From the title of this post you may believe that I have some sort of bone to pick with the iPad but you will find that its rather the opposite. It’s simply a little dig at the unintelligent majority who are unable to express their concerns with the device in a legible and well thought out matter.

I am not going to bother to describe the iPad to you or tout its features because if you are reading this then the chances are you already know what it is and have an opinion of your own on the device.

My issue, nay concern is the rampant attacks as per usual against the device which occur whenever Apple launches a new product. The arguments themselves are normally formed by people who allowed themselves to be conned in the first place by the multitude of Apple “rumor” sites who whip them into a frenzy with their “IT WILL SHIT SOLID GOLD” headlines every second day until the product actually launches and they find that instead it really only shits out sterling silver and thus depression and rage set in.

There are a couple of key points that I would like to make during this article and I shall attempt to keep them as brief as I can.

1. Only noobs will buy this, I can buy a 20 cent netbook that can heaps more!

Now first of all yes I am sure that a netbook could do more then an iPad but if that is what I wanted then I would of bought a netbook in the first place. Secondly this argument also suggests that a netbook can do everything the iPad can do just as well.

I dont want another tiny, cheap ass, plinky plonky piece of plastic that is pretending to be a real notebook while being unable to do any of a notebooks task with any comfort, performance or ease of use. Netbooks are nothing but an uncomfortable fad for the cheap and those that honestly believe that this year will be the year of “Linux on the toilet seat”.

What about all the things that the iPad can do that the netbook cant? A superior, well proven and easy to use interface? Battery life that far exceeds that of any netbook on the market? Ease of physical use for mobile applications? You cant lie down in bed and use a netbook with any ease, whereas I could with a tablet/ereader of the iPads size. I could not roll under my car with a netbook and use it for instructional purposes and I certainly cant walk around my house using a netbook with only one hand like you could with a device of this nature. They are two different devices with what is going to be two very clearly different markets to begin with.

2. Its not open, its too locked down WAH WAH WAH.

I will let you in on a secret with this one. CONSUMERS DONT CARE. They really dont, trust me on this. They dont know what open means and they dont want to know. They want to read the news and check yahoo mail and when they are done they do not even want to know at the end of the day how they achieved that they just want to get in the car and go to work. They dont care because they have better things to worry about. Also need I point out some other closed systems?

Think of it like a car. 90% of the population does not care about what is under the hood or how their car works. They just want it to look nice and get them from A to B without hassle and someone else can take care of the rest. The rest in this case being the mechanic, in our case it would be Apple. As much as you or I would love this to be open to do with what we wished this device will sell to millions of people that do not care and do not want to be bothered with such issues in the first place. Not because they are stupid but because in their mind they have better things to do and they will be buying it for a specific purpose not to meet the requirements of 100 other different devices they could also purchase.

I should finish up I guess, I am on the fail netbook and I am sick of using this keyboard to type.

in order to understand why this is going to sell and sell well you must understand who this is being targeted to and what it is being presented as. On its most basic level it is an e-reader that can do so much more then display text. Think of them as an added bonus. It can display video, email and web all things which can serve to enhance the usage of such devices in the real world. E-readers are amazing products but not many people I know are going to dedicate such a large amount of coin to devices that serve only the one purpose. When you have a device that you can use to read the manual for your car but you can also now use to display the video of the procedure you have a winner on your hands and due to its size and physical properties this will extend to many applications that a netbook just can not touch.

Will I buy one you ask? Time will tell, I like to buy gadgets from all walks of life so only time will tell I guess.

In conclusion, you can all bite me.

[Setting the scene]

It’s 3am in the morning, you sit in the basement of your mothers house and stare with the fury of a thousand angry fire ants at the screen of your PC as you heat up another burrito in the microwave oven that you keep on a box in the corner of the room. The night has been long and dark, in fact you feel as if you have been awake for days, the battle taking place on your screen has taken a heavy toll on your body.

You take a quick glance at your burrito, it appears to of finished warming. You remove it from the microwave and attempt not to slam it down in one go, hell dominoes Pizza does not open for at least another four hours and you must conserve energy for the coming battle less you pass out due to lack of greasy invaluable nourishment.

You place the burrito down on the table and turn your attention back to the screen, panting as you do from having walked the two metres back to your desk. You can see that the battle on your screen is being lost, your men tired and fatigued from battle. In a last ditch effort to rally your men against the opposing army you raise your hefty man arms high above the keyboard and bring them down like the thunderous hammers of Thor himself and proceed to commence your attack:

“OMG FAGG0TS U GUYZ IS SO FUCKING GAY. EVERON KNOZ THAT PLAYSTATYIN IS THE BEST NUBS!!11ononE XBOX IS GAY AND WEE IS 4 K!dz!”

You lean back in your chair, your thunderous weight shaking the very foundations of the house itself. You wipe the sweat from your brow and smile as you place the last of the burrito into the gaping hole in the middle of your face. You rest easy knowing that for now at least, the battle is at an end.

[Scene Ends]

The above scene while perhaps over generalised is the impression that I am given everytime I read a forum or blog article referencing any of the current generation consoles or even in some cases PC gaming.

