The Most Bloody War of All?

[Limewater]

Now that, kids, is being overly political correct.
CTFan

Ummm... I know you want to be all cool and insulting and all, but you might want to read a little bit about what is considered to be "politically correct." From your use of the term, I am sure you will be surprised.

"Political Correctness" refers to avoiding offense through excessive use of inclusive language to avoid alienating members of a particular racial or ethnic group, gender, nationality, etc...

Nobody classifies respect for the dead as political correctness.

It's not really that big a deal. Your subject title is somewhat insulting, but it's insulting in the same way that the Michael Bay crap-fest Pearl Harbor is insulting.

I'm just saying that you might want to think about it.

But fanboyism is no higher now than it has been in the past. As I mentioned before, people today are much more likely to get multiple consoles, and most of the really successful franchises are going multi-platform, with few differences between versions.

As someone else mentioned, the internet just makes it more visible. Console loyalty actually seems lower now than it did in the 16-bit era.

imewater, the title is doing it's job it's grabbing the audience's attention. I think that if someone were to make a thread that talked about "the bloodiest war ever" most would agree that its the American Civil War, then there's nothing to discuss. Just a simple question and a quick answer, maybe some discussion as those of you over seas don't study that and may disagree. But it's be a flat topic.

Whether the title does its job is irrelevant. One could grab the audience's attention by posting embedded pr0n images in one's post. Since the pr0n is doing its job of grabbing the audiences attention, it would be fine, right?

I'm not saying that ChronoTriggerFan should not be allowed to post the title that he did. He has every right to. I'm just saying that there was probably a better way to say what he said.

But regarding wars, I would certainly hope that most people would NOT agree with you!

The number of military deaths in World War II is an order of magnitude larger than in the American Civil War. Add in civilian deaths, and you're looking at two orders of magnitude.

[sg1gamer]

the war will get bloody between the 360 and the ps3. because they are the power horses of this gen. and the wii will get scrached up a little bit. because the wii is the show horse of this gen.

[TheOnlyOneHeFears]

I can't remember much about the 16-bit era, I was too young. I do remember playing Super Mario World at my friend's house though. My first proper console was the N64. But from what I've heard/read about it, the 16-bit wars were so much worse than the current console war. At least there's no direct attacking by the companies themselves this generation.
I also agree with Limewater, the American Civil War was definitely not the bloodiest war. I would say World War I was, as it was the first Total War, which resulted in pretty much a whole generation of young men being completely wiped out. Add in the damage to the countries themselves, and civilian casualties, and you've got bloodshed on a horrific scale.

[Kurt_]

Soo...many...long...posts...

Let's sum it all up.

16-bit wars: Companies attacking companies with hateful commercials (Also, GBO vs. Gamegear was roughly round this time.)

Next-Gen wars: PS3 fanboys trying to keep a sinking Titanic afloat by yelling at the ships around it that the PS3 is better than them.

Truthfully, the only person I know who has a PS3 is my 10 year old cousin, and they're pretty well off. We were unable to convince him otherwise. He has a PSP, and possibly a PS2. But on vacation all he wanted to play was our DS.

[CronoTriggerfan]

"Political Correctness" refers to avoiding offense through excessive use of inclusive language to avoid alienating members of a particular racial or ethnic group, gender, nationality, etc...

Nobody classifies respect for the dead as political correctness.

Political Correctness

noun
Avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude, marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

Last time I checked, any group of people can be marginalized and/or insulted, even the dead. So now not only are you wrong, you're getting ridiculously off-topic and spammy. Keep it to the intended discussion.

And Sparkfist, I tend to agree on your matter of the internet; there are many more forums (as in fields of discussion) for people to discuss opinions now thanks to the internet, so that has a huge influence on how violent discussions seem to become. Though I think that this has also become integrated into cultural thinking; my old Nintendo Power issues weren't littered with Genesis-bashing articles, merely the latest editorial on how awesome the SNES is. That's changed now, because every time I flip open GameInformer, there's yet another page on how any specific editor feels on a certain platform.

CTFan

[Limewater]

Political Correctness

noun
Avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude, marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

Last time I checked, any group of people can be marginalized and/or insulted, even the dead. So now not only are you wrong, you're getting ridiculously off-topic and spammy. Keep it to the intended discussion.

Wow. "The dictionary." Of course nobody ever need specify which dictionary they are using, since there is only one-- "the dictionary."

However, no. Your posted definition of "political correctness" does NOT cover respect for the dead. Read it one more time.

It directly specifies "people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." The set of "the dead" are neither vulnerable to social disadvantages nor discrimination because the dead are no longer part of society. You can't be socially disadvantaged or discriminated against if you are not, in some way, part of society. However, the very definition of "society" required individuals living in some form of community.

Until the dead begin to walk the earth again in some sort of George A. Romero apocalyptic future, they will not be part of society and will not be subject to social discrimination or social disadvantage.

