Name: John Jonk
Location: Volendam
Posts: 661
Many of you here won't take this seriously, console gaming. How ever we are on the edge that these babies will take over the current competitive games some day. The reasons are so simple, they have the support of the mass. The casual console world is so extremely huge, that it is just a laugh to see our tiny little competitive world.

But it is also so easy, within 30 seconds on a NDS, Xbox or PS3 your already playing online and grab some virtual points for your char and it's saved on a database on some website by Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. Not to mention that it is basically cheat proof, something that the PC gamers still suffer from and probably won't be solved that easy in the future. These are huge plusses for the console gamers.

Well, i'm not completely right with being cheat proof. There are some serious 'bug' abusers who can disrupt the game easy. For example the 'snake move' in Mario Kart DS. "Snaking" is using the slide boost for corners but then on straight roads. So you would always get the boost and race away your enemies.

Even though we see some competitive tournaments with consoles, it's far from what the tournament organisations want. Mean reason is lack of support from the developer teams and it's very hard to reach the casual gamer in the first place. But there are more problems, the current PC owners find it very hard to play on a stick. They are so adapted to the mouse and keyboard, that they will never be able to switch over that easy and won't take it serious and rather laugh at the people that play on a different console. Especially since no 'hero' has stepped over yet. But I believe this scene can create their own super heroes once these people get the support from the big tournament organisations a bit better.

Another problem is that it is currently still impossible to view matches or watch demos. But Microsoft has claimed some rights to watch replays or live matches on your Xbox 360 in different views in a game you don't own. This piece of technology could boost the competitive scene on this particular machine and which is very interesting to see how it works.

As I've mentioned before, it is really hard to reach the casual scene. A lot of dev teams have problems with their own little people. Blizzard Entertainment did find a solution for this with Battle.net, Battle.net can be described as a huge IRC network for different games where people can find a game against each other, see the latest updates, get the latest updates and many more great features. Microsoft started to do this aswell with their Xbox 360, you can find any info you want and it's good! How ever, MS and Blizzard isn't easy to reach as a tournament organisation. So new comers might have big trouble with reaching the people without the help of MS or BLZ.

Another downside from Console gaming via Internet is that the most populair online service on consoles is the Xbox live, Microsoft charges around 60 Euros to play on their beloved network. But the people from Nintendo and Sony laugh about it since their systems (PSP, PS2, PS3, NDS, WII) aren't asking for a small fee. That is litterly "plug in your system and your online", like our PC fellows do for ages.

Anyway, what I want to say with this whole story is that our traditional games in the eSports scene are in danger. Not directly yet, but over time they might be replaces by games that appeal the new generation gamers better.