[sc:entertainment-category ]I’ve been a gamer since a very young age, when my family had the first Atari 2600. Since then, I’ve always had the latest game console and currently I have both the 360 and PS3.
However the more I see of the next generation of game consoles the less interested I am in getting one. This isn’t entirely Microsoft or Sony’s fault per say, but they certainly aren’t helping either.
In reality, I don’t game all that much any more. The kinds of games that are available don’t interest me much and I have zero interest in online multiplayer. I became a gamer in the first place because a group of friends would come over and we’d game together. Today, my friends either are no longer games or no longer have time to game. Either way it means my gaming time is virtually zero these days.
That’s just the change in my playing habits, but there is another side to the change:
- Sony hasn’t provided any compelling reason so far to look at the PS4, social sharing doesn’t interest me in the slightest and it’s still just a games console.
- Microsoft has provided some compelling features beyond just gaming, but their always connected Kinect requirement is a real no go for me.
Both will require some kind of subscription, another big turn off as far as I’m concerned.
In the end, I use my game systems more as media players than anything else now and so I’ve picked up a media PC again and now need to build a media center install. I’m poking around at both XBMC and Myth both on Unix, but I’ll probably look at Media Center and MediaPortal as well on Windows.
