Your "Gaming Saturation Point"?

[Exhuminator]

Have you ever found yourself hesitant to buy new gaming platforms, due to already owning many others with libraries you haven't fully explored yet?

Personal reflection for example's sake:

To use myself as an example; for fifth generation and back, I've got emulation, and any game I'd like to play to cover all that stuff. And it's a lot of stuff. I could easily spend the next decade just playing fifth gen and back, and not run out of stuff to play. For sixth generation and foreward; I own GBA, PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Dreamcast, X360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP, Vita, 3DS, and Android. I own tons of games for all of those platforms, the majority of which I haven't played through yet. And let's not forget about PC gaming, a vast and deep ocean in and of itself.

So in that regard, I find my will to buy an Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, or Switch to be null and void. It's not a matter of money, I could buy all of those together today no problem, but it's other issues. One thing I don't want to do, is add another pile of unplayed stuff on the already existing mountain of unplayed stuff I already own. Another aspect is; I find myself perfectly content with that which I already own, at least for the foreseeable future. I just find it hard to justify spending the money, mental bandwidth, and house space to acquire yet another gaming platform because of these reasons.

I find myself feeling like an odd-man-out, because I don't seem to find the immediate attraction to something just because it's "new". Even on RacketBoy, a supposedly retro-gaming website, I notice a lot of folks around here buy new hardware platforms as soon as they release. (And that's not a knock against anyone who does, just an observation.) For example I see a lot of talk about people having pre-ordered the Switch, and people taking days off work to play it, and that whole concept is just alien to me. I need for the Switch to prove itself to me as a viable platform, before I even consider adding it to my existing stockpile of unplayed stuff, that I can only very slowly whittle away at.

I guess the question is; those of you who consistently jump on new platforms as soon as they release... why? Have you already played everything you already own? Or did you just buy the most popular games for your systems, so you've played the greatest hits? Are you bored with all the systems you currently have? Is the attraction simply that the releasing platform is new, and new is always "better"? Are you uncomfortable staying a generation or two behind? Do you ever see yourself reaching a gaming saturation point, where you find yourself content with what you already have, for like at least five years? Or am I the only one who feels this way?

[ElkinFencer10]

I always adopt the new platforms because I think new hardware is exciting, and there's always some series I simply MUST play the next entry for (mostly Nintendo platforms).

[Fragems]

I don't really have a saturation point is my problem . That being said I don't jump on stuff till I feel it's prices are dropping and there is a solid library of used stuff in the $10-20 range. I only buy recently released stuff if I want to play it at the peak of it's significance in order to discuss it and interact with it's community while it's at it's climax.

If I had a game library akin to this I would probably still be buying games.

[TSTR]

I'm there already. If I wanna play a good deal of new stuff, I have a PC for that. If Persona 5 doesn't have too much of a difference between the PS3 and PS4 versions, I'm gonna be very ecstatic, since that means I still don't have to buy a new console yet. The newest joints I own are a PS3, 360, and 3DS. I'm at a holding pattern, and it feels great not hemorrhaging money.

[Ziggy]

I guess the question is; those of you who consistently jump on new platforms as soon as they release... why? Have you already played everything you already own? Or did you just buy the most popular games for your systems, so you've played the greatest hits? Are you bored with all the systems you currently have? Is the attraction simply that the releasing platform is new, and new is always "better"? Are you uncomfortable staying a generation or two behind? Do you ever see yourself reaching a gaming saturation point, where you find yourself content with what you already have, for like at least five years? Or am I the only one who feels this way?

Not that there's anything wrong with it, but this is a very introverted way of looking at new consoles. There's plenty of reasons not to purposefully stay 1 or 2 generations behind. You'll miss out on playing the same games that your friends are currently playing, so no local or online multiplayer with friends (which is always a nice thing). You'd also be left out of the conversation if all your friends or co-workers or classmates are talking about the new bitching game that just dropped. There's plenty of social reasons why you would want to stay current.

[Tanooki]

I don't think it would be fair to do this, but to answer just the topic header I think YUP! is in order.

