4. Exclusives
I honestly used to not care about what other consoles had: I had an N64, and didn't touch a PlayStation unless I was over at my cousin's house. I had Golden Eye, he didn't, and I couldn't care less about what he had. But that has now changed. When deciding what I wanted to save up for first, these franchises were something that I really had to put thought into. Games like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and God of War, really drove the PS3 home for me... But did I really want to give up Halo, Alan Wake, Mass Effect, Fable, or Gears Of War? Honestly, Fable and Kingdom Hearts were the two big ones for me. Fable 2 existed, and we only just learned that Kingdom Hearts 3 is coming out an entire generation later. So that was one argument down. The second one was, what my friends were getting? This wasn't an issue in the past. Why was it now? I wanted to play Call of Duty, Street Fighter, Need For Speed, etc. with my friends. Sure Ps2 and Xbox had limited connectivity, but now we have some form of net use for just about every game. Some has online multi-player, others have leader-boards, and maybe you just want to chat with friends while you were playing different games together. For one reason or another, whoever you were, and whatever your tastes were, this generation of gaming made your console of choice matter.