So this is an article I have wanted to put together for a while as its a topic that has never gone away. The console wars, and more importantly, fanboys.

Now before anyone jumps on me I’m not aware of the non-gender based description of a Fanboy so if that’s no longer the accepted vernacular then sue me. ( please don’t I’m skint)

Now fanboys are in no way exclusive to consoles, they exist in all mediums from phones to movies and comics but I would argue that console fanboys are perhaps the most vocal.

I myself was a fanboy at a point. During the Real console wars, a plucky little company called SEGA was using the power of their spikey blue mascot to add some attitude to the console market and trying to loosen the stranglehold that fat little plumber had on market share. I was a kid in the playground arguing blue in the face that I had the better of the two consoles. To be fair we actually had reasons to argue as games would come out on both systems and in many cases, they were bloody different games (people still argue if Aladdin was better on SNES or Mega Drive). Not only that, as a kid, you never really had your own money so little did you realise but what you were actually doing at the time was validating your choice, no one wants to have bought a bad game or console.

Now we all know how those console wars turned out and as a Mega CD, Saturn and Dreamcast owner I knew all too well. The writing was on the wall for sega and before it died I had already grown out of the fanboy phase and I was a multi-format gamer. The wonders that opened up to me from that point on were insane, going from old games I never touched in my youth, to console specific games in the future, being a multi-platform gamer if the title is must play I have likely played it.

Now obviously being a grown up I don’t hang around playgrounds anymore but there is twitter (and other social media). There is rampant bullying, constant trash talk, wild threats, funny jokes….. Kinda is a playground.

This is where I start to get annoyed about fanboys. Now I see it as I had an excuse, I was a child and children do stuff like that. Social media, however, is populated by people that should know better. Consoles these days are not like those of the past, a multi-format game is the same on all consoles (apart from the odd frame, or something else that doesn’t affect people enjoying the game) so what does it matter what console people choose to game on?

Why do Xbox fans get a kick out of saying “Days Gone sucks, burn!!” And why do Sony fans laugh at things like State of Decay or Crackdown not doing as well as expected? What do people get out of it? Most of these people are posting on social media using expensive phones that they change every few years so I imagine buying a second console is not out of the question so they must actively decide to stand for one company only.

Things like review bombing a game, or downvoting a video because of the platform it represents, what is the point what does anyone get out of that. Gaming should be encouraged regardless of platform and in reality, a world where we could play any multiplayer game vs any platform would be amazing (you already have this on your phone with games and don’t even realise it)

We should be at a point where it’s just fun to discuss games, not look to argue and belittle people because they like a system you don’t own. So here’s hoping next gen Sony and Microsoft continue to innovate and things like Project X Cloud take off because playing your console library on any platform, how cool is that? (plus it will hopefully make Sony roll out Remote Play to all phones).

Enjoy the games people, there are plenty out there .