This morning it finally dawned on me (no pun intended) that I’m not tired of games as I once feared. No, I still enjoy games immensely. What I’m tired of is the gaming experience at home and what it has become: Buy $60 game. Unwrap it, smell it…it smells new, I like that. Insert the game into console. Install. Wait. Wait some more. It’s loading. Still loading. Start Screen, finally! Intro sequence…can I play? Nope, can only watch. Lame.

Gone are the days where you pop a game in and just start playing. Why has the process become so long and drawn out? I understand graphics have improved, along with audio, and we now have online multiplayer modes. But at their core, games are supposed to be fun, instant (or near instant) gratification. I’ve also become frustrated with the whole being confined to the living room, or bedroom, or wherever I happen to have one of my consoles setup. I feel as though gaming has turned into a movie-going experience, and that isn’t a good thing: Buy expensive ticket. Smell it…it smells like toxic ink, eww. Go to concession stand, spend more money on food and drink. Find auditorium for movie, sit and wait for previews. Still waiting. 20 minutes, really? A recap of the previews, seriously? Wow. OK, movie is starting…wait, more previews…sigh.

Now, I know loading times will never go away, especially with how complex video games are today.  What’s most unfortunate is how long it now takes consoles themselves to boot up. As a child, I could turn on my Nintendo or SEGA Genesis and within seconds I was playing. Not so with the current generation, or the previous generations for that matter. It seems as soon as 3D gaming came about, loading times increased. So what do we do? The Next-next generation of consoles are on the horizon, with popular rumors indicating their first public appearances sometime this year. It’s unlikely any of them will include SSD’s…not without a substantial price increase. I fear even “Cloud” gaming will suffer load times due to loading the initial app and then waiting for the game to buffer.

Ultimately, what do I want? Well, instant-on would be ideal, but until that happens, the PS Vita seems to be my best option. Load times still exist, but I will no longer be limited to a console experience in front of a TV. I just wish hardware manufacturers would realize that some of us gamer’s just want to play games. Let us turn off all the extra “features” that we don’t need or want. One day, perhaps?