The Importance of Console Wars

Console wars are an unusual thing to me. So many years in gaming have been spent dividing people into camps based on their choice of console, and the conflict that happens as a result is so far over-the-top that it is comical to watch an internet forum as they debate the pros and cons of different black boxes that play games.

I used to struggle to see the reasoning behind console wars, but I do believe that a big part of why people are so emotionally heated over console choices is to do with buyer’s remorse; a feeling of negativity over spending a lot of money on a luxury product and the need to therefore justify the purchase to one’s self. Games consoles, with their prices frequently ranging in the plus-£200 bracket, are very expensive and difficult to justify as purchases. The need to reason with one’s self over such extravagant expenditure is probably one of the reasons why gamers become so emotionally-charged over their console; they are simply defending their choices, and given that so much money is seemingly at stake, it is understandable why such arguments occur.

Another reason why arguments occur is because gamers are unusually invested in one console over another. However, I don’t think that this investment is completely misguided; for example, if the PS4 absolutely destroyed the Xbox One in terms of sales and Microsoft decided as a result to completely discontinue support for their console, many gamers would be left with a useless black box with no official support that they have spent well over £200 to purchase.

But, I think that competition is a great thing in the games market, as in any other market. I appreciate that there are so many different brands involved in videogaming, from AMD and NVIDIA, to Xbox and PlayStation, this level of competition is good for the consumer, because it pushes these companies to do better. Competition, in general, means lower prices and better products.

This is why I think that the first console war that many gamers remember; that of SEGA Vs Nintendo, was so important to modern gaming. We, as a community, have much to thank Nintendo for, as they brought back consumer confidence in an industry thought dead and buried, and gifted us with many of the modern gamer tropes we see today. If you play a game, chances are that a Nintendo game influenced it somehow.

On the other hand, SEGA were seen as the dark horse of the 90’s, and had a goal of de-throning Nintendo from their position at the top of the gaming world. Many gamers recall a playground battle between SEGA kids and Nintendo kids, stemming mostly from which of the two consoles they got from their mothers. I didn’t experience such console animosity, but the 90’s were definitely the most iconic years for console wars.

What I think made SEGA so important to the story, however, was that they laid the foundations for consoles to come. Before the Mega Drive, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly over the console market. If you wanted to play video games, you either played on the PC (which has its own interesting history, especially in the UK), or you played Nintendo games. Then came the Mega Drive, and Sonic with it, and suddenly a console war began in earnest. Then after this came the PlayStation, and we all know how gaming history has gone on from there.

What I think that SEGA did that was so important, was show that somebody could challenge Nintendo. Suddenly, competing in the console market became viable. If Nintendo were the ones to bring back console gaming to the masses, SEGA were the ones that turned it into a true industry, with competing companies vying for consumer attention and dollars.

Console wars are very important, and while many gamers will shout at each other from across the Internet in flaming sessions of hatred over their choice of gaming black boxes, and many others will scoff at the former, the competition that is the reason behind all of this is very important to the industry. We should embrace how console wars have forced an arms race of sorts, meaning that companies are always trying to one-up each other and deliver the best entertainment possible in the hope that they will capture our hearts and earn dominance over gaming. We should also thank SEGA for their contribution in showing how viable it is to compete in a fledgling industry, and for shaping the modern gaming market that we know today.