5 Reasons It’s Still Worth Buying Video Game Consoles At Launch

So, we have two new video game consoles coming out over the next couple weeks, which means you’re going to be seeing a lot of “Why You Should Wait To Buy The Xbox One/PS4!” articles online, because, well, duh. Buying a console at launch is a fairly terrible idea for a number of pretty obvious reasons — it’s expensive, there aren’t many games to play and so on and so forth. The logical, sane thing to do is to wait on the Xbox One and PS4.

That said, there’s still an undeniable appeal to buying a new console at launch. Here’s five reasons you don’t necessarily need to feel bad about wanting to buy an Xbox One or PS4 this year…

You’re Getting The Most Feature-Rich Version Of The System

Game systems may go down in price as they age, but they also have a tendency to shed features. All those extra ports in the back evaporate one by one, cheaper materials are subbed in and don’t expect any sort of backwards compatibility to last for long. The console may get cheaper and more compact as time passes, but it usually doesn’t get better.

I don’t know if this game’s actually any good, but I sure played a lot of it.

The Joy of Launch Titles

Looking back, a lot of my most fondly remembered games are launch titles. Launch titles (or launch window titles) aren’t always the best or most polished games, but hey, there’s nothing else to play, so you sink huge amounts of time into them. You master their intricacies and learn to appreciate them warts and all, something you wouldn’t bother to do with most games that come out later in a console’s lifespan. Would I have even bothered to grab personal favorites like Pilotwings, Motorstorm, Wave Race, TimeSplitters or Luigi’s Mansion if I hadn’t picked up their respective consoles at launch? Probably not. Yeah, the Xbox One and PS4 launch line-ups may not seem terribly exciting, but you might learn to love some of those games.

You can bet that’s a launch N64. 

Creating A Personal Connection With The System

There’s something to be said about betting on a system before you know where the chips are going to land. If you wait until a console has already proven itself before you plunk down your cash it can feel like you’re just following the pack, but buy at launch and that system is your horse you can follow through its ups and downs. Sure, sometimes you might bet wrong and end up with a Dreamcast or Virtual Boy, but hey, the Dreamcast was rad and the Virtual Boy is a collector’s item now. As long as you don’t allow yourself to become consumed by fanboyish console war bulls–t, having a horse in the race makes a console generation more fun.

Sorry guys, there probably isn’t another ‘The Last of Us” on the way for current-gen systems. 

Subsisting On End-of-Gen Scraps Isn’t Always That Fun

Yeah, some of the best games of all time have come out late in their respective consoles’ lifespans, but those games aren’t the rule by any means. The last days of a system’s life are, by and large, packed with cheap licensed games, half-assed versions of sports titles and, well, a whole lot of nothing. Subsisting on that can be a little depressing, and yes, the release lists for new consoles can be pretty thin broth too, but at least the broth is fresh. By all means keep your old console plugged in to play that occasional late-generation classic, but you might want to also pick up a new console to keep you sane.

We All Want To Be The Cool Kid On the Block

Listen, I know we’re mostly all adults here, but that desire to be the coolest kid on the block, with the raddest new game system never goes away. Having your buddies ask you what you think of the Wii U or PS4 because you bought it before them is still pretty satisfying, admit it.

So yeah, if you decide to wait on the Xbox One and PS4, you’ve probably done the smart thing, but if you just can’t resist taking the launch plunge, don’t worry — I understand.

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