There’s a hip-hop artist named Curtis Jackson who is
essentially a one-album wonder, but unlike the Montell Jordan’s and Right Said
Fred’s of the world, no one would associate Curtis with fleeting fame. You see
although Curtis parlayed his mixtape fame into a record deal with Aftermath, a
classic rap album, and a brand that spawned clothing, flavored water, and video
games, his follow up efforts revealed there wasn’t much depth. In a brilliant
move Curtis decided to manufacture a rivalry with Kanye West (pre Kan-dashian
saga) in order to piggyback off the latter’s polarizing popularity. The
publicity stunt worked and the artist known as 50 cent, while he didn’t outsell
Yeezy, succeeded in selling 691,000 the last time his sales would ever reach this
peak.
The name of the money making game is #Team because getting
humans to jump on board as if they belong to a group/club/click/movement makes
them feel special. The secret formula is that you have to have an opposition to battle. 50 Cent was the gangster and Kanye was the metrosexual weirdo, if you brought Curtis you were a G too, if you brought Kanye you were an outcast. In the end most people brought both and the two of them toasted in secret. Steve Jobs figured out years ago that even though Apple was
priced more than it’s competitors as long as they could sell a fan base on the
movement that the Apple logo represented—Think Different, they could always rely
on their customers to recruit other customers. If you dared to own a Windows PC, you
weren’t thinking different you were just like the rest of the sheep, and no one
wants to be a sheep so kick out that $1200 and get used to no left clicks
bahhhh. Again, it’s a mob mentality that essentially makes your customers bully
other consumers for not being a part of that movement. This strategy is
repeated everywhere, in music it was Biggie Vs Pac, Nirvana Vs Pearl Jam,
Britney Vs Xtina. In Wrestling it was WCW vs WWF. In comics it will always be
DC Vs. Marvel. And as fans of these things it was the job of one Team to wave the
flag for their brand and try to make those who are non-believers fall in line.
100’s of thousands of iPhone users who don’t own Apple stock are still “Team
iPhone” and openly promote the device for free. It’s marketing genius! Which
leads us to the latest instance of followers thinking they’re leaders—Xbox One
Vs PlayStation 4.
Sites like IGN and even Forbes, have seen recorded site hits
thanks to stirring the Next Gen War pot. Similar to Vibe magazine selling out
issues of East Vs West rap feud covers, the gaming websites have purposely trolled
the gamer community in order to get
fanboys so worked up that they had to pick a side. I’ve scrolled through
the comments on IGN and other random sites that don’t normally cover gaming and I
was both entertained and shocked by the level of “Xbone” versus “PSBrick” smack
talk. One guy even insulted some dudes mother with rape because he dared to say
that he’s going to switch teams to Microsoft. Another douche bag felt the need
to try to “poverty guilt” Sony fanboys for choosing a cheaper system, making being
financially sound into a metaphor for being dirt poor. Again, it’s all
bullying. In the end, it’s pointless because no one on these boards or
standing in line for those systems are being paid by Sony or Microsoft.
However, Sony and Microsoft are both thankful that those idiots are sipping the
Kool-Aid and increasing their bottom line with this bully buying.
Both of these systems sold over a million units the first
24hrs—that’s one day. That’s $399 million for Sony and $499 million for
Microsoft without tacking on a joystick or game. There is NO LOSER. Wait, there
is one loser, that’s the fan boys who still take to the sites making up fake
stories of red lines of death or Xbox eating disc drives. Even after they’ve
chosen their systems, they won’t let this beef go; they will not stop until the
other side admits that they are subpar and obviously, that’s not going to
happen.
Some people say wait another few years and then we’ll
declare a winner. Really? Did we ever declare a winner of the last war? The
only thing we established is that Nintendo just won’t die. The PS3 got
slaughtered by the Xbox360 despite the red ring of death and lack of blu-ray.
Who cares! Sales have nearly evened out and games like Last of Us, make you forget that PS3 technically lost that battle.
There is no losers when it comes to Sony and Microsoft because there will
always be diehard fan boys willing to argue in defense of the other.
DRM restrictions, constant internet connectivity, true 1080p, the average American
doesn’t care about any of this stuff, but it’s all gamer nerds talk about. I was
in Gamestop in Maryland, and I saw the most white trash woman (no offense but the
b*tch was Anna Nicole Smith before the old guy saved her from the strip club, level trash) attempt to buy her son an Xbox360 and grabbed a handful of PlayStation games.
The clerk snickered his nerdy snicker like he was channeling Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory and informed Redneck
Rachel that those games don’t work on the system. And at that moment I
realized America doesn’t know sh*t about video games. There is no Gamepro or
Electronic Gaming Monthly informing the average player what’s going on, the
only thing they care about is Call of Duty lets them get with their friends and
shoot sh*t and Grand Theft Auto allows you to car jack and smash hoes. They can’t
tell you what chip is in their game system nor do they care because that's not F**king cool.
The winner this Christmas will be PS3 bundles and Xbox360
discount consoles because in this economy people are going to buy what they can
afford, not what has a Jaguar chip or what can record The Walking Dead with the
sound of your voice. The true hardcore gamers they made their mind up at E3,
and they were in line at midnight to buy their respective console. They will
continue to fight the good fight for the next four years, seeing every new
exclusive or new factory defect as proof that their #Team is superior, but for
the rest of the world it’ll be business as usual.
I can sit here and say that the PS4 is a powerful gaming
system and that as a pure gamer how dare you even contemplate blowing money on
some ugly black 720p limited box that comes with some stupid device that’s
always listening. I can switch sides and put on my Xbox hot and say that who the hell would be
dumb enough to blow $400 on a machine that just plays pretty games when they
can get that and more for another $100, that’s like buying a chrome book
because you like surfing the net when your cheap azz could get a real laptop
that does everything. But I don’t care what someone blows their money on, it’s
not like politics where your vote is going to directly effect my lively hood. At
the end of the day, they both are going to play video games, they both are
going to play movies, they both are going to let you put on a headset and talk
sh*t to your friends, and they both are going to have bugs that make you want to throw it out the window mid game. One will do a little more this and that than the other,
and that’s where the real consumer will decide what’s worth their money.
To those of you who have to shove your opinion of which
system is better than the other, there’s another outlet for your fanaticism, It’s
called professional sports where you can openly root for teams that actually
win and lose. You’re wasting your breath, and troll insults, trying to bully
fellow gamers into wanting what you want.
Xbox, off…
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