Manners: The Console Question

Ask a gamer why they like the console system of their choice. Most will tell you they picked it because of the hardware inside the case. It has better graphics, more memory, has mod capabilities other models don’t, plays the right apps and games to stay fun and interesting…. the list can go on and on.
A good console matches up play style and extra apps. The best consoles are the ones you feel like you never need to turn off because they are good at letting you switch apps and games without fighting about it. Some consoles are just really cranky… And some consoles get cranky about specific games.
There is a horrifying movement to judge a console by the case only. I mean, we finally got out of the brand-dependency era and started encouraging people to look outside the big manufactures to all the indie (or nontraditional as the brand insist) console choices. There is so much potential out there and people are wasting it by only looking at the case – chassis don’t last. Haven’t you heard that the good consoles out there self-update to the latest firmware?
When you pick a console  just because of a nice case, it’s easy to find that that console doesn’t play any of the right games. No Netflix??? Pandora can be jury-rigged, but it crashes every thirty minutes? The Console obsessively switches to their favorite reality tv show…
And then there are the worst culprits of all. The ones who only look at the controller.  And I mean ONLY. They are so singularly focused on that one aspect of the system, they don’t even seem to remember you can play games with a good console! I think the ones that think they need the console with the absolute biggest controller in a room are sad and funny at the same time.
Especially because when you don’t keep the firmware up to date, you can run into some pretty nasty problems. That cranky-to-play game inevitably gets worse. Sometimes the console gets a virus and begins infecting all the other hardware around. Worst, you may have a total system crash and you are left with no console at all.
Take care of your console. If everyone decides to take care of the consoles in their life, then hopefully everyone playing on your hardware will take care of you too.