On the "just buy the new thing" mentality of the major companies

Does anyone else find this mentality frustrating? I'm seeing it with the 3DS right now: if I want any good games that I don't have to hunt to find, I'm being bombarded with the message of "get a 3DS! Forget about your old ones! Just buy this new one, and you'll be perfectly happy!"

I understand that once a new system releases, it only makes sense to devote a lot of time and resources to developing games for it, but I feel like we, the consumers, are just expected to drop whatever we had before (no matter how much we liked it) and immediately rush to buy whatever the new thing is, whether it's a Vita, a 3DS, or an Xbox 360. Whenever I go to a videogame store now, and the salesperson sees that I'm buying an "old" DS or Gameboy Advance game, I get a schticky sales pitch about buying a console. Granted, I'm well aware that those guys have a quota they have to meet on the sales of certain products or they might get axed, but can't I just enjoy my old systems without getting jumped on for still having them? Please? And wait to get the new thing, when I have the money and the time to make it worth it?

-sigh- Does anyone else notice this? Granted, I would like to get an Xbox 360, but at the moment it's not a realistic purchase, so I enjoy what I have. But I know that in a few years, that'll be taken off, too. I just find the very fast turnover disturbing, I suppose.

Do game salesman in USA really always do that? ._. They never do that over here...(heck, they seem to actually have knowledge of video games most of the time..)

It's called capitalism.

Of course they want you to buy the new thing, they want your money, and they make more money off you dropping a few hundred on the new bit of hardware than they will by continuing to support your stubborn insistence on using a system that is no longer turning them the profit they want to see.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

Not always no, not as an absolute. They tend to know about videogames, yeah, but in recent years, almost every single time I go to various stores, I get a sales pitch.

I can fend off sales pitches just fine, but they get on my nerves big-time, and I can (and do) cut down the salesman if I'm already ticked. It's not very nice, but I didn't come there to spend 15 minutes getting X Person off my back.

Captitalism is starting to look worse and worse to me. At least in this realm. I'm not John Q. Public in that respect. And it really grates on me.

edited 31st Oct '11 7:29:10 AM by punkreader

Buy online, or buy at a place like Best Buy. The latter's salesmen generally leave you alone unless you try to buy a TV or something.

Sorry, I can't hear you from my FLYING METAL BOX!

I do buy online, when I can. Sadly, I've moved to an area with no Best Buys. The closest is 45 minutes away. Otherwise, that's where I'd head.

...I'm confused. I don't think you mean what I understand "cut down" to mean, because if you did, this situation just got disturbing.

I have a message from another time...

Why? Really, what's so bad about a business trying to maximize profit? I don't mean you have to like it but to me this is akin to being pissed that a cow eats grass.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

Nothing's bad about trying to maximize a profit. I'm just a jaded teenager, sick of feeling manipulated. Even in things that I used to really, really enjoy.

I suppose; call me stereotypical, but I'm pissed in general at the moment - this just happened to be the spark that lit my powderkeg. I'm not a materialistic person - I don't hold a lot of the same values as my mainstream culture (or the area that I live in, which is basically "filthy rich and self-absorbed"), I guess.

I'm just frustrated because I feel like I'm being forced to conform if I want anything of quality.

Just to be clear. Is this a marketing thing, or a technology thing?

Sorry, I can't hear you from my FLYING METAL BOX!

Marketing.

Technology I can work with (a la the occasional ROM). I can't do jack about the market.

Ah, then you're already on the right track. The key to being a good consumer is to ignore advertising. Just ignore salesmen (and don't try to be rude about it), and you'll be fine.

Sorry, I can't hear you from my FLYING METAL BOX!

Well there's your problem. Welcome to life kid. It's not a sinister conspiracy, it's not even particularly high pressure. Maybe they're pushy, maybe they're rude but they're salesmen. Your DS is now outdated tech and it's days are numbered, they just are. Sort of like trying to find a Laser Disc copy of Slum Dog Millionaire. Technology has marched on and they won't be turning the train around. Even if the 3DS turns out to be a bomb expect Nintendo to fix it with another generation of hand held, not returning to the one you've got.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

This is one advantage of PC gaming over console gaming. A good-quality PC can be expected to run most games for at least a while into the future, and when you upgrade your PC you can take your old games with you thanks to the wonders of backwards compatibility.

