Reading 04: Console Gaming

I did not have a lot of background in console gaming when I was researching this topic. My family was a little late to the console gaming party so our one and only console that we own is an Xbox 360. But rooming with Nick Carroll for a couple of years opened my eyes to the fact that console gaming is a passion for many gamers and that owning multiple types of consoles provides breadth in the type of games you can play. In the early days of console gaming there were cartridges that could be ported to fit on different systems. Now the disks and downloads for current consoles are restricted for specific make and model. This forces consumers to make a choice of which console they invest the $250+ dollars in. Googling around I found an article on Polygon that broke down the top five reasons owners of different consoles purchased them. Between Playstation, Xbox, and WiiU there was no answer in the top five that was the same across the board. Condensing the lists into three main criteria the reasons consumers purchase certain consoles are their innovative features, exclusive game content, and their Fun-Factor.

Buyers in the Xbox category listed innovative features as the number two reason. This is no surprise when the Xbox boasts 4k streaming and 6 teraflops of graphical processing power. Gaming consoles have always competed on specs. The SEGA line "Genesis does what Nintendon't!" comes to mind when these specification battles occur. It's reasonable for the consumer to want a product that performs better than the competition. No one wants to buy a saw with less teeth on the blade. The only caveat here is when does the increase in capability go outside the scope of experience. Would I be able to notice the performance difference between a console that can do 5 teraflops versus 6 teraflops? The consumer normally has to rely on reviews from third party sources like IGN, Reddit, and Game Informer.

Exclusive game content is also a comparative advantage in the economy of the video game industry. PlayStation has a higher calibre set of exclusive game content coming out this year than its main competitor Xbox. The President of Gaming for Microsoft said in a press conference that they need to acquire more compelling exclusive content to stay relevant in the gaming industry. A simple example is the MLB video game franchise. It is exclusively developed for Playstation. If you're favorite games are baseball oriented you are not going to purchase an Xbox because it is not available on that platform. Exclusive server networks also play a factor. My friends were always torn between Xbox and Playstation when it came to deciding what network to play Call of Duty on. If only there was a way to pay to play against players on different servers.

The one factor you don't see listed in the top five that interested me was cost, but shopping around you realize that most consoles are within a fifty dollar range of each other and when the prices are already 200 plus that seems to be less significant in the grand scheme of things. The competitiveness of the environment makes it good for the consumer.

Game reviews:

This game was a fun memory puzzle where you had to put bits of clues gathered at various locale around the world. It had a consistent set of actions for each location and a nice piece of information to build the story wherever you stopped off. I lost my mission because I got in a rut by traveling to far off places and getting no information. I think this is a pretty clever text based game similar to Oregon Trail.