Gaming culture shifts and evolves just as quickly as the industry itself. In just my lifetime, I’ve seen handheld innovations like the original Game Boy give way to mobile phones that can casually dwarf the processing power of older generations. I’ve seen the playerbase mature (and in some cases refuse to do so), transforming playground debates and chat room arguments into social media campaigns and viral breakouts. While the passion for gaming has only become more broadly embraced, the subject of argument has changed drastically.
I think one of the best examples of this is the way the “Console Wars” have changed. Growing up as a gamer, your console of choice and favorite exclusive franchises were seen as a part of your personality, your favorite franchises designating where you stood in the constant playground fights over console superiority. In the current market, that kind of white-hot passion has long since cooled while many of the biggest franchises become cross-platform and potential rivals become friendly peers (and occasional creative collaborators). After years of dominating my early years as a gamer, the idea of the console wars has lost all its teeth.
The Console Wars were a major factor in gaming culture when I was a kid. Growing up in the 1990s, I even got to see different generations of that fandom conflict firsthand. As a Nintendo household, I had friends with a Sega console who would mock my slower-paced games compared to their trademark mascot, Sonic. I would give just as good back, noting the deep bench of great first-party Nintendo games they’d never play. By the time I got an N64, that had evolved into a conflict between Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. With the spread of the internet and the growth of home gaming and online play, the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube were all strong mountains to place your loyalty behind.
Debates on playgrounds, arguments in the cafeteria, and non-stop smack talk on the bus — for gamers of a certain age range, the conflict between players over their preferred console was a fixture of advertising campaigns, online debate, and countless voices strained by yelling. By extension, the exclusive franchises became key flashpoints in those arguments. Link vs. Cloud, Master Chief vs. Solid Snake, and plenty of other debates were a key part of the gaming culture I knew as I grew up, a fun excuse to get into arguments with friends or bicker with people online.
That continued into the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii era, but things began to feel like they were shifting in the 2010s. The spread of Steam and a noted uptick in casual gamers on both PC and mobile platforms shifted what gaming looked like with a broad audience. Now, while there is still a sense of brand loyalty for companies like Nintendo, the console wars feel over, with that specific breed of conflict between properties more or less redundant.
Franchises have become less and less tied to specific consoles and brands over the years, reflecting the shift away from the console conflict that was at the heart of gaming culture for a long time. This isn’t even just about formerly exclusive properties like Halo making the leap to the PlayStation 5 — although that’s definitely the ultimate extension of the console wars as they once were being done and over. It’s also about how the gaming industry has shifted in terms of style and focus.
Take Overwatch and Fortnite, two free-to-play team-based shooters. Although they both have very unique elements in terms of gameplay, they make for natural rivals in terms of audience engagement and genre dominance. In previous generations, I could see myself and my peers actively arguing why Overwatch‘s hero shooter qualities make it more fun than Fortnite‘s sandbox approach. They could have probably been killer apps on rival consoles, generating more drama and excitement among players in part because they want to defend the game they support. However, in the modern age, they’re just healthy peers. They’ve even done a crossover into Fortnite, highlighting the cross-pollination of gaming’s biggest franchises in the modern era.
That’s not to say that gaming anger or that combative nature is gone; it just feels like it has shifted into more specific debates or conversations about the industry at large. Nintendo and Sony fans don’t feel like they’re actively debating anymore, instead finding joy in their respective corners. The console wars, as I knew them, don’t really feel like a part of modern gaming anymore, especially when almost everyone I know plays games on their phone while also having a Steam account and usually at least one or two consoles. Seeing something like the Fortnite and Overwatch crossover now makes me think about how such a crossover between rival fandoms would feel impossible in the gaming culture I grew up in. I’m not necessarily upset by this shift, as those debates could be incredibly toxic (not to say that gaming hasn’t found places to shift that toxicity instead). However, it does make me feel just a tad nostalgic to consider just how much the industry has changed in my lifetime alone.
