28 Seven to eight years have passed, and the seventh generation of gaming consoles is finally coming to a close. With the release of the Wii U last year and the PS4 last month, gamers can now place their seventh generation gaming machines in cardboard coffins and plastic resting places. Even though that the eighth generation is here to grace gamers with prettier graphics, slicker sleeker, and quicker interfaces, and features, the path to the eighth generation has been a road full of potholes and misplaced speed bumps. These difficulties have included, rumors of the PS4 and Xbox One implementing DRM restrictions (These turned out to be true) and the fact that these consoles are not backwards compatible. Even though the Wii U and Playstation 4 are in the hands of the public, their launches were accompanied by a few glitches. When the Wii U was launched on Nov. 18, 2012 its release was met with heavy criticism, such as the slow operating system (OS), lack of enticing games, and problems with bricking. The bricking issue has resulted from people unplugging the console because of the sluggish Day One Update which was necessary for access to certain features on the console. The console did not allow players to create bricks, but instead entered a state called autopilot mode so that it could finish updating. The problem with the Wii U is that, it does not use the full capability of a person's home internet when downloading games or updates. One could have the fastest internet in the world, but the Wii U still would not utilize its full potential. The issue of enticing games is always a subjective matter. Many of the games for the Wii U were ports of games that had come out weeks or months prior to its release. This turned many gamers off because those games were on the systems they already owned. Examples of these games were “Dark Siders II,” “Batman: Arkem City,” and, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” The Problem with the OS was that booting up application or games took up to fifteen seconds to half a minute, however thanks to the spring update booting up applications, games, and downloading updates is much faster when the OS was launched. There are still connection problems in certain applications, such as, the way you add friends to your friend list. In order to add a friend, you have to do it through Mii Verse, but you do not know if they accepted your friend request unless you check your list, which is a separate application from Mii Verse. Even though the Wii U has had a rough launch and a rough year, they have been improving the system little by little. People are somewhat upset that the console has not fulfilled all of its promises, but what they do not realize is that all of the things that were guaranteed were not meant for the first year. Some of those ideas were concepts or possibilities Rather than direct promise.
The Playstation 4 was released on Nov. 14 and was met with great enthusiasm. Consumers unboxed the console on video. I have never been able to understand the purpose of an unboxing video. It was also this way with the Wii U, and the Xbox One, which released on Friday the 22. Before I digress any further, the PS4 launch has had a few hiccups. There have been reports of consoles showing up dead on arrival. At one point the Amazon review scores were three out of five. There are those who came to hasty judgments thinking that some of those reviews were faked to persuade people into choosing the new Xbox over the PS4. Some of those bad reviews could have been faked, however, fake positive reviews could have been written to snuff out the bad reviews. Publishers and authors sometimes pay people to fake a good review for a book they are trying to sell. According to the “Huffington Post,” there is a sit called Fivers which allows for people to buy five star reviews for five dollars. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony compete in something called a Console War. It is a marketing scheme that these three companies use to sell more consoles. It has been like this since the 80s and 90s when Nintendo and Sega were going at it. Sega had a slogan that said, “Sega does What Nintendon't,” this quote is symbolic of the lighthearted nature of the console wars, however today people have taken it to a new level, which may or may not involve creating fake reviews to enlist people in war that does not exist. It has been reported by IGN and other gaming sites that the PS4 sold a million units within the first 24 hours. Could it be possible that Sony might have another PS2 on their hands, the PS2 being the highest selling system of all time? Or could it be that those million people were going to buy the PS4 regardless and once January rolls around, those numbers will rapidly decline like every console does during its first year? Let the waiting game commence. The Xbox one was released on Friday Nov. 22. Like the Wii U and the PS4, it has ran into a few problems, such as, broken disc loaders. The Xbox One launch came and went. I am sure the console sold out, but the enthusiasm did not seem as high as it did with the PS4. Amazon is almost sold out of the console at the writing of the is article. At this moment one could by an Xbox One for $1,090. Sometimes people will by two launch systems knowing that the companies may not reach demand and resell them at twice the price. The problem I have with both the Xbox one and the PS4 is that the majority of games I can already play on the previous generation of consoles. The graphics may not look as sharp and the animations as smooth, but I do not see the point of paying 4 to $500 on a console to play something I can get for my older systems/ Wii U.
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