Since the dawn of home console video games, there has always been war. Bitter rivals competing head to head for your living room space. There were minor skirmishes early on, with Atari vs Commodore, and the NES stomped the Sega Master System into the ground. The first real war erupted when the Super Nintendo went head-to-head with the Sega Genesis, and it was bloody. Lines were drawn. Friendships destroyed. Controllers broken. Blast processing overhyped. In the end, the Genesis held on and fought the good fight, but the SNES eventually won. Since then, every generation has had its console wars. The past few years have mostly seen Sony and Microsoft in an embittered Cold War, with Nintendo ineffectually waggling its sticks around at them, menacingly.
The problem is that we as gamers and consumers never really had options. A console is a long term investment, a heavy chunk of change that would last you 5-7 years. You could pick a side and become a raving fanboy (or girl), you could save up your money and buy multiple consoles, or you could just opt out, build a gaming rig, and become a PC gamer. Either way, there was nothing in between. There were very few alternatives to the mainstream, and those we had either flopped pathetically, or just became short-lived beloved oddities (We love you and miss you, Sega Dreamcast). Even these oddities were an expensive investment. We never had anything cheaper, smaller, or more convenient.
Until now.
The problem is that we as gamers and consumers never really had options. A console is a long term investment, a heavy chunk of change that would last you 5-7 years. You could pick a side and become a raving fanboy (or girl), you could save up your money and buy multiple consoles, or you could just opt out, build a gaming rig, and become a PC gamer. Either way, there was nothing in between. There were very few alternatives to the mainstream, and those we had either flopped pathetically, or just became short-lived beloved oddities (We love you and miss you, Sega Dreamcast). Even these oddities were an expensive investment. We never had anything cheaper, smaller, or more convenient.
Until now.
