QUOTE
	"..it was near-impossible to teabag anyone on the NES."

The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Nintendojo as a whole or any of its affiliates.

I'm not that social of a being.

I'm certainly not a recluse who stays at home all day and night playing World of Warcraft -- partially because I prefer Animal Crossing -- but I wouldn't really consider myself that much of a social gamer.

Why is this? It's not solely because of the types of games that I play, but I'd be lying if I said that this was not the case. I tend to not pick games that my closest associates might also pick. The reverse is true, as well. My friends tend to favor shooters, of which I have a few, while I gravitate toward fighting games and RPGs, the latter of which tend to be solo-only affairs. I tend to dominate the fighting game scene amongst my inner circle of compatriots, although I tend to be more competitive or less competitive when online.

So, it's nice when someone decides to get a game that we can play together, either in the same room or separately online. We've started coordinating our purchases in ways that we've never really done before.

Used to be, if we wanted to play the same game, only one of us would have to buy it. Then, we could play it at whomever's house we felt like occupying at any given time. Games were all designed to be played on one screen with one point of view, so it wasn't a big deal if if we didn't each have our own separate displays. They even had four-player games back in this ancient day, although this was really before they had figured out how to make four-player games work. Spot and Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road were about as great as things got back then.

Now, I'm sure you already knew this, but it was near-impossible to teabag anyone on the NES. Not that this is a form of taunting that Nintendo would necessarily allow, in any case, but it was an outright fantasy in those days. Just to be clear, I'm speaking generally, here -- I did not have fantasies about teabagging people after turning all of their 7-UP Spots to my color in 1989.

But online play and, to a certain extent, handheld gaming, has forced us to consume more, which, with Nintendo, is always a goal. When the Game Boy first came out, well, then you all of a sudden had to get not only a second game, but also a second system in order to play two-player games. Sure, stomping someone in the original Game Boy version of Tetris was awesome, but that whole package cost over $200 before either Mario or Luigi was crying, depending on who won.

Now that we can play games over the Internets, which, as I understand, consist of a series of tubes, we can have up to sixteen players going at it at the same time, more in some cases. Guess what that means? Usually, each person playing online has to have his or her own console and his or her own copy of the game. Now, there are select games that allow more than one player per household to get in on the action, but effect is still in play.

That's exactly what's happening with me and my select group of friends. We want to play the same games, so we are arranging to purchase the same games for the same systems, of which we also happen to own several. It's funny how being connected in ways we never have been before can result in all of us being more isolated. Sure, we're playing together -- each of us in our own separate living rooms in our own separate houses.

Have some reactions, comments or questions? Feel free to either:
Hit the Forums and/or Email our Podcast at showmail [at] nintendojo.com!