I remember the days when it was just one system to fulfill all of our gaming needs, though there were a couple of alternatives just in case you wanted something different, because it just cost too much to get a PC worth gaming on.

For most of the mid- to late- 90s, we were engaged on the first PlayStation while a few deviated toward the N64 and perhaps the Saturn. Nobody seemed to care that the console looked like a cinderblock. For that and the rest of the decade, our handheld desires (get those thoughts out of your head) were plenty satisfied by the Game Boy. From the turn of the millennium up until a couple years ago, it was the PlayStation 2 - which I'd initially thought looked like an 80s VCR player - and the Game Boy Advance. The Dreamcast didn't fly, neither did things like the N-Gage and the Gizmondo. Through those years I never had a super-PC, so I was a PlayStation loyalist. But I didn't care, and I wasn't offended that others played alternative consoles. Sometimes I even relished the opportunity to go over to my friends' houses and play them too.

Things were great, when you knew that you didn't have to buy more than one console (saving you machine money) and you had all kinds of games to find for it. The advent of the "used" game retailer meant that you never really missed anything, and you could always find some aged gold for the price of tin Of course, it didn't mean that competition was stifled, since not only were there alternative systems, but competition between in-house and out-of-house game makers to make the best games for the system with the biggest audience kept quality up, producing such series as Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto, Pokémon, and so on.

Sometime around 2002, the XBox arrived on the scene. I figured, not a shaker really, it's really only got Halo. I was one of the many that still had dial-up, so Live was out of the picture and besides which, I could just go to the arcade if I wanted to compete with total strangers. The GameCube was around, but probably just for the few who liked their cute games, though I do miss the opportunity to help garnish my Pokemon game collection. Then the GBA evolved an extra screen. Fine. Before I knew it there were three different consoles that appear to fulfill three different needs, along with two different handhelds! And all this in just a span of nigh three or four years?! Where's the world going without me? The fact that all five are actually doing rather well in this short span of time (regardless of what the fanboys say) means that there's now competition not just for the market, but for the games they play, and drives quality up...though I might not say that for the 360's hardware. But that's another rant.

Unfortunately, while the games may have gotten better in quality, it's come at the expense of the community's behavior.

For the supposedly capital offense of siding with the PS3, I've had to take insults ranging from the generally directed toward the intellect to the racist to the homophobic to combinations of these three. Most of these were veiled by bits about the "technical specifications" or the "aesthetics" or the "game selection." But by outwardly declaring that not only is so-and-so console superior and the others inferior, but that I also deserve obscenities for saying otherwise, they are trying to attack my freedom to make an informed decision and buy one. No...that's not quite it. I also have the freedom to buy more than one system or maybe even all of them. Wait...not quite.

Unless my country turns Communist, the only thing that's really keeping me from living my gaming life the way I want to (loyalist as I am) is my lack of funds, and the lack of shelf and cabinet space. Words can hurt a person too if used properly, as it were.

Not only are these "Console Wars" harmful to the emotional and mental health of gamers, the fallout could also start to affect the young'uns who have probably gotten their first system - regardless of its label - and love it to bits...only to log on to gaming sites and have their minds tainted by the behavior of their "fellow" gamers worse than Jack Thompson says Grand Theft Auto could ever do. That's not counting the pressure they face to have the "in" system from their classmates and offline peers, in this age of high technology.

If this is what competition brings, I'd rather go back to the days of the PlayStation Decade, where it didn't matter what you played it on, as long as you played it and had fun. Of course, we can't turn back time, so me and my bros are chipping in a little bit every week to save up for a PS3, so we can just have fun and bring our friends over and have fun too. We've also got a wireless network at home...so we can jam on free multiplayer and download stuff to our PSPs. Is there anything wrong with that? If you're reading this, I'd love to hear an answer.

I feel like such an old codger writing this - especially at only 20! - but with what I've been through tangling with fanboys (more like fanatics) online, I've really started to feel that youth really is wasted on the young. Just watch the Angry German Kid if you want to know what I mean.

If these console wars continue worsening as they do...I might just go back to reading good novels and playing outside like the kiddies did back when I was younger. Perhaps it would be a refreshing sight to see Ayn Rand and H.G. Wells taking up the shelf space normally occupied by Need For Speed: Most Wanted.