Pie, I like pie!
It’s getting to that stage of the month that I dread, just a few days away will be the official release of the September console sales figures in the US. At the release of this news, every game site, blog and 2 bit hack will get themselves into a spin to syndicate and analyse the figures, a million articles of why Sony needs to cut the price of the PS3 and how Microsoft/Nintendo can own Christmas will be posted within 4 hours. In response, thousands or even millions of 14 year old boys will stop doing what 14 year old boys do and put their overworked wrists to work, hammering away at their keyboard with an ever more incomprehensible series of mildly offensive and derogatory internet slang. My question is, and really always has been, why the hell should you, me or anyone outside of the console makers give a damn?
I just can’t get that in my head. I have a PS3 under my TV and I love it like it is my first born but I don’t understand why anyone would be in anyway bothered by a statistic that last month X hundred thousand more were sold. Sure, if my friends buy a PS3 I am pleased as we can play together, share games and tips (try PixelJunk Eden, it is awesome) but why should anything beyond that matter.
The number one default defence for this kind of thing is that people say if sales figures for console X or Y then there is a better chance of great games coming to that console. This is true to an extent but even then surely the only people who need to see the figures are at EA, Activision and Capcom; you can talk about it as much as you want but you are still just a consumer and the decisions are made way higher up the food chain, often making little or no sense at all (Dead Rising on Wii, 300 being exclusive to PSP etc; feel free to think of your own bizarre platform choices). Joe Bloggs from Minneapolis (love that name, must visit one day) thinking it is good the 360 has outsold the PS3 2:1 means bugger all in the grand scheme and to think it does is not only deluded, its plain stupid!
I assume that at this point you are expecting me to go on a rant about fanboys, using an ever increasing series of big words to make me sound smart (I don’t use a dictionary, or a spell check, I am just this good) and to an extent you may be right. No-one can deny that the level of fanboy banter has skyrocketed this generation of consoles; though it can be argued that this is because in the past there has not been the venue for such rants to be heard. The simple point is that these figures serve no purpose to most gamers other than serving as a stick to beat others with, sadly something even the console makers have started gleefully indulging in to get their champions all riled up.
The point therefore is that sales figures, whether from ChartTrack, NDP or VGChartz have absolutely no relevance to gamers other than to encourage chest beating and generally idiotic behaviour. Play the games you want and enjoy them, do you really need to hear game/console X has sold x units to make you enjoy it more.
There may be a console war but it is between corporations. You are a gamer, not a foot soldier or a propaganda expert!
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