Gamer Stress™ is a real thing, I’ve diagnosed it. With our busy lives getting in the way of gaming, we have to be more selective than ever with how we spend our time gaming. I personally have a large rotation of single player and multiplayer games that I visit with friends online. Most single player experiences I try to knock out in a sitting or two, so I can retain the plot better and move onto the next release. This gives me more time for multiplayer. But yeah, to the question…
This week’s letter comes from Freddy Nick, who resides in the surprisingly violent city of Milwaukee. With the upcoming releases of the next-generation of consoles, gamers have a whole new layer of Gamer Stress™ on their shoulders, especially with console exclusives and this damn economy not letting us buy whatever we want whenever we want.
Dear Jason,I’m SUPER conflicted on which [console] to eventually get… I’ve always had Sony. Enjoyed my time with the 360 minus the red rings like 4 times. Now it seems equal playing grounds. I love MLB baseball on Sony, Xbox gets the inferior baseball game. But Titanfall looks awesome enough to sway my opinion.
Thanks for the letter, Freddy Nick. I think what we have here is a simple example of the time in a gamers life where he needs to draw a line, and pick a side. Twenty years ago, these betrayals or pledges of fealty to a console manufacturer were met with chants of “Sega can what NintenDON’T!” But theses days, the divisions are more muddied. I take it you love MLB, and The Show is far superior to the 2K game released on 360, but you are also afraid of console failures, and the big one is that you want Titanfall, which (for now) is a Microsoft and PC exclusive. My advice is two-fold:
First, obtain a decent batch of psilocybin mushrooms. Dry them out, and weigh them. If you have over one oz, you can sell about 3/4’s of the bag and make a good amount of cash. Almost enough for a PS4 or Xbox One. Next, create a spreadsheet on your home computer. Create a spreadsheet with a Sony column and an Xbox column. Place within these columns all of the positives and negatives you feel about the two consoles. Like you said before, MLB, better hardware, etc, will go in the Sony column. Titanfall and red rings in the other. Now, once you feel you’ve listed your positives and negatives to the degree you feel comfortable, eat the remaining mushrooms and stare at your spreadsheet. Don’t be alarmed, the ‘shrooms will take about 45 minutes or so to kick in, but once they do, you will likely be visited by an inner monologue you’ve never heard before, and I think I know what it will say – “Get the PS4 because Titanfall is likely a timed exclusive, and PS4 will get it after a year or two, and it really doesn’t look that amazing anyways.”
Or you could by a PC and live a happy life on Steam.
Thanks,
Jason
