Google ImageFirst there was Atari introducing us to video games. Later came Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, X-Box and a slew of other onsole game systems. Now the newest trend in video games is online gaming. With a computer in almost every home, coupled with high prices for console games and more titles being released to an online market, one cannot help but wonder if console gaming is on its way out.
The question remains – is online gaming that much better than console gaming? Online gaming offers a broad array of advantages that a console system simply cannot match. Internet games such as “Everquest,” “Diablo” and “Ragnoark Online” allow players to enter games with multiple users, create more than one playable character and customize that character. Users can also trade with other players for items. In addition to storyline, graphics and playability online games make it possible for friendships to be developed, as well as entire communities.
“I like computer games better because I find the controls easier to use,” sophomore Greg Kerr said. “Computer games definitely offer better quality. The graphics are always being enhanced because of graphic cards and computer upgrades.”
Despite the obvious benefits of online gaming, there are drawbacks. Mike Connors, sophomore, does not like online gaming. “I don’t know, I think my computer is pretty slow.” As this statement points out, not everyone posses a computer capable of running graphically intensive games. People with older computers often face the problem of a system that cannot run the games they wish to play. With Sony’s Playstation 2 and Microsoft’s X-Box both priced at two hundred dollars, a console system is a more affordable and practical solution for these people.
Squaresoft, a video game company that has produced such popular titles as the “Final Fantasy” series, and most recently, “Kingdom Hearts” found their first venture into the online gaming market disappointing. Their first online gaming release, “Final Fantasy XI,” has fallen just short of success. The game, which does charge a monthly subscription fee and requires an external hard drive be purchased, has reached 120,000 subscribers in Japan out of the 170,000 copies of the game that were sold. The predicted number of sales was 200,000, and the game’s future in the United States is uncertain.
While online games have not completely cornered the gaming market yet, their popularity is growing. Though some companies such as Sqauresoft may be struggling with their first test in the waters of online gaming, it is not slowing them down, or stopping other companies from jumping in right along with them. Squaresoft is planning another “more lighthearted” online game to be released in late 2004. Sony has put out an adapter for the Playstation 2, allowing it to connect to the Internet for games such as “Twisted Metal Black: Online” and “SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals,” and most recently a console adaptation of “Everquest.”
Though not dead yet, console systems are both evolving, as to allow them to enter the online market, and facing competition from online games, which allow, for a new level of gaming interaction.
