Microsoft Claims Xbox 360 Seven Million Sales in EMEA

I now realise why this gen fanboism has hit a new high and I have got caught in the net of it...Its because the Xbox 360 has become a threat...To Sony that is because of the high number of sales and development support.

Last gen no that many cared that much about numbers because PS2 was doing the best and cube and Xbox trailing poorly the cube the worst I think.

All in all the Xbox brand is a huge brand this gen and the pressure is on!

The closer the race, the more fans feel the need to cheer their chosen competitor.

None of the following is specifically aimed at you, SS4. I've also ignored the Wii for the sake of discussion.

It's all self-justification for a choice. If you can point to figures that say your chosen console is outselling the one you didn't choose, then you obviously made the "right" choice and are on the "winning" side.

At least with sports you can always claim that you support your local side through thick and thin. You've removed the choice from the equation by "blaming" where you live. Plus there are generally many more than two or three sports teams to choose from if you do wish to choose.

The facts that with the 360, Microsoft have now got experience in the market, better relations with 3rd parties and a competitor that is making mistakes have all combined to keep it in front after the head start they got by launching early.

On the other hand, Sony have narrowed the sales gap that there was at the launch of the PS3 and, if both companies' figures are to be believed, PSN subscribers have caught up to Live subscribers.

All of that is just more fuel to the fanboy fire. That's why, in my opinion, this gen has seen more figure watching and much more acrimonious flamewars online.

The fact is that both machines are excellent, real steps-up from their predecessors, and have now both got very good software libraries. In the end we gamers have got an excellent choice and those that bought one platform early in its lifetime should now be able to contemplate getting the other quite easily.

the ps3 vs 360 fanboy fight is like the Fourth generation (16-bit era) of the snes and md with the 360 being the md and the ps3 being the snes as if you can remember back then the fanboys of the md were pritty much doing what the 360 fan people are doing to day the fact that it came out a long time before the snes mad it better because it had a bigger install base and games library

Indeed, but leaving out the Wii from the debate is maybe a wrong thing. It can be seen as one of the major factors (albeit under the skin) why, besides the closeness of competition between Sony and MS, of the new fanboyism heights. Sony and MS fanboys are also fighting out who's console is the "true defender" of "true gaming", whatever those terms may mean.

Compare it to warfare, they all fought in the name of God but there were a lot of underlying reasons as well. Former is the layer of varnish to give a reason that lies good with the propaganda (and some probably did fought for God in their minds) but those are not the real reasons. It makes for interesting sociological research in the end.

Making comparisons with the SNES and Megadrive is in that regard (if it is true) wrong. The Snes and Megadrive did have overlapping target groups but for the majority they also aimed at totally different audiences. Sony and MS overlap is now the big majority with non-overlapping audiences being treated as niches. While in fact their huge overlap is the niche.

In its essence, more "Big Lie" material supporting your garbage thesis that everyone without an official Shigeru Miyamoto lifelike modelled dildo up their ass isn't a real gamer. I suppose I should be grateful you made at least one post that didn't use that word.

You're funny, you actually think I am defending some thesis ^^. And then in such short-sighted manner, for shame. Oh well, some people like to hang on to perceptions they have created in their minds a lot more then reading the parts where persons also mention that it's all about possibilities they're talking about, which is how modern cultural sciences are working these days.

Oh well, at least you shown how someone with a pompous dildo up his ass posts like.

Can't have done, I don't even know what you look like.

And no, of course I don't believe you were defending an actual, official-type "thesis" (I have a great deal of trouble believing you in a position to have one to defend). Sorry (no I'm not) if I confused you with my use of the term in its broadest sense, a statement of belief, which you attempt to back up with proof. I chalk it up to your having to work so hard at pretending to be an intellectual. In this case, your proof consists of repeating the word "pseudo-hardcore" over and over and over again ad nauseam, and I do mean nausea, as I was sick of it after the first half-dozen times you beat me and fellow SPOnGers over the head with it. You're not Bart Simpson, and "pseudo-hardcore" isn't the next Cowabunga, no matter how many times you repeat it when given the slightest opportunity.

Aah, that's the problem. Well, i did say before, pseudo-hardcore is just a joke-term to get everyone worked up and maybe, very maybe, get someone to think about it. Also i said the term has no proof behind it at all, so how can i be using it as proof? Maybe i formulated it in such manners that make you read it that way, but that was not the intention. Or you like to make up acquisations (with no proof) for fun's sake.

I'm using thesis as a statement of possibility, not belief, as that is the way of thinking they have been teaching us human scienticists in belgium anyway. It's a way of thinking a lot of people do have problems with as they like everthing defined in black and white and then you start talking about multiple possibilities which introduces so many grey areas their grey masses need to start actually working.

