At 35, I have these moments in life where stuff really bugs me. Perhaps it’s my age – I’ve lost most of the boundless enthusiasm that I had in my twenties, and now I seem to have a general urge for putting stupid things right.

You know the sort of thing – like that stupid fucking leaflet that dropped onto my doormat telling me “What To Do In An Emergency”. Are people really this stupid? How much of my tax money did this cost? It’s advertised on the telly. It’s even got its own website. No doubt all designed, researched and built by overpaid ‘consultants’ milking the Government cash-cow.

Running quickly away from massive great
armoured cars might be an idea.

Coming across wasteful contracts in my place of work is another… “How much is this costing us?????!!!!! We are paying <insert London-based marketing agency name here> to do this EVERY month!!?? Are we mad??”. I’m told not to worry about it. After all, to a multi-million pound company like ours, it’s just a drop in the ocean. This after I’m told I can’t have the pay rise that I probably deserve, because there is a limited budget for that sort of thing. So, I renegotiate the contract, saving my company thousands of pounds – because, like I said, it’s a thing that needed putting right – and sigh at my 2.5% pay increase in 2004. Wrong. Plain Wrong.

An overpaid consultant, yesterday (which one is me? -Ko).

The best time to sort through these big issues is in bed. Lights out, give the missus the obligatory spoon-hug until she falls asleep, then settle down to some good serious thinking - staring into the blackness…

The topic that’s been on my mind this week is the amount of games and consoles I have. Too many. It’s Spaghetti Junction under the telly in the lounge and much moaning from my other half – and much aggro trying to explain to baby Zak that Daddy’s bright lights on his PS2 do not mean “Press me while daddy is playing”, his Xbox controller does not say “Throw me across the room!” and a loose game disc does not scream “I AM A TEETHING IMPLEMENT – PUT ME IN YOUR MOUTH AND INDENT YOUR SEVEN TEETH ON EITHER SIDE!”

Round the back of my – and probably your – telly.

And of course, getting up, plugging things in, unplugging things, finding your stepdown, memory cards, trying to complete all your games, importing, which version of Burnout 3 to buy, Ebay, boxes, where to put everything, etc, etc... Let’s face it – if you want to keep in touch with all things gaming, it’s a bloody nightmare. A stupid thing that needs putting right…

So I got to thinking… what if I could build the perfect games system out of what I have?

Xbox

PS2/PS1

Gamecube

Nuon

N64

Jaguar

Dreamcast

And I think I’ve done it.

Console-wise, it has to be the Xbox. On paper, it’s got the most grunt. There isn’t much you could do on anything else that can’t be replicated on an Xbox. (We’ll get letters. – Ed). Plus its got a hard drive, and broadband gaming capability.

So, we kill the PS2 and Gamecube (sorry about that – but bear with me). Then, we make everyone write games for the Xbox – but still using their own style. So Nintendo games look like Nintendo games, GTA looks like GTA, Halo looks like Halo… No different versions for different consoles. Oh, and get rid of the Xbox DVD player. No-one uses it and the picture is crap. So, there we go. One console under the TV. Bliss.

But of course, I want to play all my old Jag, SNES, Megadrive and PS1 games… Easy. Chuck all those official emulators onto the Xbox hard drive, and away you go.

Come to think of it – put all the games on the hard drive. Bloody discs are a pain in the arse. Download the games you want onto the hard drive, or buy a one-use-only widget that uploads a game and then wipes itself… I dunno, there has to be a way.

CDs. Destroy all.

Controllers… Now this is a toughie. There are so many good bits to every controller out there…

Jaguar

Good: overlays for the rubber keys.

Bad: D-pad a bit of a turd.

Dreamcast

Generally OK, but the analogue pad gives you thumb-ache after an hour, and the lead comes out of the bottom. For fuck’s sake.

PS2

Ergonomically perfect. Addition of dual controls was a stroke of genius. Four shoulder buttons are nice, too.

Xbox

Ignoring the balls-up of the first controller for a moment, the ‘S Controller’ is actually quite good, but either way, it doesn’t exactly sit in the hand very well, does it?

N64

Fuck me, this is nice. The tension on the analogue pad in the middle is spot on. “Super-Mario-64-Me-Do!” as they used to say on page 475. However, a lot of buttons went to waste and were hardly used.

Nuon

The Stealth controller is actually quite good. It’s a rip-off of the N64, but it still does an adequate job on Tempest 3000 and Iron Soldier 3. Feels cheap, though.

Gamecube

Ahhhhhh. Now then. The Wavebird is a thing of beauty. It feels absolutely perfect in your hand, the controls are responsive and its ergonomically very well laid out. But its not without its faults: the yellow analogue stick is rarely used; the Z Button is in the wrong place; the vibration function is gone, and the shoulder buttons don’t feel right at all - they click for Chrissakes!

So, our Franken-controller would be…

The looks, weight and general layout of a Wavebird. Wireless of course. With PS2 shoulder buttons. Replace the white-elephant yellow analogue stick with the old N64 one. Add a select button in the middle. Put the vibration function back in it. Add 12 buttons above the battery holder area and provide overlays. Remove the click on the shoulder buttons. And, er, I think we’re there.

The more I read this on paper, the more I think it would work. Look at the DVD market. Pixar don’t have to make 3 versions of Finding Nemo for 3 different DVD platforms do they? Muse don’t need to release 30 different versions of their album for every single make of CD player on the market? So why is the games industry like it is?

Yes, yes. We forgot this baby.

The final plan, then…

1. Let Microsoft do the all the gubbins inside and build the dev kits. 2. Make sure its powerful enough to accommodate what everyone wants to put out there (i.e. Xbox).

3. Get a Wavebird and a hacksaw and sort it out as per above.

4. Give it to Apple to make.

5. Anyone who wants to publish a game can do so.

6. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft can still take their cut like they do now. If it’s their game, pay ‘em.

More importantly, I can play all the games I want on one sexy-looking, multi-functional machine. No more boxes, DVD cases, leads coming out of my ears, no more inflated prices for “retro” stuff on Ebay and no more “Ninty rulez!” fanboy postings on internet forums.

Does this scare you? Get ready for it. It’s coming within 5 years…

AEROFLOTT, October 2004.

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