And where is the spam here? All I did was make a throw-away comment in my first post. Someone asked me to elaborate, so I did. Then YOU brought up political correctness. My last post only discussed the topic that YOU brought up. If you don't want to pursue this line of discussion any further, there is nothing forcing you to continue.

And Sparkfist, I tend to agree on your matter of the internet; there are many more forums (as in fields of discussion) for people to discuss opinions now thanks to the internet, so that has a huge influence on how violent discussions seem to become. Though I think that this has also become integrated into cultural thinking; my old Nintendo Power issues weren't littered with Genesis-bashing articles, merely the latest editorial on how awesome the SNES is. That's changed now, because every time I flip open GameInformer, there's yet another page on how any specific editor feels on a certain platform.

CTFan

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here between Nintendo Power and Game Informer. Nintendo Power is run by Nintendo, and while I have not read an issue of it since probably about 1993, their strategy from all the issues I have read was to pretty much ignore all other gaming platforms and pretend they do not exist as much as possible. They knew that their readers owned Nintendo systems-- otherwise they would not be reading the magazine. The magazine was made to sell games. As I recall, Nintendo did a little less mud-slinging than Sega in their advertising at the time.

GameInformer is a cross-platform magazine. If you look at cross-platform magazines of that time, you'll see a more of what you are describing as a more recent trend.

[Lagonium]

I must disagree, Limewater.

It directly specifies "people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." The set of "the dead" are neither vulnerable to social disadvantages nor discrimination because the dead are no longer part of society. You can't be socially disadvantaged or discriminated against if you are not, in some way, part of society. However, the very definition of "society" required individuals living in some form of community.

Society can also be defined as "The situation of being in the company of other people" So just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't be good company. (That's from an Oxford dictionary)

And since when is death not a social disadvantage? The dead are constantly discriminated against.

Anyway, like most everyone else said, the 16-bit era was the bloodiest console war in my opinion. But the current one might have some interesting aftereffects - will the wii's strange new control scheme change the face of combat or will it flop? Only time (well, money too) will tell.

[Limewater]

Note: For those who don't care at all about all of this word parsing, at the bottom of this post I do actually discuss the OP topic

I must disagree, Limewater.

<snip>

Society can also be defined as "The situation of being in the company of other people" So just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't be good company. (That's from an Oxford dictionary)

And since when is death not a social disadvantage? The dead are constantly discriminated against.

You are welcome to disagree. However, I think a closer look at that definition will show you where you are making a mistake.

Let's look at the whole definition from the concise Oxford English Dictionary:

• noun (pl. societies) 1 the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. 2 a particular community of people living in a country or region, and having shared customs, laws, and organizations. 3 (also high society) people who are fashionable, wealthy, and influential, regarded as a distinct social group. 4 an organization or club formed for a particular purpose or activity. 5 the situation of being in the company of other people.

So, there are five given definitions. The first two include the word "living." The third is an alternate usage describing "upper crust" individuals and clearly excludes the dead.

The fourth describes a club or activity. We can assume, for the sake of argument that the dead have bridge clubs in Valhalla. However, those bridge clubs in no way overlap with the society of the living, and therefore are irrelevant to the discussion.

Finally, we reach the definition you claim means that the dead face social disadvantage. It says, "The situation of being in the company of other people."

There are several problems here. First, it specifies being in the company of other people. This is actually another alternative definition, not describing society at large, but a small gathering. This makes it irrelevant to the description of groups that are "socially disadvantaged," because the use of the term "socially" there describes the broader definition.

With this definition, the society is broken immediately when one leaves the room. So, assuming that the human soul does not exist and corpses are people, one could be "in the society of" the dead by surrounding himself with the bodies of the dead. However, as soon as he walks away from his bizarre arrangement, he is no longer "in the society of" the dead.

This is not the type of society referred to in the term "social disadvantage." The definition you picked was a completely different use of the word-- sort of like how the word "prime" can mean "first in rank" or it can mean an integer with no factors other than 1 and itself.

A second problem with this is the implicit assumption that a dead body is a person, and that the human soul either does not exist or remains in one's body after death. If these conditions do not hold, then one is certainly NOT in the company of the dead when in close contact with the bodies of the dead. But I guess that is getting into the religious territory that would violate the rules of the board.

A third problem with this definition is related to the first. If we force this definition of society into the term "social disadvantage," then we render it pretty much meaningless on a broad level. We can no longer make a statement that a class of people is "socially disadvantaged" in any meaningful way because individuals in that class will always be in the company of different people. Suddenly, one could not describe a member of a minority group as "socially disadvantaged" if that member of the minority group is in the company of other members of his minority group, even if that room full of people was the only representation that group had in the entire world.

And sure, being dead is a disadvantage. If I challenge the first five Presidents of the United States to a game of basketball, I will win by forfeit. However, this does not fall under the heading of "social disadvantage."

