The Band Plays On

So the story goes that in the final moments of the Titanic the band played till the bitter end.  As the ball room  filled with bone chilling water and chunks of ice the bass and piano filled the air-prelude to the deaths of many on that starless frigid night.  We are the band now; gamers I mean.  Oh and that story about the band playing till the end it's probably bullshit.  We are the band and we will indeed play off Sony Microsoft and Nintendo at some point.  Yeah you, me, and every other gamer out there is going to keep on truckin after the megas fall.  Know how I know this?  We have already played off more than a few acts.

We have played off (literally) other companies and consoles like the 3DO.  For them their titanic came quick and we played them off into the depths.   Nothing lasts forever-ask Sega and Atari.  At some point our gods will fall and die.  No need to get crazy; just do what I did when Sega announced that they were dropping out of the console racket.  I removed my hat, placed it over my heart, and looked to the horizon as the sun set while a single tear slipped out of the corner of my eye.  Remember all the good times you had and not how Sega 32X was a complete piece of shit.

Someone will usurp and kill our gods one day it's the cycle of things.  Don't forget that our current gods were one day usurpers themselves.  I know you younger ones can't imagine this but when it came time to enter the 3D realm of games it felt strange as hell to pick a Sony Playstation off the shelf at Toys R Us.  None of us had any idea that they would be part of the reason why Sega had to back out or that within a few years they would be gunning for Nintendo.  Sony and Microsoft are new kids on the block in the grand scheme of things.  There will come a time when they themselves become the old alpha unable to fend off the young challenger.  The once proud lion who is showing his rib cage but still has some claws on the end of his paws-an animal that no one would screw with unless of course you are younger, have more meat on your bones, and the confidence to dethrone the king.  They may go out with a whimper like Atari or go out with a pistol in each hand emptying magazines in a fruitless attempt to save their own life.  (yeah the lion analogy is over; lions don't use guns)  Personally I'm hoping for the latter since that means we get some really weird and cool ideas that may be ahead of their time.  

At any rate we are looking at the young companies in their prime (not you Nintendo) so it is hard to imagine them pushed back on their heels or flat out dying but it will come one day.  Rise and fall of empires, every dog has his day, you can only run a cartel so long before some other up and coming cartel comes along and puts a few bullets into you after a small war...whatever saying you wanna use you all know it's true.  You probably can't imagine the megas taking a bullet to the chest right now and I understand.  If you're like me you have been around since Pong and this all seems elementary but if your first console was say...PS2 you're gonna think I'm crazy.  Here is a quick rundown of some corpses I have seen hit the floor.  The list (from just the top of my head) goes something like:

-an infinite amount of pong consoles
-Commodore
-Colecovision
-Intellivision III
-Odyssey
-Vectrex
-Atari Jaguar
-Sega Dreamcast
-3DO
-Phillips CD-i
-Turbo Grafx
-Neo Geo

All dead in the console business.  What makes Sony and the others so special that they cannot also suffer the same fate?  Nothing as far as I am concerned.  We played on after all of these guys fell over and twitched and aside from taking a dirt nap what else do these guys have in common?  None of them retired.

In sports players can retire after years of playing.  Boxers and fighters get old and have to retire-but there is no retiring here.  When was the last you heard of ANY company saying "We have made enough money-we're gonna shut the doors and retire"  it never happens.  There is only one thing that can happen to Microsoft Sony and Nintendo-they have to at some point roll onto their backs and curl their legs in.  Unless one or all of them do the unthinkable and concede the fight-they will be left with only the option to die.  In essence they can't actually retire so this story can only have one ending.  We will be playing the sweet music that was in  the titanic ball room that night.  It will fill their ears as they hit the floor stunned and in disbelief.  We will move on to whatever knocked them out until of course something knocks them out.  We're gamers we play on oh yes indeed the band plays on.