Recently, Microsoft announced their new console, the XBOX One. Although the system itself seems pretty good, there are some thing about the whole thing I find disturbing. With this post, I'm going to focus on just one of them: Microsoft's intention to remove the possibility of buying and selling used games in part by making all games, to some extent, internet based titles.
See, I'm a collector. I buy at least fifty games a year, often at insanely low prices, and very often used. That's because many, and I mean MANY of these games are for older systems. I have more PS1 and PS2 games than the rest of my systems combined, and that's because I have a deep need to own all of them. I work on my collection in my spare time, arranging and rearranging, and even though I keep my games in binders, I have boxes and boxes of the cases stored carefully, eagerly awaiting the day when I can display them for the world to see.
The reason I love to collect games is two-fold. Firstly, I simply love having a library of games I can choose from. I get bored very easily, and for me, boredom is a gateway to depression, so having a wide array of games, books, and movies is a must for me. Secondly, I LOVE being able to share these games with people. Almost every single one of you all, my friends, has at least one game that I own in their possession this minute. Off the top of my head, five or six people I know have games that I've lent them at the moment. They range from Kingdom Hearts Re:Chained all the way to the Zelda Oracles titles. The reason they have all this stuff of mine is because video games make me REALLY happy, and I LOVE to spread that around.
Those are my first and second reasons for my severe unhappiness, right there. Firstly, that tactile sensation I enjoy so much, the feel of leafing through binders and cases? Gone. The discs, in this case, do essentially nothing. There's no reason to buy them unless you want to touch something physical, since the game is on the hard drive anyway. Second, I'll no longer be able to share my new titles with people.
My third reason is a little more complicated and a little less personal. Stay with me here, if you please. The year is 2092, and I have just died at the utterly improbable age of 106. My great-great-great-whatever-grandchildren are looking through my possessions, when they discover my miraculously and improbably preserved Nintendo Entertainment System and the games for it, as well as my XBOX One. Both are in perfect working order, both are somehow able to be hooked up to future TVs or holodecks or whatever they have. My descendants, wishing to get closer to their ancestor, the only man ever to publish a series of best-selling horror novels about the President fighting demons while also BEING the President (it's my fantasy, shut up), want to play these games.
Will they be able to play them? You see, the NES has physical cartridges, with the games on them. There's nothing keeping them from putting these antique video games into the antique console and playing Super Mario Bros. 2 until their Space-Mom tells them it's time for Space-Bed. Surely, the marvel that is the confusingly titled XBOX One will be even better!
Here's where we run into a problem. The One requires a connection to the internet once a day in order to remain functional. Not only that, but all games are directly stored on the hard drive, so they only have access to the games that I happened to store there before I mothballed the system when MICROSOFT SHUT DOWN THE SERVERS. What's that, you ask? Why would they do such a thing?
Well, everyone, the internet is changing. Even now, the way devices connect to the internet is wildly different from the way they connected five years ago. What will it be like 80 years from now? Hell, what will it be like TEN years from now?
Even setting the technical issue aside, here's a sorry, sad, disappointing fact: servers are not magical. They require time, effort, and money to maintain and keep running. When the costs of those servers outweighs the possible rewards for having them, the companies who run them shut them down. It's happening all over the place. City of Heroes, a moderately successful Online Game, was shut down recently. That game now no longer exists. The multiplayer elements of the Metal Gear Solid 4 have ceased to exist. The same is true of the old online elements of the Halo franchise.
ALL computer servers are shut down eventually. It's inevitable. What this means is that some day, the PSN won't exist. Some day, Steam won't exist. Some day, the XBLA won't exist. Some day even World of Warcraft itself will hum quietly to a stop, and its parts will be auctioned or sold. This WILL happen. All of those games, every single one of them, will effectively cease to exist.
In the case of the XBOX One, or ANY system that operates in the same way, due to the fact that all games have an online element, the system itself will become a useless piece of plastic and metal.
It may not seem like a big deal, and to many of you it might not be. To me, however? Video games are art. They deserve to be treated like ART. They deserve to be preserved. I can't claim to know the future (except the part where I'll be President and write novels, prepare yourselves for that stuff). I don't know if this will be the way they go with the One or not. I know one thing, though, and to me, this one thing is all that needs to be known:
In 80 years, my improbably preserved NES could be in a museum, still playable, still showing where the art form began in earnest. The XBOX One, however? If it stays on the course its on now? It will be a lost chapter in the history of what I consider to be one of the most amazing artistic achievements of mankind. And that breaks my heart a little.
Used games provide collectors with something to collect. They provide gamers with a way to play games they might otherwise never experience. They allow me to play a game I never had the chance to 20 years after its publication. Used games, PHYSICAL games, promise longevity. Digital only promises that they'll fade away some day.