And i have a very chaotic mind with minor autism and concentration problems, so my formulating suffers from that.

Belgium, huh...well, congratulations on being the only Romance-language speaking country that brews beer worth drinking...I'm still hoping something torpedoes the whole AB-InBev thing, but I'm from near Saint Louis...we got AB and the Arch, that's about it...still, mebbe InBev will change Michelob's flagship specialty beer from their Amber Bock to its excellent Hefeweizen...I love it, but the only thing you can find on tap is the Amber Bock.

I have absolutely no idea what "possibilities" you're blathering on about, perhaps you could enlighten me as to what specifically you mean by that. However, I see no use in causing someone to "maybe think" about the term "pseudo-hardcore", and its implications. The only thing it made me think was that someone was a petulant child who was pissy because he was on the wrong side of a line someone else drew, perhaps you're projecting some stuff that happened to you in real life, or on another site here on SPOnG, I certainly haven't noticed any "hardcore" consigning the hapless into the "casual" ghetto. If this is the case, go bother them with your derogatory "joke terms". Aside from the obvious fanboy-in-residence, I think we avoid much of what can make many other fora tiresome (probably at the expense of hits), and I see no need to throw out trollbait (I mean if we, as the members, and the staff, of SPOnGland, choose to remain small and dignified, why would you want to sully that, by engaging in behaviors more suited to some huge crap site, infested with those that would offend even SS4's sensibilities), even in the name of (soft) Science. Myself, I've always advocated an inclusive definition of "hardcore gamer", to prevent just such occurrences, though in my heart of hearts I'd have to say that Nintendo has always been the antithesis of "hardcore". In fact, until this century, console gaming as a whole would be solidly on the "casual" side of the ledger, I don't care how many hours you spent playing Mario, real "hardcore gamers" were playing Commodore 64s (on monitors, not a bloody TV) and Amigas, and never did warm up to the d-pad.

But I digress...

I suppose, were you just some random anonymous retard it wouldn't bother me nearly as much, the fact that as a well-established, and previous to this, not entirely unreasonable, member of our little dysfunctional family you choose to spew such nonsense to no discernible purpose tweaks MY (diagnosed and undiagnosed) mental aberrations, which I shall not burden anyone with the specifics of.

Also, in reference to a previous post...I'm puzzled as to how the adjective pompous can be applied to a dildo...is it wearing a monocle or something?

(continuation of above, as the edit window closed on my fingers)

Getting back to your original post in this thread, as it is what got me all fired up, it was one statement in particular which offended me intellectually, and caused me to call into question your academic integrity...



This gross, and grossly inaccurate overgeneralization, is just garbage. Garbage presented as, if not fact, then at least a factual opinion in the guise of "social science". You were using it in an analogy, but its still complete crap, and I am shocked that someone presenting themself as a candidate for an advanced degree in history or sociology or related fields could casually throw something like that out there, even in mock seriousness.

I believe I have figured it out, you can't read properly, do you have some kind of sickness that makes your brain miss words that clearly signifies that I was talking about a possibility? I'm very sorry and deeply sympathetic with you if you do have it.

If not, I would like you to read all of it again and count the words like "could" "possible" "maybe" "can" and others. Good. Thinking in terms of possibilities in crucial in the world of human sciences these days. Coming up with a fresh perspective is like finding a huge oil pit these days.

About you inclusive defenition of hardcore gamer, i proposed one as someone that likes all games (barring ones of certain genres of which the gamer has enough expercience playing the genre to decide the genre doesn't fit him) because he/she just likes gaming. how bloody more inclusive can you get? The definition of the possible pseudo-hardcore is one based on the premise that pseudo-hardcore gamers self-declare themselves as hardcore but dismiss games just on first looks.
Case in point, the entire colourfull Diablo 3 thing, The Wind Waker debacle, the Wiimusic rage, people thinking LBP is for kids and even recently, good old Kotaku dismissing Square-Enix newest RPG solely because it's on the DS, the internet is full of it. Then i'm not even talking about the people who will not buy games solely because the graphics look "bad" (as in a tad outdated) or that it looks like a clone of popular game X or Y.

Now in my heart, being raised on TFC, Tribes, Quake and UT, I believe that Halo is the worst thing to happen to shooters in general. Am I wrong? You could very well say yes because after Halo the shooter genre got a huge boom on consoles (barring that Goldeneye sold around 10 million copies) so it must have done something right. Have consoles been on the "casual" side all the time like you said? Could be, could not be.

