Rabid Fanboyism is Dumb

With the PS4 and the Nextbox (because 720 is a dumb name) on the horizon, I've started to notice more and more fan boys popping up to defend their favourite system, and this is annoying and it should stop.

Above is an old advert for the Megadrive (Genesis if you're American and WRONG) basically slagging off Nintendo in order to try and drum up sales for the system.  Now I owned a Mega Drive back in the day, I thought that shit was the bees knees, but I never slagged off a Nintendo system.

Sure, I would have arguments with my Super Nintendo owning school yard friends over which shit was better, but that wouldn't deter me from heading to their house after school sometimes and playing some of the old SNES greats.  In the same way, when they would come to my house they would be really hyped to hop on a bit of Sonic 2 or Golden Axe or whatever.

The debates and the sharing of systems continued for years and years, when all of a sudden the debates around which system was better changed.  No longer would people argue the pros and cons of a system, it all just devolved into "MY SYSTEM IS BETTER AND YOU'RE DUMB!", but the language was much harsher.  It's basically been the same since that switch, where trying to debate systems on most forums will just land you a load of personal attacks rather than any decent discussion.  It died down for a while but the whole Microsoft Vs Nintendo Vs Sony thing is starting to rear its ugly head again.

So why did this shit even start? When did people get so defensive about their system of choice?  Well I'm going to make an uneducated guess and say it was when Halo came out.

As fun as Halo was, it was released on a system that basically had nothing else going for it.  There weren't all that many great games on the Xbox, at least not compared to the PS2 or whatever, but it had a few.  This is where I think it all started though.  People would buy an Xbox for Halo, then realise that there were maybe, 2 or 3 other games worth playing and then feel that they had to justify the big money splurge.

In trying so desperately hard to justify their purchase, they brainwashed themselves into having a sense of brand loyalty and that is how the "rabid" fan boy was born.  Then again, I'm probably talking out of my ass but fuck Halo it wrecked FPS (I just want my Doom-esque shooters to be popular again)

Still, it's not like fan boys are going to stop me from buying all 3 systems in the end and enjoying everything the next generation has to offer, but I wish I could have a decent discussion without having my sexuality brought into question just because I think the WiiU looks promising.  Your loss morons