The interactive entertainment industry is a funny thing. It’s long since moved past the birthing pangs, or the necessity of justifying its legitimacy to larger entertainment – having eclipsed both Hollywood and professional sports in gross dollars per annum – and it’s a rare youth indeed that wasn’t all different kinds of atwitter about the console war of late 2013. It’s a multi-million dollar industry that can bank on the fact that every single one of its core customers will display a virtually unlimited appetite and little in the way of restraint.
Late 2013 was a very exciting time for the interactive entertainment industry – the annual heavy-hitters like Call of Duty, NBA 2k, and FIFA released to boringly predictable record sales, accompanied by less-annual-but-no-less-predictable Battlefields and Need For Speeds. Real genius reared its nigh-unto-unheard-of head in titles like The Last of Us, Metro: Last Light, and Gone Home.
Then the Next-Gen consoles released … but as the dust (and plastic baggies and shredded cardboard) cleared, the excitement dwindled and the shine worn off, we are left to wonder the same thing we always wonder this time of year: “Where are all the games I just paid $500 to play?”
Well, kid, they’re not out yet – you knew that was going to happen, and so did I. We all knew that was going to happen, but still we dropped close to half a thousand on that big, shiny Blue-or-Green box. And there’s nothing new till February.
No matter how many times you check, no matter how hard you look or wish or hope, nothing till February. Furthermore, both systems have a relatively lackluster year ahead, with some exceptional standouts like Thief, Titanfall and (maybe, just maybe, hope against hope maybe) Destiny.
So, at home, bored, staring at a shiny new Next-Gen console? Don’t have anything to look forward to? Thankfully the industry you’ve chosen as your very own opiate to the masses has a tailor-made solution: The SteamBox!
