Next gen hype train gone rogue

So you take some unreleased consoles... Add a few teaspoons of bloodthirsty fanboys... Throw in some speculative articles that have absolutely no basis in the factual world... Finally, a sprinkle of shameless trolls who make ridiculous bold statements and pass their opinions off as facts.

Listed above are the ingredients for my self-inflicted hair loss. Here I thought that gamers could possibly grow and mature as a community. I thought we were done with this ridiculous bickering and ranting. I was wrong.

Since the announcement of the PS4 (which I'm sure we could have all guessed was on it's way) we have been faced with 2005-2006 all over again. Now, in the coming months, I understand microsoft will be announcing their new console.

The point is that the hype for these consoles is steadily building. Now, when this happens, fans of their respective consoles desperately await further news regarding their potential future purchase.

The problem is that there is currently no massive news coming out about next gen consoles. So what happens now?

To answer that, let me throw an analogy at you. You are swimming in a pool. Halfway across the pool, there is a barbed wire barrier which will not let you through to the other half of the pool until a pre-determined amount of time has elapsed. You could go back and hang on to the edge, waiting for the barrier to open or you could be so desperate to get through first that you will wait right in front of the barrier, treading water the whole time. That's what we're doing right now. The thing about treading water, is you can only do it for so long before your arms get tired and you end up just splashing around in a panic.

Instead of waiting for news to come out, we're just making up news. Suddenly we are getting a flood of articles (I use that term very loosely) which are desperate for hits, generating fuel for the fire that we are all burning in. The console war is back. This means that we're already seeing plenty of:
-"5 reasons why X is better than Y"
-"what company A needs to do to ensure they beat company B"
-"why I will be buying console x- and why you should too"
... and so on and so forth until I am ready to puke.

So we're getting articles which are hyping up particular consoles, ones that are putting them down and others that just want some quick hits, regardless of what will happen to their site's reputation. What do they all have in common? They are not news. There's nothing factual about these articles. You scroll down to the comments section and there is nothing intelligent being said there other than the occasional "I will reserve judgement until I actually know what I'm talking about" comment.

That is exactly what I think people should do. Don't jump on the hype train. Don't agree with someone else's opinion just to be popular. Buy the console that is right for you when it comes out. There are people out there saying they know a console is going to be good before it even comes out. Listen to reason. You have no idea what you're talking about.

As for the console war, I'm going to simply sit on the fence. I'll buy one for the games and whatever one has the most games that I am interested in will be the winner for me. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a good choice for you because we will undoubtedly have a different taste, but I strongly urge all of you to come to your own conclusions when you have the right information.