The words glide across your computer monitor with all the subtlety of an exotic dancer doing her job in front of a church: "if u thiink Playsttion 2 is gonig 2 win press 12345!!!!!!!" How many times has a similar scene unfolded while you were chatting online? At least once a day, right? And while the annoying person who can't type and can't think does get on one's nerves, and while you may be tempted to place them on immediate ignore, people like this have merits even they're not aware of. They're little pawns in the game some like to call the videogame industry.

Let's think about console bashing for a moment. It goes further than just saying, "My system is better than yours so there." It extends to silly comments like "The N64 only has kiddie games so it sucks because at least Playstation games have blood!" and "The Dreamcast is dead because Sega's games suck!" Those comments are so obviously fallacious, but still you'll see them all over the place. And right there, you have the strong temptation to argue, if only to say something like, "Well, blood doesn't matter anyway, and even if it did, the Nintendo 64 has Conker," or "But Sega has consistently been an innovator, and at least they make their own games!"

This is important to note. You're involved in the industry when you're participating in console bashing, and that's what makes the process so durn cool. Sure, there are some who say, "Does it even matter? You're all getting excited about videogames, you losers!" And to those people, I say... erm, well, I shouldn't type what I'd like to say to those people. At least not in this editorial. But anyway, I do feel I can safely say those people will never do much to contribute to the industry. They'll go on playing their games and refuse to get involved, to make sure companies continue to innovate.

To make sure companies continue to innovate? Did you just read right? Yes, you did. I'm linking software and hardware innovation to console bashing. Seem odd? Not really, not when you think about it. Back in the day, the NES ruled king of the hill. And we didn't see anything new until Sega got sick of it and put out the Genesis, forcing Nintendo to bring out their Super Nintendo. Who knows? If not for that, we might still be drooling over the marvels of 8-bit graphics! Or we wouldn't have consoles at all, because computers would have pounded them into the ground by now. But although we can thank Sega for some of that, we can only truly thank them because of the console bashers, those people who said, "Yes, well, Mario appears in four colors, so eat your heart out, Atari!" Comments like this spread and spread, growing in numbers. And the videogame companies look at this.

To give you a good example, let's use the current round, which consists of the Nintendo Gamecube, the Sony Playstation 2, and the X-Box. Go into any chat room with games as a general subject, stay around for an hour, tops, and you'll learn that some people think the Playstation 2 is the most revolutionary system of all time, well worth the $300.00, and that some don't. And you'll hear mind-numbingly dull facts about each console. It's ammunition for the war. And it's there because companies like Nintendo know they have to provide the best. Any little positive thing they provide will be ammunition in these verbal and written console wars between normal people like you and me. Nintendo makes a purple system? Score 2 points for the opposition. Playstation 2 ships poorly? Score 10 points for the opposition. And so forth. This is console bashing, and companies have to keep public sentiment in mind with each move they make.

Public sentiment is visible only through console bashing. Which is why I think console bashing is so cool: it lets the big companies know what people are saying. Sure, there are some idiots like our friend at the start of the editorial. But they have opinions and usually, somehow, money to buy a console. So they count, too. Anyone who engages in a console war counts, because he shows himself to be the type who cares enough to spend money. And that's what really matters, in the end. It's what ensures that videogames are here to stay...

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