Gaming by GlossGreen

Two days ago I finally bought an Xbox 360. I had been thinking about picking one up for quite a while, but like many, I had my reservations. Obviously, I don't have any reservations now and I bought an Elite on Monday. I went to the store by myself, chose the game I wanted, paid for it and went home. After I got home I let my daughter see what I bought thinking that she'd be excited to have a new system in the house. Boy was I wrong. Before I even had a chance to open the box my sweet, innocent, and carefree daughter was criticizing my decision to pick one up. OK, I've dealt with fanboys on the internet before. I usually respond by spouting logic and then ignoring them, kinda hard to do in this case.

See, here's the thing. I think this is all my fault. No, I'm not a Sony fanboy myself, although for the past several years the only systems I've owned have been of the Sony variety. In 2002 I bought a PS2 for myself. At the same time I bought a Game Boy Advance for my daughter. She was 5 or 6 at the time and not really into videogames as much as she is now. She would watch me play and pick up a controller every once in a while herself, but she didn't really have the skills to have fun gaming. A few years back all that changed.

Starting in 2006 things became different. My daughter was getting more and more active in playing games and more demanding to have more time to play. It got to be so bad that she would try to take the controller out of my hands, not that that actually worked. I finally gave in and sent my PS2 to the dark and dangerous region of the house known as "her room". After that, my daughter's interest in gaming went through the roof. She, like me, would spend hours playing games. She would play games like, Spyro, The Sims, and Kingdom Hearts all day and love it. Last year she kept bugging me to get games like Okami and Psychonauts for her, she knows creativity and quality in games when she sees it. And that trend continued up to a few months ago when I got my PS3.

Now, my daughter hasn't had the interest for the PS3 as much as she has for the old system (which miraculously still works after 6 years). Sure, she enjoys games like Uncharted, but of course, the PS3 resides in the living room and under my control, unlike her PS2. How is this teaching her bias against other systems? Remember, I said I bought her a Game Boy Advance right? Well, she never had any interest in that. We never had an Xbox (until now) or any Nintendo systems in the house during her lifetime. Sega systems are just as unknown to her. So she is biased on the basis of not having experienced anything else.

I don't have anything against Microsoft. Really, I don't. I just never thought too much of the original Xbox. And with the RRoD crisis I really didn't think too highly of the 360 either. This never stopped me from believing that both systems had great games though, the hardware just never impressed me. I think it was this attitude that my daughter has latched on to and adopted as her own. This attitude was laid bare when my wife asked me why I had to own all the systems in the current generation and how the 360 was different from the PS3. Before I had a chance to answer my daughter blurts out that the PS3 is better then the 360 in every way. She went on to criticize the game box saying that she couldn't even stand to look at the color. At that point I managed to get a word in edgewise and try to air my opinion of the 360. I explained to my wife that the games are different. Each system has exclusive games that I can't get for the other and that is why I had to buy both. This seemed to satisfy my wife, but I don't know if my daughter understood.

See, I have to teach her the way of the true gamer. It's not about the hardware and it never should have been. It's all about the games. The hardware is just a means to play great software, and the software is what it's all about. Next month or so (after my funds are replenished) I may pick up a game or two for the 360 that'll interest her. Maybe Halo would be a good choice. After all, blowing something up on the PS3 is just like blowing something up on the 360, it's all fun.