The Aging Gamer: The Console War is Stupid

In this weekly column series, I will talk about my gaming habits and how they have changed over the past twenty-some-odd years. I started my gaming career on the SNES and now I am twenty-eight years old. I mainly play on the PlayStation but dabble with some PC games from time to time. This week, I take a look at something that I have admittedly taken part in at one point but now, it’s just dumb.

Microsoft. Sony. Nintendo. Those names ring a bell? If you have played a game in the last two decades you will recognize them. Those three juggernaut companies are the three main players in today’s video game console space. Yes, Atari and Sega existed but they are dead and gone. Nowadays you either own a PlayStation, an Xbox or a Nintendo console to play your video games (or you own a PC and – let’s be honest – you’re already laughing at this article, but that’s fine we still love you). And for some reason, players really enjoy slamming each other over which console is better. Now, don’t get this confused with competition between the big three, that is healthy and benefits us gamers. What I’m talking about is this toxic “hey the Playstation is better, so suck it!” type of slamming.

I own a PlayStation 4 and I love it. It is my go-to console of choice. But I have also owned three Xbox 360s (stupid red ring of death) and multiple Game Boys and Game Boy Advances. While I am pretty much on the Sony boat in terms of hardware, I could care less about which console is better. Yes the PS4 has great exclusives, while the Switch has great indie titles and accessibility and the Xbox is sitting on some great IPs (and is snatching up some good studios). They all bring something to the table. The idea that players hate on other players is just ridiculous at this point. You love your Xbox One huh? That is great, don’t go harassing Switch players because they can’t play Halo 5. It is stupid and has no place in the community anymore.

It is hard to pinpoint any specific instances that I remember, but what I do recall are some smaller things that I have experienced over the course of owning a PS4. I constantly heard the argument that the specs behind the PS4 were trash and not worth the money. And for a while (before the Switch was released) I was always seeing and hearing about how if you owned a Nintendo console you were probably a child and not a real gamer. Again, I can’t point out anything specific but being active in the community for so long stuff like this is being said all the time.

We should be embracing that we all share a love of video games. The more divisive we are, the more these companies feed off of our division. Cross play between consoles is becoming more and more of an actual occurrence (most recently Rocket League allowed crossplay), so hopefully soon it won’t even matter what console you have, but just whether you have the game or not. And what would all this bickering back and forth about consoles have meant? Absolutely nothing.

At the end of the day, we are all gamers through and through. Don’t let some shiny box cut you off from potential friends and community. Yes, we need the big three to continue to innovate and compete against each other, but we as gamers need to stick together. Now, take your controller off the charger and let’s play some games.