Gaming Differences

CiaranORian

Shared on Fri, 02/26/2010 - 09:47

 

Since most people on this site are from North America I thought it might be interesting to list some of the differences between gaming in NA and Ireland. I’m sure most of these will apply to gaming in Europe in general. Are there any others I’ve missed?
 
1. We pay more for games. This seems to be improving but in general games work out the same in dollars and euros. Thus we’re spending 10-20% more depending on the exchange rate. Thankfully used games are getting cheaper.
2. Playstation rules. Even though Microsoft has done a pretty good job with the Xbox360, the Playstation brand continues to dominate in Ireland.  Back in the day there were more PS1s per head of population in Ireland than any other country except Japan. That brand loyalty has continued.
3. Football (soccer) games are popular! Not surprising but FIFA continues to sell bucket loads every year. On the other hand basketball, football and hockey are regarded as niche at best.
4. Games come in multiple languages. It seems that in the case of DS games in particular you can never guess which random sort of languages your game will come in. For example it might be English, Dutch and German. Or, English, Slovenian and Norwegian. Always interesting.
5. On Xbox Live you end up playing against other Europeans. Due to the time difference it can be hard to play against Friends from NA. Apart from the ones that don’t do anything else except all day play games of course.
6. We wait longer for games. It’s not as bad as it use to be, I remember the original Pokemon took about 3 years to be released in Europe. Still Battlefield Bad Company 2 is coming out two days later in Europe compared to NA. That’s two more days, or 48 hours extra practise NA gamers will have before I get to play!
 
 
Coming soon, things about gaming that are universal (like the manager of Gamestop has to have long hair and play WOW).

Comments

Join our Universe

Connect with 2o2p