(Note from Wololo: this article was sent to me by /talk user TootsieRoll85. I felt it was worth publishing)

So having never written a blog before and having left school or college a long time ago I’m not sure how the structure of this will pan out, but hopefully the message will come across ok.

When people – or console makers – talk about console wars between two brands they always discuss how much power the console has, or graphics, or how the controller feels in their hand, or the aesthetics of the console itself, the price tag is usually a big thing, of course.

The game library is a massive selling point on a console for me.

What console makers don’t talk about, presumably because they don’t know, is friends.

Which console your friends have is probably going to be a major thing for most people, and regardless of what the president of a company says on a stage about the consoles’ processor or graphics card, you’re probably going to go with what your friends have.

Probably.

http://rittifruity.deviantart.com/

But what happens when you get into a situation where your friends have all gone one way, but the game library on the other side looks far better to you?

This is what has happened to me recently.

Without going into too much detail about my, somewhat boring, life. I’m 30, I like adventure RPG’s, Pokemon, Monster Hunter and many more. Unfortunately, all of my friends like FPS’s.

I’m not the biggest lover of FPS’s but I have to admit that a lot of great times have been had with a controller in my hand, a beer by my side and my friends talking on my headset.

Now, I work, just like most 30 year olds, I’ve a mortgage and bills to pay, food to put on the table, a car to run. The usual stuff a 30 year old has to deal with. I have a few quid left at the end of every month and after a few months I’ve saved enough to buy myself a new console. A new console. One. Not both.

So which do I buy? I go online, as most people do these days, and I google to see which has the most power, which will last the longest. All the things most people think about when spending their hard earned cash.

All of my research and debate has led me to a major fork in the gaming road.

When you get to my age it’s not easy to meet new friends. New people, yeah, there’s tons of them about. But not new friends. Friends that you know and love and that you get on with like a house on fire. As you get older its hard to find time to meet with your friends in real life. You move a bit further away because the house prices are cheaper. People start having families. There are so many obstacles in the way that it’s much easier to jump online for an hour or two and play and chat than it is to actually meet up in person. I should probably mention that my friends only play for a few hours a week.

My friends and I don’t like many of the same games, so I tend to skip away from the online aspects of the games I play and just concentrate on the solo parts. Maybe just because it’s not the same playing online with people you don’t know. There’s no fun there, it’s all just about getting to the objective and winning. There’s no chemistry. No banter.

So when I hit my fork in the road my decision was this: do I buy a console which has a great library of games, which I could see myself sinking a ton of time into, but in the process alienate myself from my friends who will all be shooting things together on the other side of the fence. Or do I buy the console which all of my friends have so that I can shoot things with them, but then once they’ve gone offline I don’t have that nice huge library to play. Sure there are a handful of ok games on the second console, but nothing which excites me too much.

So, put yourself in my position;

Do you spend your money on a great games library which will no doubt bring tons of hours of enjoyment, on your own?

Or do you buy the one which your friends have, which will bring a load of laughs but for only a few hours a week?

Which way would you go?