Looking back at the start of year 2000 till now, a lot of stuff and events happened. Beginning from the fall of SEGA that exited the hardware market around that time, Nintendo being sluggish and Sony preparing its big entry with their successful PlayStation 2 console. The playstation 2 would go on to be the best selling system of all time, selling over 154 million units. Whilst it was not the most powerful system in the competition (on the contrary, it was in fact the weakest console on the market compared to the gamecube or microsoft's xbox) it ran rings around its competitors thanks to its huge selection of titles and ability to play DVDs.
Throughout previous generations, one thing in particular was always the center of innovation- a consoles controller. Various iterations of the gamepad have existed over the years, and the range of styles has been immense. It seemed with every generation, the controller was reinvented- dual joysticks, single joysticks, shoulder buttons etc etc. But something interesting happened with the 6th generation of consoles- a strange unity amongst the controller offerings in the console market. With the exception of nintendo's current offerings (and their constant search for innovation) it is a controller setup which has solidified as the staple input for today's games. 2 analogue joysticks, four input buttons, 2 shoulder buttons and 2 triggers.
Halo (Xbox's flagship title) became one of the first successful first-person-shooters on a home console (and marks a kind of beginning of what would become the most popular genre in the gaming world, fuck I hate shooters). Halo 2 would continue to revolutionise the video-game world with a foray into online multiplayer. Multiplayer and the online gaming scene in general would become one of the biggest changes to the fundamental form of gaming, something which happened alongside the growth of the publically-available internet revolution. This also gave birth to an entirely new genre of game- one which I particularly enjoy- the massively multiplayer online game.
One of my favourite games to come out since the year 2000 was American McGee's Alice, a reimagining of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland. For me, this signified a change in the market and on the scope of videogames of the time. Whilst the game itself wasn't hugely comercially successful, it was a reimagining of a well known tale, and transcended video games as a medium. It was also a very different offering compared to what was around at the time, a psychologically surreal adventure game amidst a sea of racing, combat and platforming games.
With the release of Microsofts Xbox 360 and Sony's playstation 3, the rivalrly amongst gamers has never been quite so fierce since the Super-nintendo/Sega Gensis days. More than anything, the two companies almost exist to outdo one another, driving each other to innovate. The "fanboys" on the other hand, exist entirely to piss every reasonable person off.
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