The Politics in Gaming

Call me a little delayed or behind the times but when I first bought Minecraft for the Xbox 360 I was surprised about the cross platform feature. I thought it was innovative, and a genius idea, much like when you could have split screen online multiplayer, that too was an innovative idea. This led me to think if we can have split screen online multiplayer and cross platform gaming between Xbox and PC gamers, then why not make all games cross platform involving Sony’s Playstation? This has become a wasted opportunity between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and even with the release of the next generation there is still no evidence of any cross platform.

This I like to call the politics within the gaming industry. 

The market between the Xbox and the Playstation is so competitive that there is a clear division between gamers. When being asked if you are a gamer the follow up question tends to be “Which console?” Not considering what genre or style of games that the individual plays. The answer to this question will either lead to common ground or an intense argument of why the other console is better. If you say you play on both consoles, or on the Wii you are then just shoved away, as if your opinion doesn’t matter to the “war” between Playstation and Xbox. Sometimes it feels as though this so-called “war” between the two consoles has in fact taken away from what makes the consoles so good, the games. There are plenty of games that are so alike and yet there has never been a full scale, ongoing argument world-wide as to why one is better than the other. In fact I can only think of a select few games which came close to this...Playstation 2’s Ratchet and Clank versus Jak and Daxter, and possibly Elder Scrolls versus Fable at a push.

With the recent release of the next generation consoles I have seen the Xbox gamers become disheartened. This is because they feel as though they have been failed by Microsoft and Xbox and then feel obliged to buy the Playstation 4, as if they are being forced to change sides! Personally as a gamer that uses both consoles and enjoys what they both bring, I struggle to understand why there has to be conflict at all. Games released on a single console is just essentially halving your sales, there is no logic behind that. Games such as Gears of War and Uncharted would probably more talked about if you could have the option of buying them on either console, not just one. Think of the Call of Duty franchise, released on both Xbox and the Playstation it is one of the most talked about games every single year upcoming and after its release. Now think of the widely popular multiplayer feature, which tends to be more popular than the story itself. You are limited to just one console...Xbox or Playstation? Which comes back to my initial statement, if we could forget about the competitive market between the two consoles