I am broke. Broke like a dead man. It’s hard for me to fathom having to buy anything new at this point, cause it hurts. And as a person who is big on technology like I am, that’s like a knife in the heart. I can’t enjoy the opportunity of purchasing new cell phones, tablets or any technology for that matter. I feel out of the loop, denied, and subjected to agony. Which is why I have a major problem with gaming consoles. The sleek plastic and metal contraptions that gamers go to for hours of mind numbing relief. It’s almost as if they have a grasp on us, pulling us from console to console, looking for perfection in pixels, graphics and immersion.

When I was 12, I got my very first game console. The ever revered Nintendo 8-bit entertainment system. The two-toned gray box that magically produced such classics as Super Mario Brothers, Excitebike and the game that drove me nuts, Bionic Commando…damn tiny window. It was a present to me from my sister, so that was a cost I didn’t have to necessarily be burdened with. But I got hit with the price of games, which I can remember paying at least 40 bucks for my Mike Tyson’s Punch Out and WCW Wrestling back then and that was considered manageable. So this isn’t about the high cost of games. Thanks to PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo’s mercy, we get blessed with a few free games a month, which helps our money stay put in our pockets. It was when I started working that I not only began to understand the power of money, and its almost seemingly instant disappearance, but the high cost of consoles.

Once I managed to make my decision about getting a Sega Genesis, I started making the effort to save up for it. Granted by the time I got it, there was already the second generation Genesis on sale for significantly less than its predecessor. It was my introduction to “the fever”. The incessant need to have the latest, greatest in gaming solely based on the fact that, well, I had to have it! The companies that manufactured them had no problem feeding you all the technobabble that made kids bristle and act like they were experiencing heroine withdrawal. A powerful need based on an equally powerful advertisement campaign devised to increase sales with a “take no prisoners” mantra attached. The fever was, and in many cases continues to be, a problem. But it wasn’t just console manufacturers who kept upping the ante with newer, better, hotter merchandise. It was a model that was established way before the creation of any of our modern day crutches. Every single electronics company on the face of this planet does the same thing. So this isn’t about me singling out the gaming industry for something that’s commonplace in a capitalist society.

I can say that in my 30+ years of buying, playing, and selling video games and game consoles, I estimate that I have spent enough money to buy and maintain a high end luxury car (let’s say a nice BMW M3 of some sort) for the better part of 10 years. I’ve owned damn near every major console, and a handful of handhelds, along with an innumerable amount of games. I currently own an Xbox 360 and a Wii. Yeah, I’ve skipped on getting the Xbox One or Wii U. I’ve gotten to the point where an outsider would say that I’m hip to it. I can agree with that. As a matter of fact, that’s probably more spot on than even I’m willing to admit. I got wise to the game. I started scaling back on my purchases after I finished my stint with Sony many years ago. Interestingly enough, the light bulb went off right around then. You see, technology had never been so big and ever advancing as it was then and more so now. When the idea that the console was becoming more than just something gamers turn on to play with, and started becoming the de facto home theater PC that manufactures were pushing them to be, the idea of new systems every five years should have died with the last generation of consoles. I say “should have” simply because it would be rather ignorant to believe that any of the big three (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) would cease their operations. They have investors that they must answer to.

Yet, question the idea, or rather the necessity, of every one of those consoles in your home. They all do essentially the same thing. They offer almost the same games, save for exclusive titles. They give you online access both for gaming and streaming services, from which you can now live stream your games on Twitch without having to pre-record any material. They give you a free game or two on a monthly basis. They offer their version of the highest quality hardware, the list for each of those systems are virtually mirrored. If these consoles have essentially the same libraries, remember I said essentially not exactly, the same access, and are quality builds, outside of exclusivity, what is the need to have more than one or for that matter, keep getting the latest and greatest? Yes, I understand the theory of variety being the spice of life. But this spice is getting pricier than the one in Dune (huge nerd/geek reference there).

It’s obvious that more releases are heading towards the digital downloads path rather than the sale of physical media. We could technically continue purchasing games on consoles we currently own without having to upgrade just because they have release titles that are a “must have." We all know that these machines are sold by manufacturers at a loss. We know that software creators pump up the specs of their games to the point that they need bigger processors to render games. Games are the center of gaming obviously, and technology changes at break neck speed. Subsequently, with the changing landscape of software acquisition, this takes the profitability completely away from both large corporate-led stores like GameStop and smaller mom-and-pop establishments as well. Doing so helps divert even more money towards the manufacturers of all the major consoles available on the market.

Is it possible to have one console sustain more of a life cycle than that of the PlayStation 2, whose lifespan ran a total of 13 years? Is technology going so fast that companies are now finding themselves working to catch up? Are software companies pushing tech so that their graphics can be rendered to their satisfaction? The answers to these questions can very well be applied to answer the main question I am asking, which is: Why do I have to have 3 different consoles, that basically do the same thing, with the same games, and be forced to upgrade them at such narrow intervals? I don’t know about you, but I think my money works better keeping me in my lifestyle as opposed to keeping up with the Joneses.