“…But our princess is in another castle!”
We at Middlecon are slightly nostalgic… okay, not slightly, we are very nostalgic. As such, we thought it would be fun to share a little of who we are or were, tidbits of interest that shape who we are as individuals and a company, as they apply to our business of today. What better way to start the ball rolling than to talk about video-games and consoles!
Like most of you, I have been raised in a video-gaming world. You name it, and I have played it, from my dad’s Atari to NES and SNES, dabbled with some DreamCast. I even loyally paid my dues to PlayStation (all iterations). Sony, Sega, Nintendo, and Atari have all taken chunks of my parent’s and eventually my own pocketbook. You could even call me a gamer at times, though profession and family greatly limit free time. I have been staring at my NES considering whether or not I should replace the corroded contacts or leave the system as is, a testament to a time of great change and beginnings, a time of innovation and technological breakthrough. I reflected on how many systems I, a casual gamer, have played, how those consoles were used, and most importantly, how they have changed.
Today’s games and consoles are a far cry from playing Missile Command on Atari or Duck Hunt on NES. They are complex and graphic by every definition of the word without even mentioning the data footprint. What used to be 16K for an entire game (Duck Hunt), is now 16G (COD:Ghosts). Back then, would pause a game to save our progress, leaving the system running. Power outages and blown fuses were devastating in this era. Later on, we could save our achievements or progress on a memory card to continue at a later time. Now, players of today save to the console with the exception the current gen., where you have the option to save onto the cloud.
A major difference in gaming comes with connectivity. The console networks opened the possibility for gathering useful information about what gamers do, what they buy, where they live, and how they play their games. With current gen gaming consoles and the big data buzz that is on everyone’s lips, I am eager to see how my information will be utilized. How will my gaming experience change or evolve? How will the leading systems and game developers use my data? How efficient will they be? How deep will they dig?
Ten points to the first person who can identify the quote in the title of this blog!
Cathy Andréasson
