FAT SOW: CONSOLES ARE BORING

Why, I'm so angry I could vomit up a 50lb fly. And not any old fly: but a proper dirty one, that's been sniffing round a pile of worryingly dry dog sick. DRINK MORE WATER, YOU STUPID HOUND. Drink so much you actually drown.

So anyway. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently (recently = since about five minutes ago) is this: consoles are well boring now, aren't they and that innit? Whatever happened to the days when we got consoles that looked like car engine components, or DJ decks?

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It's like Microsoft, Sony and - sadly - even Nintendo are so embarrassed at releasing consoles that they want to disguise what they are. It's like walking into an opium den, and discovering it's basically a front for a soft play centre. Because I have a mandate to do whatever the hell I want, here's my not-remotely-complete timeline of console hardware. 

Be warned: gets significantly more boring as it goes along...

1977 - ATARI 2600 VCS

Alright, it wasn't the first console, but it was the first one anyone can bother remembering. And just look at it - it has literally got wood. It's a console with A WOOD FINISH. Wrap your mind around that for a moment, and try not to have it explode. What's more, that Atari logo looks like two people high-fiving a sausage. And that joystick, those buttons, that slot... this is filth. Filth in console form. AND I LOVE IT.

1982 - COLECOVISION

Yes, I know. I've missed out the Atari 5200, but who cares? If you care - take a long, hard look at your life, you fakking prune. I include the Colecovision on this list because it was virtually impossible to get your hands on in the UK, and I lusted after it.

If you read Marvel Comics back in the day, you'd see the adverts for this in the back, and it looked like the best thing ever. Imagine my relief upon compiling this feature to see that it resembles a crow's anus, with a couple of early-90s yuppie phones shoved up it via a curly wire. Dull. Move on. It's time to move on...

1983 - NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

Hmm. This is more boring looking than I want it to be. It looks like something that pervert Wall-E would try to have sex with. You know: like a breadmaker or a dehumidifier. 

"Me want sexy time!"

On the plus side, it is called the Nintendo ENTERTAINMENT System, but on the down side that implies some sort of multimedia capability, which we all know the NES didn't have, unless you include banging on it with a wooden spoon.

Indeed, the NES only really starts getting visually interesting when you shackle it to some of its add-ons: the infamous Power Glove, and R.O.B - Nintendo's robotic buddy system. Plug him in, and you can literally recreate that scene from Wall-E where he tries to make sweet love to a teasmade.

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1986 - MASTER SYSTEM

I'm sure many a pubescent boy developed their own "master' system" upon seeing this beauty. Alright, there's a lot of dull black in there, but it's shaped like a stealth submarine, and that red bit sort of evokes the computer terminals of the original Star Wars movie. Only downside here is that rubbish joypad. You had to screw in a little nub to play properly. I'm honestly not going out of my way to make this sound rude. It's just panning out that way. You had to screw in a nub...

1988 - GENESIS/MEGA DRIVE

This is where things start getting really interesting (for a while). For the first time, a console had curves - both in the kidney-shaped joypad, and on its main body. That sort of extraneous attention to detail is exactly what this pig wants from a console. Alright, the Mega Drive felt cheap and nasty once you picked it up - frankly, it was about as robust as a calculator rattling around in an old hat box - but to look at it, this was a peach.

1990 - SUPER NES

Curves overload! The Super NES - Super Famicom in Japan, duh, I'm not stupid - didn't sport a single sharp corner. It looks like it has been over-inflated, frankly. Alright, there are about 50 shades of grey going on there, but those little spurts of colour give it a cuteness that is hard to resist. Not featured here: the horrible US version of the SNES. It was purple, sharp, and nasty - like my dead mother.

1994 - PLAYSTATION

There is something a tiny bit try-hard about the original PlayStation; it copies from the SNES playbook of mostly-grey-with-a-splash, but it's clearly trying to evoke a DJ turntable. That's a bit desperate and 'disco vicar-y', but - looking back - Sony's PlayStation made games popular in a way they'd never been before. 

Yes, they did that by going out of their way to make games cool, admittedly (fools! You were all buying into a corporate marketing strategy! Hahaha), but it worked. And it's still more interesting to look at that the current PlayStation. Also, you could drag a coin along its edge, and play it like a washboard. Hey, hipsters: skiffle!

1995 - SEGA SATURN

Basically, the Mega Drive hits puberty, and gets all self-conscious, and starts trying to pretend to be more grown-up than it is. Less said the better.

1996 - NINTENDO 64

There's something about the N64 that makes me feel a bit sick. It may have taken the curves a step too far - like they'd hired Antoni Gaudi to overhaul the SNES. Which would make sense, as I'm still not convinced that anyone who'd ever played a video game was responsible for the N64 trident-style joypad. But still, y'know... at least it looks like a toy. Consoles are toys, remember? They're for playing things on. Did you know that?

1998 - SEGA DREAMCAST

Sega rediscovers its design mojo, primarily by compressing the original PlayStation in a vice, and is so ashamed of doing this that it begins the slow process of corporate suicide. A gorgeous little machine.

2000 - PLAYSTATION 2

Oh dear. At least you could stand it on its end, and pretend it was that thing out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which also made it easier to kick across the room into the face of its wretched owner.

2001 - GAMECUBE

Another joypad fail, but it's hard to find any fault with its parent hardware: the Gamecube was exactly what it said it was - a cube that played games. Better still: it was purple. Purple and compact, and it had a handle - which made it very easy to swing into the face of PS2 owners. Beautiful work.

2002 - XBOX 

Boring, heavy, black and noisy (which almost sounds like a description of any Britain's Got Talent boy band you might care to mention) - but that mysterious green circle, in the centre of that subtle X, evoked a sort of alien vibe. Or, at the very least, Marvel's X-Men comics. Or a design team that doesn't know the meaning of subtlety.

2005 - PLAYSTATION 3

A fine demonstration of how Sony had lost its sense of fun after the original PlayStation. At least the PS3 has a curved top, giving it the feel of an airport terminal. "Come fly away! Come fly away with me - TO THE ISLAND OF BORING".

2005 - XBOX 360 

Actually not a bad effort - some nice curves, and a curious neon green light emanating from the power button (except when it turns red to inform you what a terrible purchase you made). It's still pretty dull though. 

2006 - WII

We all loved the Wii - even after scoffing at its stupid name for a year before it was released - but this is just a bit nothing. What happened, Nintendo? We can't even work up the enthusiasm to complain about this. Still, nice blue light, eh?

2012 - WII U

Even more boring than the Wii, because its default colour option was 'Boring Black'.

2013 - XBOX ONE

Not. Even. Trying.

2013 - PLAYSTATION 4

Not even trying in a strong wind.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
FAT SOW: Who needs a video game movie?
FAT SOW: Art Attack
FAT SOW: Peeling back the years.