Well, it’s about damn time that this article series comes to some kind of conclusion because it feels like I milked it, but at least I gave y’all the in-depth look on a cultural movement that has existed for nearly 50 years, but now it’s the opinion part of this entire massive article series.
Console wars have been an idea since January and now has finally reached its current endpoint now on the cusp of the ninth generation of consoles, and basically, over three months of coverage of this entire journey starting from 1972 to now in 2020, and while this year has been for lack of a better term, a literal nightmare has given the current circumstances, a question that a lot of people have wondered as the Eighth Generation rolled on was this: do console wars even matter anymore?
The short answer would be no, but you guys know I need to dissect why it’s no.
Gaming got it’s true boom in the late 80s, and while the 80s were the same year that nearly crippled gaming to the point of near bankruptcy, gaming has always thrived on what will be the next big thing to drive gaming to keep getting better and better, and this was very evident in the Bit Wars as it was competition central as game companies shot out some of their best and worst games out into the market to keep the market thriving. And let’s not forget that arcades were MASSIVE in the 90s, and gaming was basically a counterculture movement that was mostly swarmed with the now modern day Millennials and a handful of the late Gen X people, the 90s defined gaming at its absolute peak, because the best of the best happened during this time, and while the 2000’s can’t be overshadowed at all, the whole concept of two companies going at each other because of what games they had that were better, is what made people love gaming in the 90s and the 2000’s.
But look at what modern gaming is today: barely any exclusives, the specs are mostly the same, consoles play the same games, and the only differences are graphical improvements, which even then it’s very minimal differences. Something that the modern day console wars have been lacking is that “wow” factor that didn’t exist for almost the entirety of the Eighth Generation, and it wasn’t until Nintendo belted out the Switch to give us that wow factor that was missing for at that point, four whole years, and I’ll be 100%, but when the PS4 and Xbox One were revealed at E3 2013, I was so underwhelmed that it took me until 2017 to actually buy a PS4, because they weren’t interesting anymore. Console Wars has slowly shifted from Xbox vs PlayStation vs Nintendo to Consoles vs PC, and this has been the harsh reality that most people are coming to realize. Not only that, if you look at the specs and performance of the next gen consoles to come out in November: the Xbox Series X and the PS5, their specs were meant to rival PC gaming in a more graphical standpoint, which is something in my opinion, shouldn’t happen.
Consoles and PC’s are two entirely different worlds from one another, because most people can afford a console, while most can’t afford a PC. Consoles original intention was to bring the arcade to your home, and PC’s were generally meant to be the undisputed heavyweights of games, being graphically powerful, able to handle a lot of RAM usage and just generally more reliable when it game to running games or multitasking. Gaming on both platforms work completely differently, and there’s no way that consoles could ever overthrow PC when it comes to gaming, especially during these times where you can make powerful PC’s that are lower than $1,000 and run games far better than a console ever could. It’s basically a very David vs Goliath story with the way gaming is going during the modern day. The only difference being, that we are now at a never ending stalemate with Consoles vs PC, and it doesn’t seem like either is gonna push forward to try and topple one another. It’s been a bit of a conundrum as the generation winds down and the next one begins, because it has seem that the appeal of consoles have been slowly dwindling because of PC’s being more and more cheaper with a lot of power behind it graphically, it’s been seen as the console killer for quite a few years now, and it’s becoming increasingly popular as millions of people continuously play on PC compared to several hundred thousands on Xbox, PS or on the Switch, and gaming already went through a minor crash when the Eighth Generation was underway and while it has recovered, it’s only a matter of time until the next major crash happens. And as time has gone on, the gap has begun to be bridged together to have cross platform play across-the-board with consoles and PC. So it shouldn’t matter who’s side you wanna rep, whether it be Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo or the PC, because at the end of the day, as Dean Ernie Calhoun from VGHS would say, “It’s all about the game.”
Console Wars has honestly been fun to write about in the past four months, as we all went deep diving on the history of the entire video game industry that’s been alive for nearly 50 years, and I’m glad that you reading this, yes you, have taken the time of day to sit down and read this long journey from 1972 all the way to 2020. This isn’t the end for Console Wars, as we have a little bit of time until the Eighth Generation comes to its final conclusion, and only then, will Console Wars become a generational reoccurrence. It’s been a fun four months working on this, and I’m glad that you all have enjoyed this trip back in time, all the way to the modern day.
Thank you for reading.
