Rao Wu

In response to Dr Cossack's well written editorial, I would have to disagree with some of his viewpoints, and overall major premise.First of all, he states that earlier in the 90's, SNES and Genesis gamers each had their own games and were generally happy. He also goes on to say that today, it's more politics than games between the big 3, Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. There is little doubt that the politics are extremely important, but they were always important, and even in the days of the past, the game consoles fought hard and heavy. From the begining AP( After Pong), the Atari 2600 had its commanding dominance questioned by Intellivision. Ads on TV from Intellivision (Intelligent Television) demonstrated its superior technology over the 2600, including the remarkable voice-module that allowed games to actually talk.Then serious gaming was born, the Colecovision's awsome graphical capabilities and outstanding game line up ( some arcade titles actually by Sega and Nintendo ) faced Atari's monster machine, the Atari 5200( this is where we all got spoiled with the feature that allowed us to actually pause games).The two juggernaut game consoles went head to head, and gaming magazines rode the battle all the way to the bank. After a lull in console gaming, due primarily to the Commodore 64, the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System(NES) regained command of the home video game market, and was amused at the challenge offered to it by the Sega Master System. The NES enjoyed the reign of command until it was seriously challenged by a superior opponent-The Turbo Grafx(short for graphics I suppose)16. Yeah, you older gamers can probably remember ads of Bonk slamming Mario over the head. By this time, Sega had regrouped and established the Genesis which flexed its muscles for 16-bit dominance. I can remember the EGM magazine I purchased with the hero from Golden Axe facing the hero from the Legendary Axe and the title saying " Which is better?The Genesis or TurboGrafx 16?)The genesis eventually won that battle and then faced the mighty Super NES by Nintendo, which in my opinion, inevitably overtook the Genesis right before the console wars of today had arrived(failure to mention 3d0 and Jaguar, intentional).This rather lengthy walk down memory lane shows us that the videogame industry, has always been cutthroat; the mudslinging has only evolved and gotten dirtier, and nastier.

Dr Cossack's observations had lead him to the conclusion that the game emphasis was declining because of the politics involved with the industry. I again, believe this is a flawed statement. The competition between gaming consoles only leads to one thing- better games. This is where survival of the fittest truly applies. Look at the Saturn's first batch of software, i.e. Virtual Fighter, although fun, had to be redone in the form of a remix so that Saturn could keep up with the Playstation's then perceived prowess. I can go on and on, but is there any real question that the competition between game systems has lead to bigger and better games, that we the consumer, can enjoy? This year in 97, Saturn owners everywhere await what could possibly be the savior to the Saturn, VF3 and its top secret upgrade. Sega would not go through intense lengths of making this thing look incredible if it were not for Sony's commanding lead, and the ever present threat of Nintendo.

As far as PC's taking over the life of console systems, I really truly doubt that it would ever happen. The same thing was said about consoles taking over the arcades, remember? PC's are far out of the price range of consoles and their intended use is that of a professional nature( we know this isn't true ). I am currently on my PC which is a PPRo 200 Mghtz suped up to the max-piece-of-hardware, but I use my Saturn,PSX and N64 to play games. Sure Pc offers online gaming, but is there any real doubt that the consoles will all eventually provide this feature as well?

Finally in addressing his "standard game system format", I have to say this: a uniform format in gaming would be the ideal solution for all, but this will never see the light of day.There is far TOO much profit to be made being the number one "bad boy" in the industry, and conflicting egos of resounding proportions would NEVER let this dream become a reality! Wishful thinking, though.