A recent Penny Arcade sent me spiraling into a state of reminiscence before I had even finished the strip or read the associated blogs. I'm pretty sure I don't miss the diehard dedication and elitism of those days, but the sense of nostalgia stemming from those heated issues brings back some priceless memories.

Although I wasn't drafted in the great war between Sega and Nintendo in the early 90's, due to my parents refusal to buy a Super Nintendo (I had the NES already, and they couldn't tell the difference), I was a fairly active part of the Nintendo and Sony conflict of the mid to late 90's. My brother and I received an N64 for Christmas the year it was released and, because of our age, it would have taken us far too long to save up for a Playstation, Saturn/Genesis, or anything else. And even if we had, it would mean that we wouldn't have more than a handful of games for any of the systems. Since we'd grown up with Nintendo's classic first-party games, that was just unimaginable; we had to have each of the big first-party releases. So, we stuck to our guns and backed Nintendo.

In those days, we only had a dial-up internet connection, and without the resources online to filter and review games as they were released, all we had to judge what was worth dropping our precious coins on was Nintendo Power, a few cheat code sites (which would occasionally post reviews/scores), and our group of Nintendo loving friends. I've always assumed that these console wars were fueled by a lack of information more than anything else. Sure, everyone feels a sense of dedication to whatever system you have spent the money on, but it doesn't escalate today like it did then. We still have diehard fanboys/fangirls of the current systems who flame each other, post stupid blogs, and piss off their fellow forum members on a regular basis, but it is nowhere near as heated as it was with the Sega, Nintendo, or Sony conflicts.


I can think of three fistfights I got in as a kid based solely on gaming. The first were the result of a quip I made regarding a friends Genesis and how I'd rather play outside than play any more Sonic. It escalated quickly from there, and pretty soon we had fought, I had to walk home alone, and we didn't talk for quite a while. The second was due to a round of GoldenEye at a friends house across the street. We only had a few kids our age that lived nearby, and their parents bought them anything they wanted. The younger brother of one of the guys we liked hanging out with kept coming in last and I was probably being a smartass. He accused me of somehow cheating, I said something aparantly offensive enough to force him to grab a nearby hockey stick, which he started swinging at me. I somehow got it out of his hands and beat him senseless with the stupid thing... and wasn't allowed back at their house ever again. I'm pretty sure we never spoke again either, even though he lived across the street and went to the same schools as me. Anyway, the last one was due to accidentally pulling a friends PSone off the shelf. I tripped on the controller cord, the system fell, it scratched up his game, he got pissed off, I said something about a cartridge not being scratchable, and we had it out.

You rarely hear about kids fist-fighting because of an argument over the Wii, PS3, or 360. Hell, most arguments about them are even brief, childish, and halfhearted. Maybe it's because most of the games are multiplatform so they can pull in the biggest profit, thereby killing console loyalty. Maybe the wars can't sustain themselves with three major players on the field. Maybe it's because today's youth are a bunch of pansy's who care too much about the environment and humanitarianism than proving a point. Maybe parents are just way more overprotective or we're old enough that we just don't hear about these instances. Maybe it's because the marketing focuses on what their own console does best, rather than what the others do worse. Or maybe it's just because information is so easily accessible that we can throw together charts, informed blogs, and statistical evidence for which system and games get the best sales, reviews, and hype, thus quelling the anger before a conflict can break out.

Although each could obviously contribute to the lack of a diehard console war in this generation, I think that the multiplatform dedication from third-party developers and the insane amount of access to gaming information hold the most weight. Both make a lot of sense and there's nothing like facts to diffuse a loyalists (or fundamentalists) argument. Then again, maybe the war hasn't really died down, but merely changed its face, way of fighting, and its overall focus. If that's the case, the only logical place for it to be currently waging war is in the realm of casual gaming (rather than the core, where the battles have previously been waged). It is, after all, the casual arena where one group (Nintendo) holds the high ground, while the competition (Sony, Microsoft, etc), fight for what appears to be a lost cause.

In the past, whoever "lost" the fight either dropped out of the next generation, quit in the middle of the current generation, or would go on to make some pretty radical changes to their next console. If the same applies to the fight for the casual audience, maybe this version of the "console war" is just as important to the core-gamers than any of the other consoles war ever were.