Don’t you just hate that sinking feeling whenever you pick up the latest piece of hardware from the store, only to find it has become obsolete when you get home and unbox it? It borders on despair and has a pinch of depression to it, somewhat akin to the almost instantaneous depreciation of a vehicle the moment it is driven out of the showroom.
Hardware prices don’t drop that fast, but manufacturers such as Nintendo and Sony are well aware of the rabid fanbase they command that enables their respective marketing teams to release new revisions of current hardware time and again, chalking up repeat sales that other businesses would die for.
Let us take a quick show of hands around the room. How many of you have been suckered into buying different colored Nintendo DS Lites? What about the special Final Fantasy III Edition that cost an arm, a leg, and half a kidney? You’ve got to admit it - there’s something special and magical about Nintendo hardware that spurs their loyalists to purchase copies of the same hardware in different colors. It is almost as if the gamers themselves were brainwashed.
Sony has taken the same road as Nintendo, albeit in a slightly more demure manner by planning to release just a couple more colors for their PSP in order to revive the flagging interest in this botched outing. Perhaps they hope that a wider hardware base would translate into better software sales, which in turn would fuel higher hardware growth. But I digress. Sony’s objective by introducing new colors is just to ring up the cash register, no more, no less.
Do our dear readers just pick up a new color each time it is released, or is one major purchase sufficient? Of course, other factors such as the economic viability and purchasing power needs to be taken into consideration, but let us pause for a moment and think. If cost is of no object, would that drive you to pick up every single new hardware release, or would you exercise restraint and prefer to use that money for other more worthwhile pursuits? (read: more games)
Ultimately, we live in a globalized world and I guess to big corporations such as these, the ends do justify the means. We can put a stop to this constant barrage of new colors which make our hands reach for our pockets, the choice is ours. The question is, do we want to?
