The End of an Era: Hardcore Gaming

When I was 5 years old, my mother bought my Nintendo Game Boy with assortment of 10-11 games in addition to the already included, instant classic Tetris. My mind was immediately put into overdrive.  Here I had, (what I at the time), thought was the most advance portable gaming system on the planet.  I didn't have to share with friends. I didn't have to share with any siblings. (My only sibling was almost 18 years older than me with one child at the time.) I didn't have to worry about being made fun of because I didn't have a system; I had a system and it was one to call my own.  It was from that moment on that my love, my passion, my absolute sincerely appreciation of video games began.

Fast forward some years later-1996 to be exact-I still cherished my Game Boy and all of its bland stock gray color and bulkiness accentuated by the necessity of four AA batteries required to play even for a fraction.  It accompanied me on every road trip, on every errand that Mom or Dad had to run, even when I was sure I wasn't going to play it was there; along with the economy size of AA batteries to make sure I never missed an instant of Super Mario World or Donkey Kong.  However, by this time, I had delineated my time to other, more advanced systems: Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, PlayStation. Afterwards, PlayStation 2 Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, then PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii.  With each passing console generation I felt my bond with the gaming community strengthened to a point where the integrity of the games/consoles meant more than just being content with a graphical update.

 
Such is the dilemma that many will face with this upcoming 8th console generation.  As technology progresses, so does our use for it.  That being said, where a console's original purpose was to play video game software, it is now expected to do the aforementioned along with playing various forms of optical media (CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray), connect to multiple cable outlets, and have a constant, reliable connection to the internet.   Sony and Microsoft both acknowledged that they have new consoles in production due this coming holiday season. And while both succeeded in amassing enormous amounts of attention (namely via social media sites like Twitter) towards their new systems, they both failed to capitalize on the needs of the audience that helped propel them to gaming greatness: hardcore gamers.

This genre of gamer has one requirement: absolutely excellent quality of the games they play.  They are the group who will stand in line for a midnight release of "Call of Duty" and run through a good portion of a 24-pack of Mountain Dew during that feverish first night of learning spawns points.  They are the select few who will complete a game only to complete it again to uncover any glitches or points where improvements could have been made.  They are the group who does not care for any mass produced novelty gaming accessory (i.e. Wii tennis racket), but rather crave innovation in the purest of forms; they desire a gaming world an immense as The Elder Scrolls or any Grand Theft Auto series and with a story as compelling as Miyamoto's The Legend of Zelda or Kojima's Metal Gear Solid series.

At the time of this writing, Sony has yet to even display their latest console, but has given much detail as to what it can do.  Conversely, Microsoft has shown the Xbox One to the world, but it has been met with severe backlash, ridicule, and overall disappointment from industry analysts and hardcore and casual gamers alike.  From the generic (backdated) naming of the system, lack of emphasis on gaming, "banning" of used games, to the sneaky "implementation" of always-on DRM, the Xbox One has failed to create a direct path to the pockets of gamers everywhere as they so illustriously did with 2005's Xbox 360  release. 

To be fair, I will give Microsoft credit; they are slowly trying to establish a form of horizontal integration that spans beyond their current gaming ecosystem. Taking a page from Nintendo's book, by targeting a specific genre of gamer-the casual gamer-Microsoft decided that it will go one step further by not only capitalizing on that type of gamer but also people who rarely play games at all. This was a fatal error. Look at past Microsoft products (i.e. Surface), it’s easy to see that the marketing department in Redmond continues to jump the gun.  Like the Surface wavering over whether it wanted to be a tablet or a minimized laptop-(that dared using Windows 8 at that; which is still very unsure of its own true identity)-the Xbox One alienated hardcore gamers by destroying their outlet to legitimate gaming by focusing on multimedia and trying to be the center of your entertainment domain. 

While noble in gesture, this may prove catastrophic to the Xbox name.  Even if Microsoft's latest console does sell moderately well, the resentment that the gaming community will harbor towards them will linger for generations to come. Don't believe me?  Ask those Blackberry executives how business is doing.