Somewhere along the way a large section of gamers lost track of the fact that games are central to one's enjoyment of the hobby, with thier focus shifting instead to importance of the name attached to the box on which they play them. I've come to the conclusion that this is merely a by-product of every human-being's desire to be validated. In this case it's a desire to validate one's decision to purchase a given console as being the right one, which culminates in gamers aggressively defending their console of choice against any nay-sayers.

I believe that this conclusion is lent even more credibility by the existence of multiple consoles. You'll often find that your average gamer who engages in such activity often owns but a single console, and that they not only agressively defend their choice, but take it up a step and will engage in casting aspersions on the consoles they didn't buy. As I see it, they do this because belittling the consoles they didn't chose makes the choice they made seem all the more correct.

Now, I think this also comes down to a bit of envy as well, as it's often easier to deal with not being in a position to own something by making the item of interest seem less attractive to one's self. I have to admit that I found myself talking down the PS3 simply because it was well out of my price-range for so long. Now that I'm able to afford it, I find myself taking the time to look at it on its merits, rather than trying to convince myself that it's not worth owning.

So what I'm getting at here is that fanboyish behavior seems to be motivated by some pretty basic human urges. That doesn't make it any less annoying, but perhaps in understanding it we can start to move past it.

What do you guys think?