Seriously though yes and my point hit after the kid was born. I had to do more stuff at home around the home and as she got older outside of it too. I have less free time, and I'm more tired after stuff so the energy and time for it is less. If you factor in having a lot of stuff on the shelf I'd like to pick away at again or push farther into than I have, it makes it hard to want to get something new, yet I still want to so I can have something new and fun to do and keep up with the latest. The problem is I then finish nothing and find I have no time to really bother after so long before I get apathetic and move to the next to keep interested. Is it any wonder you see I have that big sales list on here and I usually have a rolling list of 20-50 game and game related items up on ebay at any time? You don't think I actually find much at all locally anymore? It's bugs me but I'm removing things to lower the bar away from the saturation point.

Another argument one could make...steam sales, gog sales, humble bundles. How many here buy all that crap in those monthly/quarterly blowouts where you end up having 100s of games and using 10 of them to completion if that? There's a good saturation point.

[Gunstar Green]

I'm pretty much at this point with gaming. I feel very much like an outsider when it comes to the current hardware and even gamer culture itself.

The amount of new titles released each year that are must-plays for me can usually be counted on one hand and don't really justify buying a new console. I hear about stuff like the Switch and think it sounds cool but also feel that I personally have no need for it.

PCs are about as close to a universal standard platform for games as we've ever gotten and as most of what I care about gets ported there anyway the consoles have sort of lost their appeal for me (I've completely skipped the current hardware generation of PS4, XBONE, Wii U). At the same time I'm interested in new platforms and how they evolve things and what their best games are but not so much that I can't wait until something like the Switch is an old piece of hardware sitting around in flea markets while future people are busy having games beamed directly into their brains or whatever. I'm in no rush when I've got so much to explore already.

[noiseredux]

PC has been mostly my platform of choice for years now. And I've considered Android to be my portable way of playing games. I did recently get an Xbox One but it streams games to my PC giving me access to some non-PC stuff (Madden, Destiny, etc) and is dual-purposed as a Bluray player and media streamer on my TV.

I "get" why others would want a Switch or other new consoles. But I don't - and the saturation thing makes sense. Maybe folks see this as limiting myself, but the "limit" of PC/Android libraries is gigantic. I'm never at a loss for games to play. In fact, I've got so many to choose from that it's already tough to settle on one thing sometimes. So I don't feel the need to bring more libraries into that decision.

[isiolia]

Have you ever found yourself hesitant to buy new gaming platforms, due to already owning many others with libraries you haven't fully explored yet?

Not really. I'd say I try to approach gaming similarly to how I approach any other medium, and simply follow what interests me at the time. Trying to get through everything I might want to play on PS2 before moving on to PS3/etc makes about as much sense to me as trying to get through ever 80s pop song or TV show before delving into stuff from the 90s, etc.

Video games do make it more complicated by putting up walls around each platform/generation, but I see it as ultimately a minor investment. Given that I'm regularly buying games anyway, adding another console just means expanding which I can consider. I don't exactly trade in my old ones to get a new one.
Kind of like you mentioned, almost any one system could potentially provide years of entertainment if I elected to exhaustively obtain and play through its library...but it might also not be what I'd find interesting or fun at the time.

Overall, new consoles not much different, to me, from having old consoles or emulators around in case I want to play something on those. Arguably, it's a zero sum game. If, across a lifetime of gaming, I'd wind up playing a set of PS2, PS3, PS4, etc games...does it really matter which comes first? Experience or shifting tastes in the meantime may even change which older games I enjoy and why. Or maybe I can get remastered versions of games I'd rather play when I get around to them.
Either way I slice it, I already have a -lot- of games, so whether it's adding more old games to the pile, or new releases, it's games I don't really need in order to have something to play. It just comes back to what I happen to be feeling at the time.

I do tend to objectively look at things and limit spending. I wait on a lot of game releases, and don't tend to get new consoles day one.

[Ack]

I own plenty of games. I'm trying to beat what I own now. Sure, I was thinking about getting a Switch, but it's the first console I have wanted in two generations, and I'm mostly interested for Zelda and it's portability.