I think you're just peeved because the term pseudo-hardcore gamer draws a line in your mind which puts you on the "bad" dismissive short-sighted side. Why do I think that, well clearly, you brought up the entire line-seperating thing up, I never drew lines (well, offcourse, you could bring up the post where i said that i thaught hardcore gamers just bought DS's and upgraded their PC's but then i also added to that that i had absolutly no proof whatsoever for that, in my head that implies that i mean that i don't take that for the truth in no way at all only as a slight possiblity, you somehow managed to deform this into a thinking that i drew lines). Which means you think that way and probably somewhere deduced that the term pseudo-hardcore and its implications could possibly make you one. Offcourse that can't be! no, you played on C64 and Amiga's! No one that played those could ever be a possible faker.

So let's recap
1) All things i have said about pseudo-harcore and all are possibilities, possibilities that are taken as any kind of truth but are possibilities that have some significant evidence to be supported but are if adequte evidence does present itself to completlty exclude the possibility i will have no problem dismissing the possiblity. There i just said how you can stop me from using that word.
2) Somehow you have made up the way that i think around that term but that is actually a reflection of how you feel about the possible implications of that term actually existing and it puts you in the bad light in your mind. So you make up all this petulant child being at the wrong side of the line someone else has drawn from absolute thin air with a feint smell, trows some expensive wording behind and hope the other persons shuts up.
3) having that said, let's have a proper debate with respect of each other opionions about certain terms, it is very clear we both define some things differently. Clearing this all up beforehand would make a very interesting potential discussion afterwards.

And the "In every war everyone fought for God" thing. Really, give me one war where people did not drag some deity or concept which was giving deity-like praise (this includes nations, emperors, city-states and others) into. And again, It was a analogy that COULD explain a POSSIBILITY. The idea about that post was that Sony and MS fanboyism was so high these years because of an extra possible reason then the closeness of competition between their console platforms and then giving a possible explanation that the closeness of competition factor is secondary, as kind of varnish that sounds better in propaganda above the actual unconscious reason, having their platform as the true defender of true gaming against the Wii dominance. Another possible explanation is that it is only the closseness of competition on a conscious level and their platform being the true defender as a unconscious are both equal factors but on different levels.

Oeh, another possiblity beside your brain not able to read words that signify possiblity is that, well...you can't think in possiblities. I'm part of humanity and when thinking about humanity i've learned you have to think at least in 6,5 billion different ways before you can say that you have depleted all possiblities.

No, I read just fine.

One "possible" problem is that you're using some wierdo, touchy-feely, lefty (read: dead wrong) definition for the word "possibility". A possibility is something which, as you say, "could", or "might be" "possible", which is to say, has the potential to be objectively true. Whereas you are merely stating your subjective opinion (or perhaps an opinion), furthermore, your opinion, in this case, has no potential for objective truth, and only the remotest "possibility" for a consensually agreed-upon subjective facsimile of objective truth. I believe the word you are looking for is "perspective" or "point of view", as it most closely fits the idea which you are trying to express.

Now, regarding your statement(s) regarding the value of fresh perspectives...their value is not, and has not been confined to either the social (read: soft, like Brie) sciences or the recent past. However, if I may use a geological analogy to refute yours, you're drilling in a dry hole. Once again, you sound like a dirty hippie (or naive University student), just because there are countless billions of pairs of eyes out there, doesn't mean every one, or even most of them are looking at anything worth seeing. Everyone's "point of view" is not sacred, or special, or worthy of consideration. To use a biological analogy this time, new, fresh ideas are like genetic mutations, sure its "possible" that they can result in something beneficial, but in the vast majority of cases, they are either of negative or negligible value. Which is not to say that there is nothing to be gleaned from studying bad ideas, just that there is nothing intrinsically valuable about them, aside from their value as data. To use another biological analogy, this time from the great social scientist Dr. Monty Python, EVERY SPERM IS NOT SACRED.

If you really, truly, buy into that crap you should respect the "possibility" that you're full of crap (which, could actually be objectively true, so I guess the quotes are misplaced), which is my fresh perspective on the subject.

EUREKA! I've struck oil! Load up the truck, we're moving to Beverly (Hills, that is)

Also, somewhere in the above post you basically admitted that this whole thing started with you dumping your crap on here about s**t that happened elsewhere, which I don't feel is really fair to us.

As to war and God...war predates God and will outlive him, people fight over lots of stuff, ideas about God being only one of them, albeit one which is easy to blame for many of them, even if it isn't strictly true. Just off the top of my head the wars fought in Japan which resulted in the Shogunate weren't religious, nor were the Falklands War (Conflict, whatever), Vietnam or Korea (unless you count Communism as a religion, and Marx as God), the Peloponnesian War, the Mexican Revolution, etc...