360 one of Endgadget's "10 gadgets that defined the decade"

[PARANOiA]

Link here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/30/ten-gadgets-that-defined-the-decade/

Interesting choice, with the PS2 and Wii being honourable mentions.

It beat the Wii and PS3 to market by a full year, managed to keep a price point that was significantly lower than the PS3, and as previously promised PS3 exclusives started to migrate to the increasingly intrenched 360 it was clear that Microsoft had pulled off a major coup. If it had merely been a cheaper, earlier version of the PS3 it might've eventually fallen by the wayside, but Microsoft's audacious approach to charging people to play online with Xbox Live Gold actually ended up as the console's greatest strength, and a key to its staying power.

Note Apple made the list with three items too which is quite interesting.

Also note the comments on the article are all centered around the console that made the list over any of the other 9 items. Why are console gamers so evangelistic? It boggles.

 

[RobertR1]

lol God it's embarrasing to have gaming as your hobby. The comments are littered with fanboys starting yet another round of console wars.

 

[obonicus]

Engadget also seems to like apple a lot.

Also, not even taking into consideration how top lists are click-baiters, it's not like there's much that's controversial there aside from the videogame choice. Hell, they gave both Windows AND OS X the same spot, so you don't even get Mac zealots incensed (and they wouldn't be, with all the times Apple stuff is mentioned).

 

[semitope]

Link here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/30/ten-gadgets-that-defined-the-decade/

Interesting choice, with the PS2 and Wii being honourable mentions.



Note Apple made the list with three items too which is quite interesting.

Also note the comments on the article are all centered around the console that made the list over any of the other 9 items. Why are console gamers so evangelistic? It boggles.

lol... you realize you just informed a few more console gamers of this by posting it in the CONSOLE section of the forum? You realize that the same thing might be happening in several places where someone like yourself posts this particular news into a section where console gamers would notice it and then respond? Why are you asking why there are so many console gamers commenting yet baiting them to comment? Its your fault. Think about it, this is YOUR way of commenting on the article as well; you picked up that the console picked was the 360 and post it here as something worth noticing yet you are bashing them for commenting as something worth commenting about.

I doubt anyone else will care about those choices. For consoles you don't quite have that many choices and for the rest they will just seem like arbitrary choices not raising anyones eyebrows.

Personally, them choosing the 360 falls under arbitrary as well. The editor happened to like mw and gears of war on the 360... ntn about the actual hardware and its faults.

The easy choice is the ps2. That thing totally dominated...

 

[PARANOiA]

It's my fault? Sigh. Can't we have a mature discussion without this drivel?

I don't think it's overly arbitrary. Consider what the 360 has added to gaming that didn't exist in the same way prior - in much the same way the Ipod or the Canon digital camera was added. You have:
* online gaming brought to the masses. Xbox (1) had Live but the 360 invented the notion that online is the hub of the console itself. People feel strongly tied to their online identity, want to know what their friends are playing, and want to know what is new for their machine in ways previous hardware didn't offer. The online featureset of Live shouldn't be ignored - both of the competitors took a very long time to achieve parity, and many agree with me when I say neither is at the standard of Live yet. PSN for PS3 launched over a year after the 360 came out and took a very very long time to achieve anything remote to parity.
* achievements - regardless of your view of them, achievements is strongly tied to the point above, around gamers having "identities" strongly linked to your gaming history. PS3, WoW and Steam all copied this feature, which shows just how influential it has been. I would be very surprised if all machines (and PC releases moving forward) didn't feature achievements in some form
* Live Arcade - pushing digital distribution into the living room, the XBLA set the standard for the competition again, and encouraging a rebirth in small, bite-sized games for the average Joe. In the home space there was nothing like XBLA before it, and again it set the standard for this generation

I could go on, but you need to consider it's not as aloof as "oh he likes Gears of War so it's just arbitrary". Think about the core elements that other machines this decade have launched with, about how they changed the landscape. IMO, the PS2 did not do this in the same way the 360 did this decade, or the PS1 did last decade (3D gaming, memory cards, optical media put to good use, etc).

