Every few months you can count on a topic about whether or not there will be another 'Video Game Crash' like the one in 1984. It's not an unreasonable question by any means, but there is an inherent flaw in the discussion every time, which I just realised today.

The focus of the discussion is always based on Game companies/developers, because by all rights, these guys were the cause of the Crash the first time. Flooding the market with total crap at ridiculous prices. The question is asked "are they repeating themselves?"...yes and no. Yes, they are flooding the market with crap. Ridiculous prices? Thats an opinion, but doesn't matter in terms of this discussion today. Another crash will not happen because of the amount of crap hitting the market, as Game developers have figured out how to market to the lowest common denominator, i.e. Casual Gamer/Mainstreamer. This customer brings so much revenue, it doesn't matter what the niche gamers are buying...they are just extra revenue on top of the base customer, i.e. lowest common denominator.

My theory on what will cause a new crash, is something that cannot be stopped, and is something that gamers will not stop due to lack of ethics, scruples and all around cheapness. Your probably saying to yourself "OMG here comes the anti-emulation BS". Kinda sorta.

First let me say I have no stake in the future of what is now our Modern game machines, I am interested in Cartridge systems so my time has come and gone. So really I could care less anymore what you guys do to your XBox. This thing is dangerous, and nobody sees that. It's dangerous because of it's ability to emulate just about everything that a PC can so far. Someone tell me, is it running an N64 yet? Well, emulation on this thing isn't a rare thing, everybody who's anybody is running every classic game emulator they can find, adding an 80Gig harddrive, making it a consolized PC basically.

Think about this for a minute, what if someone figures out how to run a PS2 emulator on there? Download the Roms onto your 120gig HD = free new games. I'm not totally up to date on the capabilities of the Xbox emulation 'scene', but I havent read that a PS2 emulator is running on it. But something like that happening would be devastating, most gamers don't give a shit about the 'evil' corporations, they just want the games the cheapest way possible, and they WILL take as many free games as they can get without batting an eyelid, again pointing to the general lack of ethics, scruples, and all around cheapness of your average gamer.

I don't know if it could happen with this generation of consoles, but with the new batch being obviously more powerful, it might not take very long for some computer hack/wiz to figure out how to make one console run the competition. Xbox seems to be a good candidate though, considering its architecture and its proven ability to run numerous emulators and its huge memory capacity.

The idea of the XBox is whats dangerous, and its a catch 22 for consoles. Game companies have been creating ways to fight emulation for years and years, and now they've gone and made a console that is their enemy. Strange happenings indeed. But my point here is that it will be the GAMERS who create another game crash, if indeed there is one. It will not be the fault of the 'evil' 'greedy' corporations this time. Rather it will be the 'greedy' gamer who has to have it all for free that will ruin his own hobby.