Consoles and pricing
Posted on March 04, 2002 @ 14:04 in Research
All my gaming so far has been on computers. A long time ago I had a MSX-1 homecomputer, then I upgraded to a MSX-2 and eventually bought one of the greatest computers ever, the Commodore Amiga. Then, when the Pentium came around, I switched to a PC and I've been gaming on my PC since. I have played on a console once, at a friend's place.
Then the other day, in an electronics superstore, I passed a humongous stack of PlayStation 2's. Priced at 299 euro (which roughly, stress roughly, compares to dollars). I felt my fingers twitch. Funny how a psychologically attractive price does work. When the PS2 appeared on the market the price rather was something like 500 euro. Quite a price drop. Also quite a difference with the newly released Microsoft X-Box, which is being priced at 460 euro and up. Plus, you have to buy some odds and ends seperately to hook the X-Box up to a SCART connection, etc. There are some interesting reviews and comparisons of the X-Box and the PS2 online (Anandtech.com and Tomshardware.com). Apart from the technical details, both reviews basically say that the X-Box does have the advantage of being the more advanced and future-oriented system of the two, but that the PS2 from a price and available software point of view doesn't score too bad either.
Well, I'm seriously contemplating whether to get one of those two consoles. Especially after reading Steven Poole's great book on videogames, Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames. (More on that book later, there are some reviews and interviews online here, here, here, here and here.) A console is a different kind of experience and, oh greedy me, I want some of that too. It's difficult to decide though, especially when there's still the PC that will play quite a few of the games that come out on consoles as well. Guess I better first wrap up my research proposal and then worry about playing in the interest of science...
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