Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
The console wars started back in the 90s when at gamings peak, Sega unleashed Sonic the Hedgehog, throughout the 90s with increasingly catty callouts between Nintendo and Sega through commercials, it would become a three way battle when PlayStation joined, Sega would bow out and XBox would take it's place and the current battlefield has been fought by Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox since but at this moment in time, who is winning?
Let's review.
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo's surprise success with the Wii gave it more than enough momentum to survive the WiiU era and jump into the perfected Switch console at the cost of losing the Gameboy/DS line.
Nintendo has always had a strong IP line up which the other two don't have.
It's also very easy to develop for sometimes getting indie titles even before Steam, it's also the only console to still allow adult games, Sony outright abandoned them, more on that later while Xbox feels they don't need them.
Nintendo however has plateaued for a while, Pokemon being the indicator that the games are really not getting better technical wise with demands that Nintendo release a Switch 2 so it can even stand a chance, it's online gaming history still isn't any better either, but Nintendo can afford to bide it's time as the weaknesses of it's rivals are so much more prevalent than the Switch being underpowered.
PlayStation 5
Sony has had a weird track record since the PS2 became the best seller of all time, PS3 was underpowered and kinda just there compared to 360, PS4 was the best console of the last generation but then PS5 has literally screwed Sony over.
It's a white elephant of over priced hi-tech machinery that is becoming as absurd as a minimalist hyper car, the release of the Pro being the first nail in the coffin, the second being no exclusive games as everything it runs can be played on other consoles and steam, the third nail being the nine figure disaster that is Concord, anymore disasters and PlayStation are just going to crash out of the wars, the sad thing is, it's technically the best console through performance and despite sharing a library with every other console, they run much better on Sony's behemoth, losing the adult otaku crowd to Nintendo hasn't made it any easier either; they dropped easy million sellers like Senran Kagura in favour of Concord an expensive disaster.
Sony, are you okay? I can't tell if this is self sabotage or not because this isn't the PlayStation I know.
Xbox X-Series
Knowing that it needed a different approach, Microsoft decided it was easier to buy game companies to give it more games to play with along with a closer relationship with PC, this also allows it's only asset, Gamepass to thrive.
Technically it's the worse console, many of it's ports of games have a bad track record of not being able to even start and the transition between Xbone and X-series has been a little mishandled. It remains a solid middle ground between it's rivals.
Conclusion
Nintendo has the best IPs but lags heavily in the power department and badly needs an upgrade.
PlayStation is ultra powerful but there's nothing to play on it.
Xbox is pretty much gaming Netflix but is on a fine balance in terms of tech as well as games not feeling comfortable operating on the xbox.
It's easy for me to turn around and say, just get Steam but maintaining a gaming PC is astronomically expensive compared to the consoles.
Time will tell if things really do change as the next great shift in the market will come with GTA6's arrival.
Today we return to fact hunt and we go all video game trivia.
1. Sims has it's own language
Creator Will Wright in order to avoid repetitive dialogue, created his own language for the Sims to speak in game called Simlish, there's a long list of phrases that get repeated frequently and are easily translated into basic dialogue like hello and how are you.
2. Sega made an acronym out of Eggman
Not that long ago, Sonic's official page showcased the picture above.
Evil Genius Getting Mad At Nature.
Makes way too much sense.
3. Sega had a dirty secret
The Sega game Dynamite Dux likely has the dirtiest secret in gaming history, hidden for 30 years, it's only accessible through a hex editor replacing a piece a code with the word dirty to get an R-rated opening sequence, it's too raunchy here but Youtuber Larry Bundy Jr has quite a long video on it.
4. Craziest Castle
Crazy Castle has more licenses for it's game than pretty much any other game.
Looney Tunes, Ghostbusters, Woody Woodpecker, Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Hugo the Troll, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Universal Studios.
5. Creepy Console Sounds
When the original PlayStation couldn't load a disc, it would let you know with two different jingles called Personified Fear and Fearful Harmony, the sounds were built in a way to ward off hackers from using fake discs.
Welcome back to Hot Take Review, these takes today are video game related, these are takes that frequently get brought up by my close friends group.
"Fortnite is a bad/great game"
Oh boy starting with this one.
My biggest issue with Fortnite is how much it basks in it's own ego, popular IPs seem to get dunked in with no respect for the source material, the game itself looks at least functional but the Battle Royale gameplay, it's main selling point is a really poor selling point as winning feels impossible, as for build mode, Roblox and Minecraft have you covered. The other issue is, I'm terrible at shooters.
"You can't hate a game you haven't played"
Yes, I can, it's easy.
Real talk, gaming has come a long way from it's renaissance period of the 90s where the only thing you have to go on were game magazines and maybe Blockbuster rentals if you're lucky enough to live close to one, these days there are enough streamers playing the games to give you a sense of what to expect, when the average new release is $75 or £60, it's more important than ever to have as much information as possible, this is why over the last three years I've turned down quite a high number of so called triple A titles.
"Loot boxes and microtransactions need to piss off"
The issue isn't so much the loot boxes and microtransactions but the companies behind them, this evolves from the rising mobile gaming market where the only way to beat Candy Crush is to spend real money, because all these games are free they have to make the money back somehow, Pokemon Go has the right idea where spending is optional, not so much for gacha, Japan's lootbox lottery where lonely males are duped into spending tons of money to get a sexy lady to play as who jiggles their ass on screen, looking at you Goddess of Victory Nikke.
The free model reluctantly does have a place in gaming, my most recent complaint is essentially renting the game for a year in order to play it, this ruined Trackmania and Pinball FX for me.
Also if you're a parent that's been stung because your kid spent $100 on game cosmetics that you let them have to shut them up, then you are a stupid parent.
"Why are games so woke nowadays"
This sounds like an old man yelling at a cloud. We've evolved post pandemic to be a lot less tolerant society and games are no exception, Saint's Row is a prime example of this where the insanity of wacky murder and crime is replaced by cringy tiktok streamers whose idea of crime is review bombing a restaurant. The term woke also feels constantly misused as its more like they only want game writers to spin stories based on what the main political environment is spouting to win favour with a small vocal group of people, it also doesn't help that plenty of skeletons are getting dug out of the closets of the likes of Blizzard, Ubisoft and other big publishers. My attitude is, don't try to adjust your IP for an audience that won't play your game to begin with.
"Achievement Hunters don't play real games"
This gets directed at me alot as an Xbox player.
Much like anime, gaming isn't just ten games, it's a much bigger media spectrum, being an achievement hunter allows me to play games I would otherwise not touch normally, Gamepass and rewards services help to afford this hobby as well.
I get that more often than not you are going to end up playing your fair share of shit games and even the most well known cheevo hunters like Cheevo Guides, Patrick Maka and Welsh Hunter do achieve varying levels of burnout, this isn't helped by Xbox's loose rules system on how achievements are put into games, it all came to a head when Aabs Animals thought that 1000 minutes of staring at animals was acceptable to charge $15 for which lead to Microsoft tightening the rules.
For me these days, it's finding gems among rocks, I would not have discovered games like Vampire Survivors and Hades if I wasn't an achievement hunter and I consider novelty games like Powerwash Simulator free content for my gaming reviews. Lastly, I'm not a young gamer, life takes priority and many of these games average three hours and are easier to return to than say Halo or Forza.
End