It would be interesting to note which machines pushed the envelope over time - what each machine has added to the gaming landscape as time has gone on.

Think of the Ipod as a portable music device - it wasn't the first MP3 player, not (in many circles) the best, but it's the one that made the biggest impact and made carrying your music collection with you the norm.

I enjoy my other gaming machines loads, but there's no denying the 360 played a massive part in changing the gaming landscape. If anything, I would have considered the Wii the biggest "competitor" for the title over the PS2.

 

[obonicus]

I'm skeptical that any game console should have been picked as top 10 gadgets that defined the decade. If gaming had to be represented, I think the DS is much more gadgety and much more significant since it's like everyone has one.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For gaming console I'd have picked either PS2, which set up gaming as the huge industry it is now and is the greatest selling console of the decade by a large stretch, or Wii which has set a new standard for the future of gaming. Neither XB360 nor PS3 amount to much in the grand scheme of things, IMO.

edit : or DS as obonicus says. Much more gadgety than a console. I don't think CE goods really count in themselves, not by my definition of gadget anyhow.

But then these lists are always rather poopy. The Gadget Show's winner for 'best gadget' was a piece of software!

 

[patsu]

Engadget also seems to like apple a lot.

Also, not even taking into consideration how top lists are click-baiters, it's not like there's much that's controversial there aside from the videogame choice. Hell, they gave both Windows AND OS X the same spot, so you don't even get Mac zealots incensed (and they wouldn't be, with all the times Apple stuff is mentioned).

The iPod is well deserving since it totally teraformed the music industry and even sped up the demise of music DRM (Yay !). My iTunes account was blacklisted by Apple for years because I wrote and used a de-DRM frontend. So I couldn't buy iTunes songs after a while.

The iPhone I can understand since it is teraforming the cellphone industry as we speak. I finally bought one last month due to friends wanting me to write an iPhone app for them.

But why is there 3 entries for the cellphone category ? And why is RAZR on the list just because one of the editors find it sexy ? All cellphones become cheaper and cheaper. RAZR certainly didn't start a trend there. ^_^ (Verizon gave us 3 RAZRs; doesn't mean we love it, or it's influential).

I thought the Titianium MacBook was cool but not as influential as the original iMac that transformed the PC industry. Too bad the iMac (late 1998) is slightly over-aged. ^_^ The netbook choice is nice.

XP and OSX are workhorses, so I guess they should include them. We have been using them for a large part of the decade. They are _not_ gadgets though.

The 360 choice is understandable (since the editor likes to play shooters; or in fact just 2 shooters + XBL for 4 years). On a more macroscopic level, I think PS2 or Wii would be more iconic and influential to the world. Yes, DS would be deserving too. Can't blame gamers for complaining because they would feel that they are misrepresented.

TiVo is very lovable but penetration may be a little too low. It does popularize DVR, but I personally may stack all the NetFlix devices together against it. So what ? OSX and XP are not gadgets either.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Neither XB360 nor PS3 amount to much in the grand scheme of things, IMO.

I would say that these two machines are the set-top boxes that people were so afraid of all those years ago. They even track your online usage. In the grand scheme of things they mean a great deal to entertainment as a whole IMO.

 

[semitope]

It's my fault? Sigh. Can't we have a mature discussion without this drivel?

Guess you missed my point, or refuse to acknowledge it.

I'd choose the ps2 for what geezer said and I dont think the 360 has changed anything significantly by itself. The 360 came out a year before, should that give it all the credit for the generation?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Except they haven't had a huge front-room changing impact. It'll be next decade where people turn to cnnsoles for all their media (if it happens). And if you are going to accept their worth as media devices, I don't think there's any way to choose between PS3 and XB360. One person will value BRD in PS3 as paramount, whereas another will favour Live!'s faster media offerings (in the US). If they can pair two OSes, they should pair the two consoles!

 

[PARANOiA]

Realistically, what has the DS done for the industry/gadgets/technology in general? The Gameboy was a portable gaming revolution, but the DS was not.

The PS2 making the industry the financial behemoth that it has become is an interesting point. Are there any numbers on (inflation-adjusted) revenue attached to the industry over time?

