on many sites claiming one corporation's superiority over
another and it all seems like a rather large waste of time. Unless you're getting paid for it, you're
giving these guys free advertising. Bad
and sloppy, but free. Do you think for
one second that if you bought every playstation game and machine sony would
give you free advertising in any game for whatever product/service you'd come
up with? Of course not. Now I think one of the greatest things about
the internet is that it's given everybody a chance to give their opinion but
once you start blindly agreeing with whatever corporate line is fed to you,
you're no longer stating your own opinion, you're just spouting corporate
propaganda.

Of course
every company has it's own strengths, weaknesses, and high level corporate
d-bags who's job it is to tell everybody about their strengths, their
competitors' weaknesses, and why their weaknesses are really strengths. What most fanboys forget, is that it comes
down to your personal preference. I've
been playing games ever since I was a small child and my uncles let me play
with their Intellivision, Atari, and Coleco Vision. So, I've played every kind of game. I think this is why I tend to be more partial
to unusual games like Trauma Center or Katamari
Damacy. Of course I still play FPSs and
RTSs but usually only when it's really well made and I'm also especially
partial to the background material like the upcoming Dark Crusade expansion for
Dawn of War. As a long time fan of
Warhammer 40k, a typical RTS simply made to look like the grim darkness of the
future wouldn't do it, but as Dawn of war is a most exceptional RTS, I'm very
interested. That's responsible
"fanboyism."

I can
appreciate certain aspects of every console (I just love video games) but of
course every console also has it's conflicts with my personal preferences
too. Even if I did think of one
particular console as being perfect, I'd probably be the only one. I love playing the beautiful xbox(360) games
and they've done an excellent job with their (rather expensive for what it is)
on line service especially the XBLA games. However I find that many of their games are the same kinds of fps and
platformer type games you can get anywhere and they don't have very many of the
weirder Geometry Wars (which is cool but not even that innovative) type games
available. There's certainly no shortage
of weird games on the ps2 (and now the psp, I love rolling around Loco Rocos on
the psp and Katamaris on the ps2) but of course you're also taking chances with
them as expensive Sony hardware is notorious for breaking down and Sony
customer service is notorious about not giving a crap. While you can immolate some less expensive
(but less powerful) Nintendo hardware and it'll still work and they certainly
don't have any shortage of unique and trippy games: on the contrary, the
company mascot loves magic mushrooms more than I do, the big N does have a
shortage of the super violent games some of us have been waiting our whole
lives to play. You can't even get
Burnout Revenge for the Cube. So of
course no system is perfect but if you can afford every system, you can get the
best of all worlds. I'm not going to
suggest you do this, but you should look for whichever one has all of the bells
and whistles you feel are important for your gaming experience.

The same
goes for the handheld systems. Nowhere do "fanboys" seem more divided
than in the handheld arena. If your
looking for great graphics, bloodsplatter, and something that does more than
games, save up and go with the psp. If
you want weird innovative games on a smaller more affordable and durable
machine, go with the DS lite. I got both
and in all honesty I bring both of them with me when I travel but for my
everyday commute, I still use the GBAm the most. All three are great machines
but to marry yourself to one and shun the rest is depriving yourself of allot
of fun.

Even if
there was a "best video game machine" for every generation, people
would still buy the other ones anyway. Not out of any sort of misguided loyalty or stubborn need to prove
oneself right but just because someone will find the other games amusing. And THAT is the best reason to show
appreciation for a game: it entertains you.