I am going to try an experiment with this next generation. Currently, I am the owner of an XBox 360, a PS3, a Wii, and a WiiU.
My limited game time is spread among all the consoles which results in rarely finishing a game. Regardless, it's nice to be console agnostic with the option of purchasing the exclusives and cross platform titles on the console of my choice. Still, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of games that I already have.
So my experiment is to see if I can be a content gamer while still owning a single console (and a PC). I realize that there's already gamers around that do this with the XBox 360 or the PS3. However, I plan to do this exclusively with the WiiU. For anyone who's been reading any articles related to Nintendo, one would think that I would choose a 'safer' platform instead of Nintendo.
Other than already owning the WiiU, I do have a couple of other reasons. The first is that both the next XBox and the PS4 will have the x86 architecture. While I know that all games will not be cross platform, I believe the ones that are will also be available on the PC. I think the success of the PC will rely on the acceptance of the Steam Box, the popularity of the new controller schemes, and how they map to PC controls.
The second reason is that I am convinced that we have already hit a plateau of how much graphics emphasize the quality of the game. Will games on the next XBox and PS4 look fantastic? Yes, of course they will. Will all the games be awesome exclusively because of the graphics? No. I think many gamers are putting too much emphasis on the specs of the new machines and many forget what makes a game fun. Graphics are nice, but it will not make a good game. Also, I feel that the upcoming consoles will just re-iterate popular games, like CoD, again.
If there's anything new that excites me, I have yet to see it. Even if the increased specifications of the next machines allow for better gameplay or more computations for AI, I speculate that many of those resources will be for smoother graphics. Honestly, that's a wasted opportunity and I sincerely hope that I'm wrong. Maybe Bungie's new game, Destiny, will entice me which is not designated to appear on either the WiiU or the PC.
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| Bungie's Destiny |
Last, I don't have much time for games anymore and I am curious if Nintendo and third party developers can deliver enough good games to keep me occupied. I don't finish many of the games that I already own and the reason is because of the combination of the amount of games owned in relation to the amount of game time that I have. Once I purchase a new game, my time is temporarily devoted to it until the next hyped game releases. With only a single console, then maybe I have a chance of finishing at least some of them.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how long this "WiiU" experiment lasts.
