SpawnPoint - Where Game Begins

From Toys to Home Entertainment

Gaming’s humble beginnings were pure, unadulterated experiences. When you popped in Mario Bros. on NES back in 85’ you sat down to simply play Mario Bros, nothing more, nothing less. Nowadays, things are a bit different.

I turn on my Xbox 360 and I find myself on a dashboard where I have access to Netflix where I can stream movies, I can listen to music from my computer wirelessly, I can browse Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all seamlessly through Xbox Live. My 360 acts as a hub for entertainment, and when I turn it on I can’t help but feel completely integrated within this network of social connectivity, and media being force-fed down my throat.

Which gets me thinking: Boy has gaming changed.

None of the aforementioned is a bad thing either. This isn’t some representation of inner angst against these changes, in fact, I don’t think I’d ever want to go back to the simplicity of most old-school devices, but I can’t help but share some worries I have about this double-edged sword called home entertainment.

Videogames always stand on the cusp of cutting-edge technology and innovation. Whenever technology will permit, gaming takes a step forward. This is all starts with computers naturally since consoles are really just simplified operating systems. Whenever there are advances in processing power, graphical power, etc. there is a follow-up to this advancement with a new console to take advantage of the technology. I feel these statements are logical enough to avoid contest, and if I’m right then I fear for the future.

Before I get ahead of myself, we must realize that videogames, just like any business, revolves around dollar signs. So optimizing a console to offer more to buyers, besides just playing videogames, is a straight-forward sales strategy. This was first made clear to me when the PS2 was able to play DVD’s. Sony was able to offer a DVD player to watch movies, as well as a gaming console. This was the first step into really broadening the demographic for console owners, the first step into shaping the console so that it universally contours to anyone’s needs in a living room.        

So like I stated before, I turn on my 360 and I can access an obscene wealth of content, and the features that I can take advantage of through this one device appears to be endless. The scary part is that it is only 2011, and sometimes I try to imagine life before the internet, before videogames, before glowing boxes, and it’s difficult. Humanities dependency on technology has been gawked at for a while now, and each day we dig a deeper hole for ourselves. I wonder if we will ever obtain a balance, or a measure of time to healthily allocate towards how long you can spend in front of glowing screens.

With each generation of gaming, I see how consoles are expanded to cover more uncharted territories of home entertainment. My worst fear is that there will come a time where there isn’t a reason to leave the four walls you’re sitting between.

It’s almost funny that this was all written by an avid videogame enthusiast on a glowing screen.