Video Game discussion begins here:

Back on the topic at hand-- Now that I think about it, I sort of question my earlier statement that the 16-bit era would count as the "bloodiest" console war generation.

I guess it depends on what counts as "bloody."

If we're just going to go on casualties, wouldn't the "second generation" be the worst? Video games weren't nearly as big then, but there were definitely more failed consoles, and it caused several companies to either go out of business or get out of the home console business entirely.

16-bit was certainly the best console war, though.

[Gamelver]

, you all are focusing on the wrong word anyway . "War" can be used, I'm quite sure, to represent many different things, though its main definition is that of military conflics between one or two states. As long as it is specified that this is an economic/verbal/whatever war, I believe it's all right.

Anyway, I was too young to get caught up in the 16 bit conflict (there, is that better ?) between Sega and Nintendo; all I knew was that I had a Sega Genesis and I liked it. Later, when I found a friend with a SNES and tons of games, I liked that as well. End of story, I think .

[ShockSlayer]

I would only call it a war, if the companies were actually competing against each other. I missed out on them all until the 6th gen. There are only wars between jerks on the internet and the uninformed in the real world.

For the record, The internet is a different world.

SS

[CronoTriggerfan]

Ugh. Limewater, I chose to be the bigger man and end this pointless rant, and I hoped you'd do the same. Obviously, I was wrong. Please, the title is accurate. It's referring to fanboyist violence, and that makes sense, as I don't remember many people being mugged, shot, beaten, even KILLED over game consoles back in the day as they are now. Thus, the title of "bloody" fits. "Console War" is a general term used to describe bouts at the corporate level between gaming systems, but that term was never really up for debate in the first place.

CTFan

[Kurt_]

Sooo...many...long....posts...still...

[Sparkfist]

Sooo...many...long....posts...still...

Thank you Captain Obvious.

CronoTriggerfan, you make a good point about the muggings and theft that centered around the release of the 360 and PS3. That would constitute this current generation as the bloodiest. I didn't interpret it that way.

I still think that as far as the cooperate or commercial attacks are concerned the 16-bit generation is the winner. Really the ads that NeoGeo put out to promote their system against the SNES or Genesis were some of the best and boldest I've seen. "You have to have a pair of these [steel balls[ to play NeoGeo." That is simply a classic, and something I doubt that Sony or Microsoft will emulate.

[CronoTriggerfan]

CronoTriggerfan, you make a good point about the muggings and theft that centered around the release of the 360 and PS3. That would constitute this current generation as the bloodiest. I didn't interpret it that way.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to hint at during the beginning of the topic, but I guess I didn't explain it very well. Oh well, as long as you guys understand now, I guess all is well!

I still think that as far as the cooperate or commercial attacks are concerned the 16-bit generation is the winner. Really the ads that NeoGeo put out to promote their system against the SNES or Genesis were some of the best and boldest I've seen. "You have to have a pair of these [steel balls] to play NeoGeo." That is simply a classic, and something I doubt that Sony or Microsoft will emulate.

Oh, definitely. There were some seriously gutsy ads put out by SNK and Sega, especially. The steel balls ad, the sex-related ads that made appearances, and the balls to call out another console and simply HAMMER it into the ground, as seen with the GameGear "color" commercials and the "Genesis does what Nintendon't" campaign. Made growing up that much more fun!

CTFan

[Limewater]

Ugh. Limewater, I chose to be the bigger man and end this pointless rant, and I hoped you'd do the same. Obviously, I was wrong.

Well, you aren't exactly being "the bigger man" if you go about calling yourself "the bigger man," and simply not writing a post for a little more than 24 hours.

Regardless, you're behind the times. If you notice, I have not even mentioned your use of the term "bloodiest war" since before you last posted on the subject.

The discussion since then has been over the term "politically correct," and, by extension, "society." This is by no means a "pointless rant" as you call it. It is a discussion about the meaning of words. The precise use of language is very important, and this is why you take courses in it every year through high school. The use of precise language is vital in most fields.

My purpose in this is not petty argument for argument's sake. It is edification.

Please, the title is accurate.

Where did I claim it was not accurate?

It's referring to fanboyist violence, and that makes sense, as I don't remember many people being mugged, shot, beaten, even KILLED over game consoles back in the day as they are now. Thus, the title of "bloody" fits.

Had you said this at the beginning, I would not have thought the title to be in poor taste. You make a very reasonable point here.

However, that is not the direction you went with your opening post, nor was it your tack in further discussion.

However, are people actually getting killed over console-war arguments, or are they just being killed because some crazy jerk REALLY wants a Wii?

"Console War" is a general term used to describe bouts at the corporate level between gaming systems, but that term was never really up for debate in the first place.

Correct.


On a more OP-relevant note, I recall the 3DO as well having a marketing campaign based upon bashing the SNES and Genesis, though that was late in the life-cycles of the two consoles.

I don't recall NEC being particularly negative in their advertising of the TurboGrafx-16, though. Anyone?