The current generation of consoles has divided people in ways which I have not previously seen during such a console war. I wonder if this is simply because of the age and demographic of each console owner or is it simply the fact that more people then ever before have access to the internet to allow the rampant shit that they spill to be heard by the many. These people often result to insults, anger and threats of violence to get their point across and to bash yours should you not have the same opinion when it comes to the right “Choice” of console.

The arguments presented are often ill thought out and some even border on the downright hilarious! It is with the above in mind that I have decided to sink down to their level and finally weigh in on this hotly debated topic for the amusement of you and others.

First off the bat I think that we will take a look at the following argument:

1. “I bought a xbox360 cause im a hardcore gamer and I need hardcore games so I can be like you know hardcore”

This has be the funniest of the so called arguments for buying one console over another. Whenever this argument is presented I proceed to expel whatever liquid I should be drinking at the time over my keyboard like some crazed pervert with a fetish for the nets darker side.

What exactly makes a hardcore gamer you might wonder? And what makes them hardcore exactly?

While actual photos are hard to come by given the low chance of these people ever leaving their basement to join the living, limited snaps have been taken. The following is an image presenting the average hardcore gamer in their natural habitat:

If these “Hardcore” gamers are to believed they bench 300+ the gym, sleep with thousands of women, eat nought but steel and are thunderous men of wonder. Woman swoon at their feet in anticipation of what game these Hardcore fellows will load up next on thier xboxes.

On a more serious note what the hell is hardcore about gaming in the first place regardless of what you are playing? Does choosing Gears of war over say something like that Katamari or Super Smash Brothers really make you harder and more awesome then the average man? Who exactly makes this distinction? What do they get for being so hardcore? Is there some sort of awards ceremony where we give these people the key to the city for being just so awesome? These people present playing an FPS as the ticket to bitches and good times when in reality it does not make their choice of activity any more appealing to the general public then the ability to rattle off a listing and history of every season of Star Trek.

The very arrogance of these people striking off countless genres and game series which helped to build this industry is amusing enough but to actually claim that the very fact they do so is what makes them so awesome in the first place is a little hard to swallow. I feel sorry for these sort of people due to the amount of great games that they miss out on as they refuse to drop the jelly donut and their copy of Halo and perhaps try something that has a little more variety to it rather then shoot, jump and strafe.

2. The xbox and wii are both failures because I am an awesome sony guy and I have Blu Ray and all this other awesome home media shit so suck it. You have to buy all these add on for your xbox before shit even comes close to touching me! eat it!

This is the other argument that you will primarily see during the current generation. This argument is normally put forward by owners of the PlayStation3. The crux of their argument is that the higher price of the PS3 is warranted because in order to get the same experience from the cheaper xbox you must actually add extra items to the xbox which come at a hefty price.

The point that these people always seem to miss is that you dont NEED the the extra purchases for your xbox to actually you know, play games. Out of the box both the PS3 and xbox can both do what they are primarily intended to do. You can however if you wish add on to the core xbox however it is not needed to simply play games, you know the point of these things in the first place. Despite what these people would like to believe the Add Ons are NOT required to enjoy the system.

I actually like the choice rather then being forced to pay the premium for something that I may or may not ever actually use in the first place.

The point above brings to mind however an issue that has confused me in regards to the current arguements about both the xbox and the PS3. Througout the years I have been primarily a PC gamer and during the last few generations of consoles my primary point in defence of my PC being my primary gaming machine was always that it could do other things rather then just gaming which made me feel that the cost of maintaining and keeping a gaming PC was justified. This was always heavily refuted to me by the console people who would inform me that they dont care about the ability to watch movies, go on the net, check mail, play music or anything else. They just wanted to game and consoles gave them awesome graphics for a very low cost and they could see no reason to choose a PC over a console.

Why the hell now then is the primary argument for the high cost of the PS3 and to a lesser extent the xbox the fact that they can do many other things apart from just gaming? I mean hello welcome to the last ten years of PC gaming I am glad to see that you guys have caught up. You are acting as if somehow online play and downloadable content was created by Microsoft and Sony. It’s rather funny to watch as those who paid the PS3 premium justify their purchase by spouting technology that the rest of us have had free access to for years.

The primary reason I can see for the current sales figures between the xbox and the PS3 is the simple fact that while the vendors themselves may of decided to target a different market with their consoles the actual market for these devices has remained the same as it did two, five or even ten years ago. People just want to play games, thats it. They want to spend as little as possible, configure it with a minimum of fuss and just start playing. You know, the whole reason these people did not simply buy a PC in the first place.

If you are in the market for a console to play games and just too play games you are not going to choose the console which is vastly more expensive compared to the other just because it includes a specific media format over the other, I am sorry but it just does not happen. If you are in the market for both sure but I just really dont see it swaying the average console purchase especially in the current economic conditions.

This rant has gone on way to long and I have drifted far off track because I am too tired to continue. Let me just point out before I go that you may feel free to flame me as should you feel the need to do so because you take offense at my article.

This article is opinion and should be taken as such, I am not going to tell you which console you should or should not buy and nor do I care.