The Allure of Console Gaming
The last console that I got genuinely excited about and subsequently purchased was the Sega Dreamcast. That was back in 1999 when it became available for European customers. Prior to this I had owned the NES, SNES and Sega Mega Drive (as the Genesis was known outside of the NA). I upgraded the latter with the SEGA CD and 32X addons. But I never got round to buying a Sony Playstation. However, a good friend of mine had one, so between us we had access to all the latest games across multiple systems. Therefore I can say wholeheartedly that console gaming was my platform of choice throughout the mid eighties up to the late nineties. Furthermore, due to my age (I was born in 1967), I wasn’t a child during my 15 year period of console gaming. I was employed and had an income, so could keep up with the latest releases and indulge in “novelty” peripherals such as the light gun for the SNES or the “maracas” for the Dreamcast.
However, in 1994 I got my first PC. A Compaq ProLinea 4/33. The processor was an Intel 486DX running at 33mhz. It was primarily used for producing a fanzine and similar DTP work but it could run Doom after adding a sound card and a CD-ROM drive. A year later, after increasing the memory to 16MB RAM, the PC was running Windows 95 and Quake. By the time 1999 rolled around, I was on my third PC and beginning to move away from console gaming. The two major games that shifted my focus to the PC were Star Trek Academy and the original Unreal Tournament. Although I loved the Dreamcast, especially games such as Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi and Virtua Fighter 3tb, there was a decline in available content. Also the internet was now a major factor and had an impact upon my gaming choices. Unreal Tournament could be played online against multiple players. Quake III on the Dreamcast could be played via the integral modem with only 4 other players.
Hence by the start of the new millennium, I moved exclusively to PC gaming. As a result I’ve never owned any iteration of either the Xbox or Playstation. Yet since 2000 there have been several occasions where I have seriously considered buying one of these. Often that decision has been driven by an exclusive title that wasn’t available for the PC. Later the idea of being able to play games and DVDs on one device based in the lounge, rather than on a PC in another room was enticing. However, the later change in media formats, IE HD-DVD and Blu-ray, curtailed such ideas. But the biggest hurdle to returning to console gaming has always been having to use a game controller. It’s an odd situation because in the past I’ve always successfully managed to use gamepads. I think the introduction of thumbsticks has been the main obstacle. When playing a game, I can move in one direction while aiming in another perfectly well when using a keyboard and mouse. However, I find doing the same with two thumbsticks counterintuitive.
As the launch of the next generations of consoles comes ever closer, once again I have perused the press releases, watched the various promotional videos and tried to read between the lines of the various reports from the gaming press. As ever, some of the exclusive game titles are intriguing and have piqued my interest. But my enthusiasm is immediately tempered when I reflect upon the versatility of my current PC along with it’s upgradability, compared to a console. A Playstation or Xbox, however well specified, is still a platform dedicated to one task. Therefore, I cannot really justify purchasing either next generation devices. There may be some “wiggle room” regarding the Nintendo Switch though. It’s portable and offers a somewhat different catalogue of games. Plus I have fond memories of playing Super Mario Kart on the SNES back in the nineties. So I guess I’m in the same boat as fellow blogger Syp over at Bio Break. I have “no dogs in this console contest” as well. For the present, I’ll stick with PC gaming while regarding the latest next generation consoles with a degree of envy, regardless of whether it’s misplaced.
