By now you must know who the winner of the next-gen console war is, but allow me to take you on an adventure for how it played out for me today. Keep in mind that this is not in chronological order and from memory of my thoughts at the time.
It was an ordinary Monday, I woke up showered and took a few minutes to glance through the top Reddit posts of the day. There was all the usual posts.. NSA this, cats that, scumbag Stacy seems to be popular lately and, oh… Fable 3 is free for Xbox Live Gold Members? Right, E3 is today… could be a glitch though, oh well. I haven’t had Xbox Live in a while now and I already own it. Off to work I go.
It’s a typical busy Monday at the help desk. All websites with the word “game” or “gaming” are blocked so my news trickles in via twitter and the few links that actually open via mobile with the crappy signal I get indoors. Microsoft has already announced a lot that I wasn’t too happy with but I did once love my Xbox and maybe I can get past all the bullshit restrictions. I really don’t know what Sony is going to do so if it’s all the same and there’s no price difference I guess I’m left choosing the lesser of two evils. Quantum Break looks pretty cool> OH! 2 free games a month with Xbox Live Gold? Awesome, I guess I’ll sign back up soon. There’s Ryse! I won that 2 years ago! I wonder if I’ll get it now. (I asked, no response yet). And there’s the price… $499… I guess that was to be expected. It was at this point that I told my co-worker, a big Xbox fan that it’s $100 too much for me. Knowing it was too much I checked in with Amazon and asked about their cancellation policy to make sure I wouldn’t get charged right away and pre-ordered. Just in case it was cheapest of the two I wanted to make sure I was locked in until I could talk myself out of it later.
Fast forward a bit and EA announces Star Wars Battlefront 3. I am so happy about this. I never got to play the others with real people and always wanted to. There’s Battlefield 4, I don’t care about the specifics I’ll play it anyway.
Then several hours pass where I’m not really interested in what’s being said, or nothing was really going on. I can’t remember which but I was really getting excited about the PS3 announcements. When I got home from work I thought for sure that my internet was down. PC, no connection, Xbox Live, no connection, PS3, no connection! Dude… WTF… not, today. Not only will I miss the info in real-time but my wife has finals due! Wait… my phone is connected. I disconnected and reconnected the router and all was well. Still a couple of hours to go though. Finally it was 9pm and my PC was doing its laggy video thing, whatever. I’ll just watch twitter.
So I’m watching my twitter feed, refreshing repeatedly seeing nothing but good stuff. Then the reveal… oops… matte and glossy. Looks like two high school enemies came to the party wearing the same dress. I wonder if there’s going to be a fight. Then the fists started flying. No check ins, no DRM, supports used games, indie devs are welcome, BUNGIE long-term exclusive agreement! Microsoft is taking a beating and there’s no ref to step in and call the match. Then Sony goes in for the kill with the $399 price point. My wife agrees based on the Bungie agreement and used games support alone that Xbox is dONE. I of course cancel the pre-order of the Xbox One and pre-order the PS4. The difference here is I fully intend on getting and keeping it.
Microsoft, I love what you’ve done for computers up to Windows Vista and I still love Office. You served me well from Halo: CE through Halo 4. I still have my original Xbox and am on my 3rd 360 but I feel your time is coming to an end. You’ve become the crazy controlling girlfriend/boyfriend that watches every move and nobody wants that.
Sony, I never should have left you.
IDEKWTF 