Dear Santa: A gamer’s wish list for Christmas 2008

Dear Santa,

We’ve been good little boys and girls this year. In fact, we’ve been so good we want to offer you a proposition.

Instead of trying to cram multiple copies of Guitar Hero World Tour Complete Band Kit into your sleigh or shoving little old ladies out of the way to pick up a couple Wii’s, how about you use your advanced Santa magic to help all the video game lovers in the world?

It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been good or bad this year, we can vouch for their dedication to the cause.

There are some things about the video game industry that we solemnly wish you would change. We think the granting of these three simple wishes would make for a much happier holiday season for gamers years to come.

Equal Opportunity Gamers

How many times have we had to torment our brains when trying to decide which cross platform game we should buy for a particular console? It’s always one console that seems to have the edge over the other in terms of content. We want to put an end to the fanboy flame wars once and for all and one way to do that is to offer the same amount of content for every platform. It’s not fair for a consumer to spend their hard-earned money on a game only to realize the developer will stop supporting it after its release in favor of another console. All money is good money, and we want equal treatment for our $60 investments.

Make the Wii Worth It

We love Nintendo. For a lot of us it’s the first name we could associate with video games. The problem is now Nintendo shovels out a jumbo jet load of bad games throughout the year. The Wii has been out for almost 2 years now and there’s only a couple handful of games that are really worth playing. We understand that Nintendo has hit the money vain by going the casual route, but please make Nintendo do something special for their old fans more often. Mario can’t always save the day after all.

Less Nickles and Dimes, More Rewards

We gamers appreciate the casual inspirations that are given to us in the form of Mii’s, avatars and PlayStation Home. What we don’t appreciate is charging us to get the full experience out of these services. To be fair, Nintendo isn’t guilty of this and Microsoft is on the right track but Sony’s pricing for small items to be displayed in Home is ridiculous. Instead of roaming through our couch cushions, how about making it so that our achievements and trophies can be redeemed for something? It’s not important if it’s a t-shirt in the mail or a new costume for Marcus Fenix. A little reward for our efforts can go a long way.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Hill
Gamertell Staff Writer