In console gaming, there is little incentive for developers to support systems that are no longer popular, since each system requires a significant amount of effort to make a game compatible with it.

<><

Also, direct emulation of older hardware.

Big companies do it in order to keep old banking software running as well as to split big server farms into rentable units, it's a shame that game & system companies don't also contribute to it.

Yeah, I like the ability to piecemeal upgrades for a PC. Of course, you just might end up with every single thing in it haveing been replaced at least once.

Reminds me of a joke: This is George Washington's axe he used to cut down the cherry trees that he got in trouble over. Sure, the handle's been changed out eight times and the axehead has been replacd twice...

edited 31st Oct '11 1:01:25 PM by pvtnum11

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Wait, what? This is how the games industry has worked since it's inception. Seems weird to just now notice and complain about it. The entire point of gadgets is selling more gadgets.

The old Ship of Theseus question. I say that if the thing still floats there's no issue.

Welcome to capitalism, where 40% of your country's capital is owned by 1% of the population.

PC gaming is probably a good bet. The initial investment is more than a console, but it'll go way further, between all the great older games you can get and being able to keep up with modern gaming. For games of about 7+ years of age, you can try using a ROM, too. In fact, they're the only reasonable way to play some especially old and rare games.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

A pc still isn't a safe bet, because there's always a new piece of software you NEED to run new games, a NEW piece of hardware that all of them support. And depending on what that piece of hardware is, you may well be spending the cost of a new console to keep it running.

This is, of course, assuming you go the "right" route and get a gaming desktop. Gaming LAPTOP? Oh, you're pretty much buying a new laptop every three years or so.

The only difference between a PC and a console is there's no hard line between when you need an entirely new piece of hardware to run something. Consoles do it all at once, PC's do it piecemeal. And you still run into issues with software compatibility - at least with a console, you always know what games will and won't work. With a PC, it's a crapshoot of what you'll need to do to get older software running well.

My current laptop runs pretty much anything back to the early 90s with little or no trouble. It was a fairly low-end model a year-and-a-half ago. If I'd intended it for gaming I could have gotten a decent graphics card for it for $50-$100 extra. If I had done that, it would be able to run the latest releases even today, though that would strain it somewhat. But gaming is just a minor use for my laptop: I also use it for a vast number of other things.

<><

I don't think there are many people who buy laptops mainly for gaming, to be honest. They're kind of a workhorse machine (or at least they were before iPads and iPhones) with gaming as a bonus.

Technology Marches On

The notion is that our current society is dominated by the notion of keeping with the newest things. The idea would be to “upgrade” which leads to the controversies.

As for this applying to the gaming industry it leads to some good and some bad things. The good things is allowing better memory, control and allowance of setting the system to grand more advancement in creating a game. The bad side is it has caused a problem of the economical. People will be trying to wager on what to get while maintaining themselves. This poses problems for the hard ware can be hard to sell when the past system was considered grand. This also leads to another issue: accessibility. Along with the problem of our economic climate, we are also got the issue that it cost a huge sum to develop a console... and manufacture it. Hence why the zealous attitude in the advertisement for the new.

As for the inefficiencies of capitalism... On-Topic Conversations may be the best place to discus that in.

I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok. I sleep all night and work all day.

All I can say is, OP, you're not alone. This nonsense is one reason I stopped keeping up with the console wars and became strictly an old-school gamer. I'm far happier discovering the 16-Bit games I missed than playing the latest overpriced 3D graphics fests.

(the other reason I stopped upgrading, of course, is because I find a lot of modern games—even the heavily hyped and popular ones—really freaking boring. It's a wonder today's gamers haven't developed narcolepsy)

visit my blog!

Uh... Your Mileage May Vary is pretty much an Omnipresent Trope you know. You and young'uns find different things exciting. The Twilight series is a best seller despite the wiki consensus on it, after all.