Game On
Devout readers of this Blog will attest that what it lacks in focus ? it more than makes up in its share of run-on sentences. The way I figure, if I launch a large enough salvo of the 10-cent words while spraying you with a staccato of the forbidden fruit (grammatically speaking ? the aints and gottas and F-bombs and other such no-nos that just kicks your 8th Grade English Teacher right in the Dangling Participles) – I?ll knock you off your bearings and leave you completely oblivious to the honest truth that ‘I ain?t got much a no compelling diatribe going here, ayuh.’
Today?s Blog diverts a bit from form. Typically I try to stay away from spewing facts and figures at you. Partially, I find all that statistical confetti messy. Truthfully, I?m a lazy sack that lacks the energy to actually cross-check my facts. Still, every once in awhile, my radar fixes on a topic that I have some knowledge of and would like to share my thoughts ? knowing full well that I will need to pepper the narrative with examples to support my argument. Looks like this is going to be one of those days.
I?ve got to go on record and say that at the age of 32 ? with 33 having just completed it?s spin around the sun and on the fast track back to my coordinates here on Earth ? I am quite the avid video game player. It?s a holdover from my youth that try as I might ? I have yet to bid adieu.
‘You can have this controller? when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.’
When I get into one of those introspective moods ? where I spin around and survey the crops my life?s ambitions have sewn ? I start to think that maybe I should get serious and dispense with the child?s play. Yet, try as I might, I?m still drawn to the come-hither cathode-ray like Rosie O?Donnell to Krispy Kreme. (Nixing the Fat Jokes is #62 on the To-Do list but first I?ve got to learn to play the sitar (#28) and Body Double for Sipowicz (#41.)) Kicking that H addiction (no not Horse? Halo!!!) requires more than just 28 Days with Sandy Bullock.
Then ? like a gift from the heaven?s ? the beloved deux ex machina ? salvation arrives in the form of an Entertainment Weekly article.
Earlier this year, EW reported on the video game phenomenon. Not more than three paragraphs into their magnum opus, EW shared a startling statistic. The average age of video game players in the United States had climbed to 29. An average of 29. Wow!!! To get at that not only did you need a legion of pre-teen moppets getting their game on with Soul Calibur II ? you also needed some 40 and 50 year-olds to round out the bell curve. ‘Why back in our day we didn?t have these fancy consoles with their integrated ADI chip technology and 32,000 ghz of blast processing. We had one game ? Pong ? which was played by rolling a cue ball embedded in a 4-ton block of Giant Red Sequoia – why the very same pulp we used to panel our station wagons ? and that?s the way we liked it.’ Why, I was right where the target demographic wanted ? nay ? needed me.
I think the advancement in that average age makes sense. My generation was truly the generation to grow up with these things. Pong was released for consumer consumption, in the form of the Magnavox Odyssey system, in 1972 ? the year of my birth. That same year, Nolan Bushnell ? a former computer engineer ? opened the doors at Atari ? the first stage in the videogame revolution. The industry boomed and during the late 70?s most families either had an Atari or coveted those neighbors that did. Trouble and Mr. Mouth only got you so far. With freshly minted cartidges of River Raid and Gunslinger under your belt, you wrote your own ticket to success in suburbia. Granted Atari?s ill-fated decision to bankroll and manufacture millions of copies of a game based on ET: The Extra Terrestrial single-handedly put the videogame industry?s plans for world domination on hold for a few years. Released in a buggy and almost unplayable state, millions of copies of ET went unsold and now reside in a New Mexico landfill.
I?ll skip the rest of the history lesson. All you need to know is in 1985, Nintendo took the first tentative steps back into the U.S. market with their Nintendo Entertainment System. The climate at the time was so uncertain ? they packaged initial units with a ?robot? controller in the hopes of duping people into thinking it wasn?t a video game system but rather an interactive toy. People quickly dumped poor R.O.B. in favor of Koopa Troopers and Warp Zones.
Nintendo begat Sega Master System which evolved into the Sega Genesis which competed with the Super Nintendo which departed before the Sony Playstation which jockeyed with the Nintendo 64 which stepped aside for the Sega Dreamcast which bowed to the rise of the Sony Playstation 2 which now battles the Nintendo Gamecube and the Microsoft X-Box for market supremacy.
Excluding handhelds, the current climate sees the 3 systems jockeying for position yet surprisingly living in tentative harmony. The Gamecube, the once great Nintendo?s entry into the latest generation, is the system that almost fell by the wayside. Knocking on heaven?s door and feeding rumors that the company, rocked by weak hardware sales, was going to abandon that facet of the industry in favor of becoming a 3rd party software developer making games for all systems (thus echoing Sega?s recent business realignment), Nintendo slashed the retail price of the unit to a very attractive $99.00 in early Fall 2003. This stirred sales to such a degree that over the Thanksgiving holiday (a period marked by Black Friday ? so named because many businesses depend on this busy sales day to push their ink into the black) ? Nintendo reported selling over 500,000 units (besting both Microsoft and Sony during the same period.) The company remains a distant 3rd but the presses have been restarted and Nintendo should enjoy it?s niche as being the family-friendly unit.
Microsoft and Sony are the two super-powers ? but Cold War this is not. The two seem to have found a fine level of brinksmanship in which to cohabitate. In keeping each other on the edge of war, both sides thrive, but keep a wary eye on the other. Sony will maintain market superiority for a long time to come ? having cemented its reputation with the success of the PS1? and thus insuring a healthy base of ?installed units? of the PS2.
Regardless Microsoft has made some broad strides with its X-Box. On paper ? and in performance ? it is the dominant system. Boasting its own internal hard drive ? it negates the need for costly peripherals (memory cards, etc.) Also, it is online-ready right out of the box. With an inexpensive Ethernet cable and a credit card in hand, one can connect their box to Microsoft?s X-Box Live network and multiplay with the masses. The hard drive also allows for ripping of CD soundtracks ?which one can then substitute in-game music for . This development ? positioning the system as a gamer?s PC merged with MP3 player ? makes the system attractive to the more mature set.
I think this is where that average age makes sense. Gamers in their upper 20?s can afford to own both systems ? or all three systems. With Microsoft losing $100 on every unit sold (they make the money on software which is ultra-cheap to produce yet retails for a healthy $50 a pop) they keep the system at an affordable price. When the Atari 2600 came out in 1972 it retailed for $259.00. I?ll fudge the numbers, but that is probably equivalent to around $700 today. The Microsoft X-Box retails for $179.00 today. In 1972 you could have picked it up for approximately $40.00. Companies have learned that the profit is not in the hardware but in the software and have learned that unless you get the system in someone?s house, your market will never expand.
To close, in November 2002 Microsoft reported it?s Home and Entertainment division had posted a $177 million dollar loss ? largely based on the X-Box. It can afford these losses as their profits from Windows and Office products funnel the cash back in ? but it also points at the success they are having getting the unit installed. The greater the loss ? the greater the success.
Both Microsoft and Sony have announced preliminary stats on their next-generation hardware ? predicted to materialize in 2005 or 2006.
I?ll be there.
Sphere: Related Content