What a year gaming has been so far. If the next gen console wars between the PS4 and Xbox One weren't enough, other companies decided this was the year to make their own consoles. The first of which was the Ouya, an Android-based console which started off as a Kickstarter project that raised $3.7 million in just two days! The best part about this console is that it only cost $99. However the console, and the customer service tied in with it weren't not as devoted as one might think. Many problems followed the Ouya's pre-release from the shipment of the console, to various controller problems and lack of replacements. Upon official retail release, however, many of those problems were greatly reduced and solved, however sales of the console were not as demanding as people had hoped, with the lower-than-average price tag. This didn't stop other companies like Google and Amazon to think up possible gaming consoles for the future. Will they succeed or be a mediocre release much like the Ouya?
If the overwhelming news of gaming consoles didn't hold you up enough, the games certainly make up for it, and then some...or much more. There were a vast amount of big releases (and disappointments) this year including reboots such as DmC: Devil May Cry, and Tomb Raider, and sequels to fan favorites like Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Resident Evil 6, Saints Row IV, Bioshock Infinite, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Remastered old classics were brought into the mix such as Ducktales: Remastered, and the soon to be released Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse. The online gaming world saw it's next big release with Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which is also a sort of reboot/relaunch to the first release of the game, which met with a majority of negative feedback from fans. So much so that SquareEnix decided to pull the plug on the game and recreate it from the ground up, and this was a good move on the companies part.
Of course we're not at the end of the year just yet. There are still many more amazing releases to come including Grand Theft Auto V, Batman: Arkham Origins, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Call of Duty: Ghosts. This year is looking to be quite an extraordinary year for gaming with just about everything from reboots, sequels, new IP's, new online games, new consoles and new controversies. There's a whole lot more I could get into about this years games and console news, but I'll save that for my 2nd half of 2013 post. As with all the previous years in gaming it doesn't matter who wins what war, because the real winners are the gamers.
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