 

[semitope]

Except they haven't had a huge front-room changing impact. It'll be next decade where people turn to cnnsoles for all their media (if it happens). And if you are going to accept their worth as media devices, I don't think there's any way to choose between PS3 and XB360. One person will value BRD in PS3 as paramount, whereas another will favour Live!'s faster media offerings (in the US). If they can pair two OSes, they should pair the two consoles!

Thats one reason to put it to the editor playing 2 games on the 360 and loving it. This is how I usually look at these articles " "

The wii is probably a more reasonable choice than either of those 2

 

[PARANOiA]

Guess you missed my point, or refuse to acknowledge it.

I'd choose the ps2 for what geezer said and I dont think the 360 has changed anything significantly by itself. The 360 came out a year before, should that give it all the credit for the generation?

I think the discussion would be better off ignoring your trollbait.

The 360 didn't just come out a year before, though. It came out a year before with more features than the competition did a year later. If the 360 wasn't there to do what it did for the points I listed above, I highly doubt they would exist at all in the way they do today. Do you think Sony would have any real incentive to add cross-game chat if the 360 didn't offer it? Or in-game XMB? Or any number of features they've been adding over the last few years? Do you think Steam and WoW would have added achievements by themselves? Because I don't... I think what the 360 has added to the industry needs to be considered as influential. Those who feel like these things "would have come along anyway" obviously weren't around for the launch of the PS3 and Wii, where all of a sudden the glaring differences in online services and the overall "embodiment" of online being the core of the console became fairly obvious.

 

[E2K]

First to the market. "quite the achievement" lets crossgame-chat and buy horse-armor.
M.e.h.

 

[obonicus]

Realistically, what has the DS done for the industry/gadgets/technology in general? The Gameboy was a portable gaming revolution, but the DS was not.

It reached an absolutely vast audience, it brought an alternate audience in with stuff like Nintendogs (and the millions of ripoffs), it reshaped the landscape of the Japanese gaming market, it gave Nintendo a clear strategy for the Wii.

 

[Nesh]

That article is a waste of time. Tries too much to twist facts

 

[RobertR1]

Also note the comments on the article are all centered around the console that made the list over any of the other 9 items. Why are console gamers so evangelistic? It boggles.

It's likely a few factors.

1. Age. The online console warriors who battle endlessly tend to be younger. When you're younger you tend to have limited understanding, very strong opinions, easily influenced by marketing and like to "fight" against something. The willingness to prove "I'm RIGHT!" really motivates them.

2. Lack of other hobbies. You even have older people who will engage in such behavior. Often, you come to realize that gaming is all they've known and are passionate about it and thus you begin to understand their fanatical attitude. For life experience and likely some sanity, I think it's good to have multiple hobbies you engage in regularly or have in the past. This allows one to socialize with multiple personalities in various sectors and avoid repeated exposure to the abrasive attitude displayed in the gaming realm.

3. Paid shills. The factors above are a rich pool just aching for this low life form of marketing. It's in the shill's best interest to keep their employer's products a cut above the competition in the eyes of the masses. If they can get 1 and 2 to crusade along, they're doing their job.

A mixed pool of the above tends to dominate the online "gamer voice." Mainly because they each have an incentive that pushes them to outlast others in verbal combat.

 

[semitope]

Also note the comments on the article are all centered around the console that made the list over any of the other 9 items. Why are console gamers so evangelistic? It boggles.

lol God it's embarrasing to have gaming as your hobby. The comments are littered with fanboys starting yet another round of console wars.

Then don't make comments like these. You make a statement then call the response to it trollbaiting... what does that make the initial statement? Or you find that a valid method of defending yourself?

I'm not feeling the 360 for this particular recognition but what does it matter. For the 34 million ppl who have it, maybe its the device of the decade.

 

[patsu]

I suspect if they have picked something like Wii or PS2, the comments won't be so explosive (especially when the article lists them as contenders). It also does not help when the editor identified himself as a 2-shooter gamer. How is he going to convince the larger gaming population that his choice is representative or credible ?