The phenomenon of fanboysm has always been a reality in the consoles/games world since the times of Spectrum vs Commodore 64.
We then had Amiga vs Atari, Nintendo vs Sega and Nintendo vs Sony and now it's the time of Sony vs Microsoft with Nintendo somehow on a different level.
Fanboysm is a term with a derogatory nuance in my perception (at least nowadays). When you tell someone that s/he is a fanboy (or fangirl!) you're not really making a compliment, you're not just recognizing them as supporters or fan of something.
I've been called a fanboy once (yeah, fangirl is not yet a "common" world) because I was trying to show the good side of a PS3 to a XBOX360 fanboy (well, he started our conversation with such a sentence: "the XBOX360 is a great machine while the PS3 sucks" so that's what I define a fanboy and what I perceive the term stands for).
While having preferences is obviously a natural and good thing (the world is great because it's varied): everyone has got their tastes, their experiences, their memory linked to special moments and objects; people should also try to have an objective view over subjects and recognize the good and bad aspects of everything/everyone even though they like or dislike it on a general level.
Personally I both have a 360 and a PS3 and my console of choice is PS3 for various reasons.
That said though, for example, I tend to think that Sony sucks as far as marketing is concerned while I really appreciate the fact that MS delivers the same games, same add-ons, same data and services and so on worldwide at the same time (no exclusive content or bundles for Japan or USA or Europe only and so on or at least not so much as Sony does - will EU and USA ever see a white PS3?!?).
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What I find really idiot about today Sony vs Microsoft fanboysm (that is PS3 vs XBOX360 since no one seems interested into "insulting" the PS2 or the PSP) is not the enthusiasm or appreciation for one part but
the hatred for the opposite part.
Too many times I've read messages, posts or signatures of people stating they would like to see Sony/Sony PS3 to fail. Of course similar messages can also be found on the other side of the fence although Sony PS3 hatred seems a much more rife phenomenon.
Well, obviously these people (hopefully kids even though such hatred from kids would be a painful thing) don't even realize that there are hundreds of families that live on such projects (developers, clerks, manufacturers and so on) and that we should all wish companies to thrive in today's troubled economy rather than the opposite but they probably see the thing more like a navy-battle game rather than something that would have a serious impact on the lives of hundreds of people.
From a pure gamer point of view though what it's really stupid is to not understand that:
competition is good for any market. Furthemore
Competition is NEEDED on every market because it brings innovation, advancement, investments,
development and so on.
Just think about the PC market: while THERE IS competition on the hardware level (think about the AMD vs Intel or GeForce vs ATI duos for example) there is no true competition on the OS one. If there was a REAL alternative to Windows I'm sure it would be a far better and advanced system (if there was no Firefox would the latest IE be so advanced and include so many features?).
That works for the console/game market as well.
Moreover the successful innovations/ideas introduced by one competitor are usually "copied" by the other part, sometimes with improvements (see achievements/trophies), thus generating general improvements and development.
Just to "play/speculate on the subject":
If there was no 360:
- PS3 would probably have been released with even more delay
- we would have much less games (Microsoft has a large budget to invest)
- we wouldn't have the trophy system (because the 360 introduced it with the achievements)
- Sony would probably have kept an higher price for longer
- the list goes on...
if there was no PS3:
- there would be much less innovation in the field (by and large Sony IS a company that brings innovation and PS3 is no exception, perhaps even too much innovative :))
- there would be less games (Sony invests a lot too)
- there would be less innovation on games (think about Little Big Planet or Killzone, both rely on PS3 powerful hardware)
- 360 price would probably be higher (just think about the Wii, it's got no really completition on the casual market and Nintendo does not need to cut the price).
- the list goes on...
On the other hand I'm not saying that people should not complain about things not working or that could be improved, that's fair and it's also fine to point out something done better by the competitors (see the online service from MS at the beginning or console reliability from Sony) so that companies will have to equal the competitor.
We should just try to remain polite and respectful and base our comments and complaints on facts presented in meaningful way.
My conclusion is that
as gamers we should support (at least figuratively)
every company (be them manufacturers or game developers)
playing in the market/field because competition is GOOD for the end-user and the failure of any of the parts would really bring nothing good to us as videogames enthusiasts.
Spend less time flaming and more time gaming!Greets,
Ivy
