No, not today. Their time shall come. On this day, I ask of you one thing. Today, we shall spare a thought for a sole demographic who are left largely unchecked by the masses. I am, of course, referring to gadget freaks.
We all know one. A friend, a business partner, a family member. An acquaintance who will rid themselves of old and obsolete technologies with nary a farewell in preparation for the technological Second Coming of Robojesus himself in the form of a Tamagotchi that's also a water ski or something. Then they'll take their newly acquired masturbatory aid and nonchalantly extract it from their pockets when surrounded by their gibbering friends. "Wow!", they'll say! "You're an bellend of Everest-sized proportions!", they'll think!
While I'm on the subject, by the way, if you don't personally know an example of a tech-geek, then you're probably swiping through this on an iPad with one hand, and masturbating with all your might with the other. Like, masturbating violently. To the point of blood and screaming.
I bring this up for a reason. When I was browsing through the annals of comments in YouTube's mammoth library of vloggers, I came across a trailer for Valve's hugely anticipated FPS mind-bender Portal 2. Flicking through pages of various console praise and dismissal, I came across one comment that caught my attention:
"If Valve says the PS3 version will be the definitive console version, who are we to deny their claim? After all, this is coming straight from the developer. Must hurt being a 360 fanboy these days with nothing but Halo and sub-HD timed exclusives to play."
I took a moment after reading that to clean up the half a pizza that I just hurled across the room in anger. Sub-HD. "ARRRRRGH", I recall saying. It got me thinking. Full 1080p HD. Face detection cameras. Five blades. Voice control.
Does anybody actually care?
Does slightly crisper looking text on your 600" LCD 3D LED C-3P0 KKK monolith actually improve you gaming experience? Did the pitiful number of blades on razors past actually cause you so much discomfort and dissatisfaction that you ecstatically jizzed everywhere when the world beating idea of a five-bladed razor was first announced? Perhaps I'm just old fashioned, but seeing as the world was perfectly happy with the PlayStation 2's limited technology and gave many many children some delightful memories, I'd say realistic renderings of an 8ft tall supersoldier isn't going to raise my enjoyment levels too much.
Perhaps I'm just biased. I'm a 360 fan, myself. But that's not to say I think that Microsoft's gaming machine is the best. I don't believe in "best" when it comes to consoles. And anybody who has ever tried to genuinely defend a console without proper, hard facts needs to go and have a long hard think about what they've done. I bought an Xbox 360 because it suited my needs best. I was fully aware that the PlayStation 3 had much better specs, but I just didn't need them. In the same way that if I see a normal fork next to a Pot Noodle rotating fork, I'll probably take the normal fork because it's cheaper and a rotating arrangement of noodle-entangling wonderment won't significantly contribute to my enjoyment of my meal.
I think the problem is marketing. Envision this scenario: a company establishes itself, and it goes through a period of technological investigation, discovering the miracles that can be performed nowadays. It markets it's products, with genuinely helpful and useful technology. Then, after the CEO has had his bowl-full of pretentiousness and has washed it down with some cool, refreshing ego boost, he realises that the masses who hang on his every word for news about the next product will gladly accept the tons of bullshit that the company shoves down their throat. And boom. You get adverts on television that are basically along the lines of, "LOOK, LOOK AT OUR NEW RAZOR IT HAS FIVE BLADES THIS IS BETTER THAN OTHER RAZORS DON'T ASK US WHY JUST BUY IT YOU CYNICAL CUNTS WE WOULD NEVER LEAD YOU ASTRAY".
On a semi-related topic, you may have seen adverts going around for the new Xbox 360. I was quick to point out to my disinterested friends that it looked similar to a PlayStation 3. One week on, and I have just punched myself in the jaw for not thinking things through enough. As it would turn out, logic ≠ copying. YouTube is filled with comments right now about Microsoft copying off of Sony with their new console, all posted without taking the time to not make themselves look like idiots.
- Built in WiFi! Logic, not copying. Built in WiFi means you don't have to trip over ethernet cables that are lying around your house, like passive-aggressive electronic snakes.
- Touch-sensitive controls! Again, logic, not copying. Touch-sensitive controls means less moving parts, thus less parts to get embedded in your skull when the thing eventually breaks down into tears and explosions.
- Black console! This is neither copying nor logic. Black is quite a popular colour, as you may have noticed. What with the original Xbox being black. And the Xbox 360 Elite. With this logic, we could say that the PlayStation 3 is copying off of Spider-man for stealing his font.
- Whisper-quiet console! This is the stupidest of them all. A whiny, eardrum-perforating console was not a selling point of the original Xbox 360. If you honestly think that, despite having the technology, Microsoft would keep their console as loud as an angry, deaf tractor for the sake of corporate identity, then your gene pool needs cleaning out.
