I enjoy playing The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario and Mario Kart

I enjoy playing Pokemon and Professor Layton

I enjoy playing Halo and Fable and Gears of War

I enjoy playing Uncharted and Rachet and Clank and LittleBigPlanet.

What do all these games have in common?

They're all exclusives.

This week the Xbox One was announced so I guess we're about ready for generation 8 to take it's tee shot. As I expected the comments section of anything related to the launch of the console quickly degenerated into something that Gamespot UK is going to have a shit load of fun with in Feedbacula this week. I often wonder however, why Gamers get themselves into such a mess when it comes to new consoles. The biggest argument I normally see is that it's down to experience. Console A outputs better than B on paper or B offers a richer experience than A or hell I don't know I just like the colour of that one. 

It's ironic really. For anyone to claim that they only get one because its the better experience, when in fact you are limiting that experience by not expanding your views. It's just plain silly. I'm not saying that you have to buy them all at launch no one could afford that. Pick one and a little while down the line when the prices have dropped pick another. 

I also don't agree with Gamespot encouraging the rivalry between the two with this stupid twitter thing. It is not your place to do so leave that to the Big 3 so you can get on and concentrate on what really matters. 

The Games.

The games I listed above are all great games and such is the way they can only be played on one of consoles. It is the Games not the Consoles that provide the true experience which you all claim to value so much. At the end of the day the Console is just a box.

Microsoft will inevitably go too far they always do,

Sony will inevitably cock something up they always do,

Nintendo will inevitably put out an under powered console they always do.

But don't let that or anything else detract from your gaming experience.

I won't.

I don't usually write blog posts. Much less write an actual editorial and as such this is more likely to be a string of thoughts rather than a well rounded article but after todays news I have to ask, what the hell are we doing here? Why are we bothering to defend this industry in the face of what can only be describedas zealotry? Why do we need to defend this industry that all of us, developers, publishers, journalists, consumers, Gamers one and all love so much?

What has it done, what have we done, that requires defending?

The answer is a resounding, unequivocal, nothing.

Today the town of Southington, CT announced that it would be collecting and destroyingviolent video games for any and all that wished to participate in a bonfire of the vanities reproduction. This is a town that is just down the road from Newtown. I need not go into what happened there, the memories of the people killed do not need to be disrespected anymore than they already have. (That's right, NRA that's what you're doing.) I pray that this is an isolated incident but I know from experience and history that it won't be.

I once said said "We don't do witchhunts anymore for a reason." Well, how wrong was I?

What happened in Newtown has nothing to do with what the industry does nor what we as consumers do by playing these games. Sane, healthy people can compartmentalise between right and wrong. Is there therefore an issue when a unstable, unhealthy person acquires such a game and then does something catastrophic? I say the issue is not that the person was able to obtain the game. The issue is the person is mentally unstable and was able to obtain an automatic rifle. Let's face it pulling RT and the trigger of an automatic rifle are two very very different things.

In the UK in 1996 a man walked into a Primary School (4-12 year olds in Scotland) armed with two Browning HP 9mm Pistols and 2 Smith and Weston M19 .35 Magnum revolvers. He then proceeded to empty the contence of those weapons into two classrooms of 5 year olds. Killing 17 before killing himself. People in Scotland to this day mourn the loss of those children. But where did they direct their anger? Where they should have. The nutjob that committed the crime, the police for not doing more do prevent the crime and the gun industry. Not as some false target that the gun industry has decided to use as a shield.

So again I ask why do we bother to defend ourselves when any sane, healthy person can see that we're not the problem?

Why not ignore them?

Let's face it we're not going anywhere.