When I was 7 years old, I received a Nintendo (NES) for Christmas which marks the beginning of my video game journey. My Christmas wish that year was actually an Apple computer, but for some reason my parents bought me a Nintendo instead.
My biggest Christmas video game wish this year is actually two-part and has to do with Elder Scrolls 6.
My wish is that the game would be -
- 1: Available for PlayStation, Xbox, PC
- 2: Ready to be released immediately
I have been looking forward to the next Elder Scrolls game for a few years now. Skyrim (Elder Scrolls 5) is one of my favorite games of all time.
Skrim features an immersive scenic environment to explore and natural feeling play control. The game begins with your character escaping capture. From there you have total freedom and you can go anywhere and do anything you want. Over time, you progress your character and can collect and earn stuff. This allows you to eventually settle down in a house and begin a life.
Overall, the game was engrossing with a certain fun factor. Sometimes I would find myself doing things like hiking to the top of a mountain peak simply to enjoy the panoramic view or taking in a starry night sky.
Now let us address the two parts of my wish -
In the summer of 2020, I was disappointed to hear the news that Microsoft had bought Bethesda Studios for a record amount of money. Bethesda is the studio behind the Elder Scrolls series as well as some other popular ones such as Fallout. I immediately feared that from now on Elder Scrolls games might be Xbox exclusives. Now more recently my fears have come true. The studio has pretty much confirmed that Elder Scrolls 6 will be an Xbox and PC exclusive.
This is an issue for me. I have always purchased game consoles for playing serious games. The only games I have ever played on one of my PC’s are browser games such as Farmville and Splinterlands. Even then my PC’s have always been low level enough that they are strained by these simple browser games.
In terms of consoles, I have never owned an Xbox console and have instead always chosen a PlayStation instead for a couple reasons. The first is that PlayStation is more popular and it is what most of my friends have. Second, I am a fan of many of Sony’s exclusive series such as God of War, Uncharted, and Racket and Clank.
The second issue is that even if the game was available in the Sony ecosystem I am still going to have to wait several more years for it to be released. The news regarding the next Elder Scrolls game has always been discouraging over the years and even now. The studio has constantly said stuff like it will be years before it will be released. It is still in the development phase. There are many other games we are developing right now that are a priority over it like Starfield. Then Covid hits and that is obviously going to results in more delays.
The question is: When I eventually upgrade from my PS4, will this one game persuade me to buy an Xbox Series X/S instead of a PS5. I wonder if I would be willing to support the company that many people on the internet abbreviate as M$. If I had to make that decision today I would say perhaps. There are a few exclusive series on Xbox that I have been curious to play such as Forza and Halo.
One option could be buying an Xbox and leaving my PS4 attached to my TV as well. That way I would still be able to play my old PS4 library without owning a PS5 which is backwards compatible with most PS4 games. In addition, early in the PS5 era, many games have been released for both PS4 and 5, giving me the option of buying the PS4 version of them.
So I do not get my wish this Christmas, but perhaps I will on Christmas a few years down the road.
For this Christmas, I decided to treat myself to a couple games on PS4 that will make me feel like a kid. During a Black Friday sale, I bought SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled for $20 apiece. The SpongeBob game is a platformer which is a remake of a 2003 game. The Crash game is a kart racing game which is a remaster of the 1999 PlayStation game. It is pretty much Sony’s version of Mario Kart. I am waiting until Christmas to open them and am looking forward to it.