It Used To be So Simple

So recently I bought a PS4 and while I'm quite happy with my purchase and I'm enjoying the fuck out of Bloodborne, it does make me yearn for a simpler time.  When I say this I don't mean the actual games themselves but the process of actually sitting down to play something has become so involved and time consuming that I miss the old days of 16 bits and cartridge based games,

Back when I was a small boy shit was so simple.  I remember waking up one birthday morning in Manchester and having a Nintendo 64 shoved in front of my face, I was overjoyed.  I ran down stairs, my dad hooked that bastard up to the TV, I shoved in Mario 64 and BOOM! I was playing the latest that gaming had to offer at the time.

Compare this to my PS4 where I had to hook it up, set up the time/date/language, configure the internet connection, sign up for then log into PSN, download software updates and more all before I even thought about putting a disc into the fucking thing.  Then after I put the disc in for Bloodborne it had to dump all the data to the HDD and then download a fucking update before I could even start the character creation.  I must have been sat in front of the thing for at least an hour before player met game and that's kind of sad.

Even the thought processes that go through my head when simply buying games now is so much more involved than it was a few generations ago.  Back then I'd pick up a game, look at the box, read the blurb and if I thought it sounded cool, I'd fucking buy it.  Now I have to think about things like performance issues between platforms, DLC, if it's cheaper via download on PSN or the WiiU store or whatever just to name a few things.  Hell, Bloodborne is a great example of this because I had no fucking idea that The Old Hunters Edition of the game came with all the original content.  I thought, like whenever I've encountered expansions in the past, you had to own the original game first and THEN buy the expansion but this version of the game just has everything and it required a google search in order for me to find that out.

Even though I'm bitching about it I do get it, it's one of those necessary evils of gaming that we just have  to accept.  The medium has come a long way and modern technology lets us do so much more with our games now than we were able to do.  We can share content, play together via the internet, create mods and extras by ourselves to share and this is all stuff that has gotten better with time.  That said, the old says where you could just pop a game into your system of choice, hit the on button and be playing in under a minute is a time I do miss.

Still, that's the advantage of living in Japan for me, I have so many retro consoles that those simpler times are just a short hookup away and buying something like a SNES is cheap and easy to find.  I can relive the simpler times and enjoy the benefits of modern gaming, it's just a shame that I have to go through so much hassle every time I want to buy something modern.