Today's Gaming Industry.

Can anyone ever recall the good old days of the game system? Way back
when it was just your everyday console, filled with gaming goodness. Pure gaming
is what it was, basically. Many a great system was developed for this exact purpose.
Most of us can recall the days of the NES. Hits like the Super Mario Bros. series,
and other classics swept our nation. On the SNES, we had Super Mario World, Star
Fox, Mario Kart, and other great games. On the flip side for Nintendo, we also had
SEGA's baby, the SEGA Genesis. The games here earned SEGA a perfect rivalry
with Nintendo, and thus began the long drawn out battle of the Console Wars..
Yes, the Console Wars... Seems like a never-ending battle, doesn't it? In more
recent years, the Wars have been 'fought' by pieces such as the Sony Playstation, the
PS2, the Microsoft Xbox, a nice try by the SEGA Dreamcast, and, of course, the good
ol' Nintendo Gamecube. So far, the top runners in the Wars are Sony, Nintendo, and
Microsoft. First off, you have Sony. While you mostly saw this brand name on normal
electronic devices, this company soon unvieled a game system of their own, and just
spiraled from there. PS1 and PS2 both were great systems with great games. Both
had CD playing capabilities, and even could be used for DVDs. A handy system, of
course. Next, you have Nintendo. Starting out in the late 1800s as a card company,
Nintendo's been around for over a century. In the many decades that passed,
Nintendo came up with their own Next-Gen system, the GCN. This baby had a fine
display of graphics, an easy controller, and numorous amounts of Nintendo favorites
ready for play. Then you have Microsoft. Technically, they were already a game
company before the release of the Xbox, what with computer games and all. But, in
terms of reality, Micro was all about the computer software, which eventually led to the
creation of the Xbox, a system with nice graphics, original games, and a rather, um,
creative controller.
Yes, and that's not all. You also must count the recent wave of handheld console
wars! Nintendo's been busy with this section as of late. First, the Game Boy Advance,
then the GBA SP, and now, the Nintendo DS (Which, hard to believe, is not the next GB).
The DS, with its Dual Screen attachment and touch-screen feature, is a very nifty system,
Also being able to play GBA games as well, it is quite the handheld. Then you have Sony,
who released the PSP, which is more like a computer than an actual game system. You
now have the ability to play games, download music onto it, save images and videos,
etc, etc. That all seems a little much for a VIDEO GAME system.
Now, recall what I mentioned at the beginning; Remember the days when the
game systems were all about the games, nothing else? In this day and age, times have
been rapidly changing. it appears as though as the newest rage of gaming can not be
complete without the attachment of some computer-like function, such as saving images
or playing a DVD. What happened to the old days when having a game system meant
you had one purpose; to play the game, and the game only? If you want to have many
other functions, then you obviously do not want a game system. Go out and buy yourself
a computer for those extra attachments.
What happened to the days where Mario trumped Bowser, where Eggman invented
for world domination against the blue hero, where Crash and Cortex duked it out, and
where our Final Fantasies never stayed final? Now it's all turning into the computer industry,
and setting the stage for so Hollywood DVD, never about the games anymore...
Now, hopefully this short article will be of some informative importance. It had
better be, I typed all this at 4:00 A.M. I hope you enjoy this article, as I will make another
one soon. Got any opinions on the matter of the modern-day game system? Discuss it
in the forums! Okay, I'm done now, You may return to your normal lives and await any
further rants. Ciao! ~ Lone Shadow