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It was so pretty, red and glowing where it had been black and boring minutes before. So I reached up and touched it — the spiral element on the electric stove — and burned my hand badly.
You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.
But no. Some time later, at an electronics store circa 1993, I saw the 3DO gaming console. It was so pretty, playing music and slideshows where there had only been games before, so I reached out with my new credit card and bought it.
The total, including one game, came to almost $800. And little more than a year later, I was left with an unsupported platform. If i wanted to play any of the hot new games coming out, it meant shelling for a PC or a new console. So I got a library card and didn't play another game for four years.
Now I treat buying electronics — especially the kind that play video games — the same way I do stoves: with respect and a little fear.
With those lessons in mind, let's survey the available choices, as 2007 comes to a close, for video-game hardware.
Configure to your needs
To avoid getting burned again, I try not to get too attached to extra features that look good on paper. The new breed of consoles — the Nintendo Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 — offer various multimedia bells and whistles. The Wii ($279) and PS3 ($400 to $500, depending on hard-drive size) allow you to browse the Internet on TV screens using a wireless or wired broadband connection. The PS3 plays high-definition Blu-ray discs in addition to DVDs, and it allows you to rip and store music CDs and digital photographs.
There are various Xbox 360 configurations running up to $500, and there is a new entry-level model ($300) with no hard drive, which means no storing music or pictures. The 360 plays DVDs and there is an add-on drive for HD-DVDs that costs $200. And there are plans for a video download service — consumers in the United States have been downloading movies and TV shows for almost a year — but there is no word as to when that video marketplace will move north of the border.
But pay little attention to the bonuses and possibilities behind the curtain. My general principle is to buy a machine that matches my needs, beginning with the games I want to play: When I go a store, I definitely check out the software aisles first.
Variety and exclusivity matter
Many titles come out on multiple platforms — on consoles, portable devices and home computers of the Windows and Mac varieties — but each platform has its exclusives, games you can't play on anything else.
The Nintendo Wii, out for a year now and enjoying strong support from consumers and developers, has Super Mario Galaxy and many other kid-friendly adventures that emphasize group and family play with a new spin — innovative motion-sensing controllers. The Wii also handles GameCube discs and it has a virtual store where older games — some of them Nintendo classics, some of them not — can be downloaded.
The DS, Nintendo's dual-screen portable ($140), is about the size of a calculator and has a long list of Mushroom Kingdom favourites, including a new Legend of Zelda, The Phantom Hourglass and a few games that might appeal to older players, such as the Brain Age series. For first-time game players of all ages, the DS is a good place to start.
Sony's PlayStation 3, released the same week as the Wii, is the only place to find Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and many other series that got their start on previous PlayStations. Most games for the PlayStation 2, which is still selling briskly seven years after its debut at a price point of $120, work on the PS3, and the new unit features the online PlayStation Store for downloadable fare.
Some of those downloaded games can be transferred to the PlayStation Portable ($200), a handheld that went through a redesign this year. The PSP is primarily aimed at teens and older gamers looking for driving and action-adventure games on the go, and it supplies basic web browsing, video and music options.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, enjoying its second year on the market with a price range between $300 and $450, has Halo 3 and Mass Effect, two highly touted science-fiction titles, among its exclusives. It will play a select list of games made for the first Xbox, and it has an online marketplace where less expensive, simpler games can be found, including a wide array of arcade favourites.
The home computer is the place to turn for massively multiplayer online role-playing experiences such as World of Warcraft and Tabula Rasa, and many strategy games. Most "Games for Windows" exclusives, such as the much-anticipated Crysis, can be found on a cutting edge that is difficult to keep up with — minimum system requirements that ratchet upward, expensively, every six months. But the past few years has also seen the rapid growth of catch-all download sites, such as PopCap, GameTap and Valve's Steam service, where casual games and translated console titles can be accessed as part of a monthly subscription or at reduced rates.
Each has their challenges
Mac gaming is enjoying a resurgence of its own — Electronic Arts is bringing several new games to Apple's operating system around the same time as other platforms this fall — but it still gets most games months or even a year after they make their debut on other systems.
The good news with all these platforms is that none of them give me the 3DO chills. Sony, it's true, is in a spot of bother as it struggles to make the transition from the wildly successful PS2 to the swanky PS3, but price cuts, games like Little Big Planet and services such as Home, a 3-D social-gaming portal, will almost surely make 2008 a better year for the PS3 than 2007 has been. A lot of people will get back on this bandwagon when the games are there for them to play.
Microsoft, for its part, has experienced reliability problems with the Xbox 360, but it has made moves to improve its service and warranty programs and it has also attempted to broaden its age appeal with children's franchises such as Viva Pinata and Naruto.
The Wii has a surfeit of cartoony mini-games and, like the DS, terrible tie-ins for every children's entertainment property with a pulse, but the new year will add a balance-board peripheral and lower-body workouts to its eclectic mix. And PC gaming may be getting squeezed at the top end, but there are more choices out there for a wide variety of users.
In short, it's not going to be a generation where one hardware option wins, which is what some developers and players might have been hoping for, but this holiday season it pays to look on the bright side: the odds of getting burned — stuck with a high-tech doorstop or forced to make that long, sad trip to the attic with outpaced electronics — are considerably lower than they were a generation ago.
