The Zac Attack: Next gen videogames upset universal balance

I was 7 years old when I brought home my first video game.

I was visiting my family in Ohio when my cousin, who is considerably older than I, handed me a box.

“Here take this Zac,” he said. “I just got a Nintendo 64 and I don’t need this anymore.”

I opened the box and saw a gray and black box, some game cartridges and rectangles with red and black buttons. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I was about to experience one of the most enjoyable times of my life.

I remember the long drive home, with the box sitting next to me. I couldn’t wait to get home and find out what it could do.

As soon as our car pulled up to the house in Sinclair, my siblings and I grabbed the box and rushed upstairs. It took us some time to figure out how to hook up the system to the TV, but somehow we did it.

I grabbed a random cartridge out of the box, popped it in, and waited for the TV screen to light up. Words can’t describe how excited I was to see what happened next.

My siblings and I then proceeded to play the game I popped in for hours. When I lost, I passed the controller to my brother, when he lost, he passed it onto my sister and when she lost, she passed it back to me.

The system, which was the original Nintendo, more commonly known as an NES, was faulty. More than half of the time I spent gaming was blowing on cartridges and the console trying to get it to work. It didn’t matter. It was part of the experience of playing; an experience I will never forget.

Gaming is still a huge part of my life, and I have had lots of exciting moments through the years watching the development of consoles.

I have owned an NES, a Super Nintendo (SNES), a Nintendo 64, a Game Cube, A Game Boy Color, a Game Boy Advance, a PlayStation 2 and two different versions of an Xbox 360.

I can tell you I was excited about the release of each of those consoles. Now that the new generation of gaming is at our doorstep, I think I finally might have lost interest.

About a month ago, the two biggest game console developers in the video game industry announced the next installment of their gaming systems.

Sony went first by announcing the PlayStation 4. Microsoft followed soon after by announcing the Xbox One. Both systems were presented at E3, one of the largest electronics conventions in the United States.

I can safely say both systems fell way short of my expectations for the next generation of gaming.

In my opinion, gaming is a balance between maintaining tradition, while at the same time, expanding rapidly in better graphics, better innovation and better gameplay.

I failed to see any kind of innovation in the new console’s designs and concepts.

Here are some things I hate about the console concepts:

Both systems look like VCRs, which was disappointing because there were a lot of cool conceptual designs years before the consoles were announced.

Both systems are putting too much emphasis on social media, and steering away from enhancing the gaming experience.

Both systems had at least discussed mandatory internet connectivity to operate the consoles (You don’t need the internet to have a fun time).

Worse of all, both consoles have at least discussed the implementation of something called digital rights management, or DRM.

What is DRM you ask? Textbook definitions will tell you it is a way for companies to protect what is theirs, software, video games, art, etc. In reality, DRM is an anti-consumer method of ensuring buyers only purchase new games.

If Microsoft or Sony were to incorporate DRM in their consoles, it would kill the used game market, because the consoles would not accept them.

Since preliminary announcements, Sony and Microsoft, have denounced the fact they will use DRM in their consoles. But the fact they talked about it at all is nervewracking. There are still a lot of questions on how restricted gaming is going to be on machines that were built for gaming.

Bottom line is, the new consoles do not keep the balance of nostalgia and rapid innovation I have come to expect from new console releases.

I play video games partially for the sense of nostalgia when I get sucked into a game. Yes, the graphics are different, but there is always a subtle hint of history in each game, so I can experience at least a fraction of the joy of gaming when I was a kid.

I fear the new consoles are butting into that experience by upsetting the balance of what gaming is supposed to be.