(Which is odd, because if anything, I'm part of the PC gaming master race, but I digress.)
It's not hard to see why console fanboys happen. Personally, part of this is due to their high tag. For most people, and especially for younger teens, you are only going to get the one console. Hell, the new Xbox One costs nearly as much as a rent cheque. So the one you get better be the best one, damn it. Today, with a greater emphasis on online gaming (the cynic in me says this might be due to local multiplayer only involves you buying one copy of the game, online multiplayer requires several) if you want to play the same game together, you need not just the game but the same console. So if you're not matching up with your friends, you suck.
It doesn't help that us gamers are a traditionally immature, insecure, juvenille bunch. Nuh-uh! You are the one who sucks? Playstation? More like GAYstation? Whu? You bought an Xbox from MicroSUCK? Etc. We like picking meaningless sides, then having a backlash, then a backlash-backlash, on so on until madness reigns.
I'm talking about this because recently, I have been seriously giving Microsoft some flak whilst singing Sony's praises. So am I a fanboy?
Well, ironically enough, I was an Xbox fanboy for the longest time, bar my childhood love for Nintendo. I found the Xbox's controller far more intutive, with better spaced analogues and better placed trigger buttons. The Xbox 360's controller mind, as the original had the heft and compactness of a microwave. Trying to use the Playstation's controller infuriated me, as having to constantly look down to find buttons ruined any sense of immersion. Also the Xbox had Mass Effect, back when it mattered.
Today, I don't see my support of Sony as a switch to being a Sony fanboy. While I may be more vicious in my denouncement of Microsoft than necessary, that's likely due to the fact the hashest critics are often the one's who loved it the most - everyone knows at least one preachy ex-smoker, for example. No, today my hate isn't garned over controller design, or arguing which system is technoligically inferior or has the better game selection, it's the policies that each company adheres to.
While the Xbox One has started to backtrack on some of it's most unpopular policies, that fact remains that these policies are still untested in the market. A little bit of me would of preferred the Xbox One to launch with it's draconian DRM policies intact and fail, and fail hard, than see it merely shelved. Most of me however is glad of the consumer victory we've had to change policy ahead of time, rather than risk what they wanted becoming the norm. For now, I am legitimately worried that once the user base of the Xbox One has built up, the temptation to force an update to turn everything back on will prove overwhelming. The fact remains, all promises and apologies aside - the physical hardware to perform the originally desired DRM is still there. Still be added to the Xbox One in construction. I don't accept a plead of a change of heart until that hardware is physically removed from the the Xbox One.
And the Xbox One still has policies I heartily dislike - the damn Kinect, for one. Few people I know would ever consider flailing around with big sweeping arm movements to be more useful than tapping a button, and ever fewer people I know have the sheer space necessary to use the accursed thing. And the sinister 'always listening' gives me shivers. Microsoft can attempt to reassure me all they like - they're asking me to put a camera that they control where I live pointing at me at all times. Yeah. That's going to concern me, and no matter how you swing it, that's going to creep me the utter fuck out. I want a product that was built for the consumer in mind, not designed to balance 'corporate interests.'
The Xbox One is no longer a mere rival in a console war. It's turned into playing politics. How. Fucking. Fun. Where do you want to see gaming a medium, go? Because Microsoft do not look like trustworthy gatekeepers. I mean, how do you get to the situation where I want to buy a PS4 on launch, just to show a gesture of support towards a company that made a stance of not changing their stance? Come one, that's bloody insane. You should be buying a gaming entertainment device for it's games, not because you're using your money to tick a vote for a era when buying a game means you actually fucking own that game.
It's been sneaky, little steps for a while now, of Day One DLC, and online passes, and Always On DRM and whoops! No, I mean, it's an MMO now, of publishers creating a product that sell to own while retaining full ownership rights. We admittedly have a similar deal with some music right now - see iTunes terms and conditions and their sodding restrictions - but iTunes has multiple competitors on the market to prevent major cockdickery. On a console, you are locked into a walled purchase scheme. No competition. You're buggered, mate. Hell, even PCs, with their lack of used game market, has multiple competitors and flexibility of modding and fixes to keep a healthy competition going. Xbox Arcade has only Xbox Arcade to deal with.
Today, fanboyism is still running rampant. Sony has won the loyalty for now of quite a few die hards, and Microsoft has seen some people crawl out of the woodwork weeping and wailing that they get to own their games they buy, which I seriously don't get. I mean, Microsoft got caught clearly lying, for fuck's sake. 'Oh no, we have be online, as we're using cloud processing for key features,' was turned into, 'okay, fine, we'll just turn that shit off, nothing will change,' and people aren't mad at that, but upset Microsoft took that giant, barbed phallus out of their console? That's pure old fashion fanboyism right there, where you see the need to defend big, faceless companies who care not a rat shit for you. Yeah. They're giant faceless companies. They don't need lil' ol' you to fellate them.
They have PR for that.
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