State of the Industry

This being the first entry for "Talon's Take," I thought I'd lay out for you something like a "State of the Industry Address." Let me tell you, for once, it's a pleasure. There truly has never been a better time to be a gamer. I say this for a number of reasons, but first, lets endulge our nostalgic tendancies a bit and go back to the days or yore for a moment. Let's go back to the days when Mario was king of the universe and Sonic the Hedgehog was a usurper. Remember those days? We had a number of consoles to choose from back then, not unlike today. Street Fighter raged on the Super Nintendo system. Sonic tore through his tunnels on the Sega Genesis console. The original Nintendo wasn't SO outdated as not to be played (after all, we still had MegaMan). There were rumors flying about all new, mega-powerful systems from both of these two gaming industry giants. The Gameboy existed, but not many wanted to pay the asking price for a clunky hand-held with 2 dots-per-square-inch graphics (I mean, come on. We did that in the 80's). PC gaming was still rudimentary at best, and who needed Atari-look-alike PC games when you had Super Tecmo Bowl or Mortal Combat. The life of a gamer was simple. You had a Super NES or you had a Sega. You had Black, or you had White. If you were more fortunate than most, you had both. Life was grand then, wasn't it? So we thought. The bliss was not to be long lived.

Out came the N64 and the Dreamcast, to slug it out for the crown of sole survivor of the gaming world. Center ring was occupied by a life and death struggle between a little boy in green tights weilding a small sword, who just wanted to rescue a princess named Zelda, up against a blue rodent with very little backup. In the end, its all about who you know, right Link? With so many solid titles behind the astounding Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, such as Goldeneye and many others, Dreamcast didn't stand a chance. Down went Sonic, forever banished to Saturday morning cartoons, and it was over. Nintendo reigned supreme. Until we looked around and saw that while we were distracted with the main event, Sega had pulled a fast one and release a new handheld that put Gameboy to shame.

The Sega Game Gear was a success overnight. Nintendo found itself playing catch up, making the Gameboy sleaker, brighter, and making better games by the day. PC gaming snuck into the arena with some nice breakthroughs in RAM and processor capabilities, as well as with the introduction of CD-ROMs. Rumors again appeared on the horizon, this time heralding a new challenger. Sony would soon make their way into the ring, taking on all who stood in their way. What had been, only months before, a clear cut choice for the average gamer, with Nintendo the clear winner in the slugfest, was now a flurry of chaos with more systems than any one gamer could handle. Each system unique with strengths and weaknesses, the gamer was forced with too many choices, and too many compromises. Which games did we want? Which platform? It was great for the industry, but not so fun for the gamer.

Over the last ten years, much has changed, and much has stayed the same. We still have today, more systems than anyone can get a grasp of with the depth that a real gamer would like. With Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's Playstation 2, Nintendo's struggling Gamecube, PC's that get bigger and faster everyday, Gameboy Advance and Gameboy Color, the options you have are unlike anything we've ever seen. And of course there are already rumors of new systems coming to destroy the world as we know it. So why is it better this time around? Because finally, the game makers have wisened up and grasped the fact that we don't WANT to be confined to any one system because of one game title. There are now VERY few titles that are restricted to one platform. Gone are the days of having to buy a whole system JUST so you can play a new game coming out. If you see a game coming out solely on the Xbox, chances are you will see a release for PC or the PS2 right behind it. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but overall, the world is a much better place now.

On top of the newfound freedom in system-choosing, we now have more mainstream media covering the gaming world developments than ever before. More magazines, more websites, more television shows are focused on the gaming industry than ever. Now we even have our own gaming network with introduction of G4TV (check it out at www.G4tv.com). Can it get any better than this? Time shall tell, but for now... Life is grand.