With all the E3 commotion dying down, at least for a moment, I've been thinking a bit about what it is that makes a person actually want to buy a game machine at a fairly heavy cost. Barring the Wii, which I bought only slightly before the Wii U was announced, I haven't really owned a modern console for a long time. Thinking on it, the last time I had one that was really part of the current generation was probably during the GameCube's run, or possibly the PS2.
Ideally, I would want all the major consoles during any generation. I seem to be a bit of an aberration in that I like almost all games. I have a preference for particular genres, but most everything amuses me, setting the bar pretty low, or at least fairly wide, for games that I want to play. While I fully understand the reasoning behind exclusive titles, ever since the PSX I've felt like I've missed out on some sort of cultural phenomenon every time there's a decent game on a console I don't own. Unfortunately, prohibitive costs prevent me from owning three $300-$500 machines for the express purpose of playing games.
When it comes down to it, I'm cheap. I have an inordinately hard time spending money on myself, which makes it hard to justify spending so much money on a machine I won't use all the time. Because i have no particular need to own any current generation consoles but still want to play games that I haven't yet conquered, I do a lot of PC gaming. At some level, spending over $1000 on a computer seems much more reasonable to me.
Now, you may be wondering why I wouldn't just cough up $400 for a console rather than $1600 on the gaming computer whose parts I'm scavenging from NewEgg. While monetarily it may seem the wiser move, I'm under the impression that I, and most other people, use their computers quite a bit. Having a machine that can run multiple programs and be useful in both my productive and leisure endeavors is incredibly useful. I may be able to play some awesome games on the XBox, but I can't write an essay on it, nor can I do my programming from it.
Really, having a computer powerful enough to run a cadre of decent games is a convenient side effect of having a machine that can easily handle my daily computing needs. Since I've started buying my own consoles, I've had a hard time seeing why I should get a new console when I can run almost everything published up that that point on my computer hooked up to my TV via HDMI. Steam certainly doesn't make the decision to by a new console any easier. Given that a large number of the games I would want to play are usually ported to or from PC, I can snag them over Steam, and usually at a cheaper price than for a console due to their rotating sales.
I'm not necessarily advocating that everyone switch to PC gaming. Buying a machine that can easily crunch current games at their highest settings is rather expensive, and will need to be replaced within 6 years. If anything, that gap is getting shorter.
However, there just haven't been enough new games on any console to really keep my interest. It doesn't help that I also enjoy tight 2D platformers over many other genres, and developers for modern consoles don't think anyone is willing to buy them any longer. I continue to buy Nintendo consoles only because I love Zelda and there's usually a handful of other games I'm willing to get on the system over its life cycle.
Handhelds, though. I'm all over that. Except the Vita. Poor thing doesn't get any love.
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