We have almost every console imaginable in this house. PS2, PS3, PS4. Xbox 180, 360, One. At least 4 Nintendo DSes in varying states of 3D. Two Gameboys. A PSP. There’s a Dreamcast in the closet, and a Sega Genesis in storage. We have a Wii in a box, and I think there’s an NES in a bag somewhere. Basically, lots of consoles. Almost every console. Tremendous consoles. Only two are hooked up, though: the PS4 and the Xbox One. We don’t have 19 TVs, you see. The others are in the bedroom, holding up shelves. We keep them mostly for nostalgia, and because nothing in the fucking universe is backwards compatible.

For each dusty console taking up floor space in the bedroom, there’s a shelf of games to go along with it. Throughout the purging over the years, only the absolute favourite of all games have survived: for example, we’ve only got one Xbox game. Normally I’d just let the console go and reclaim the 15 square feet of floor space, but the game is Jet Set Radio Future and it’s my ultra super favourite so .. we have to keep it. Same with the PS2. And the PS3 games are still great (and most likely not finished), so we have to keep the system.

I woke up wanting to play Portal 2. It’s a cold, rainy, grey Sunday, and I have nowhere I need to be until tomorrow morning at 9. The house is stocked with food, there’s Diet Coke for days, and even though my ice machine is dead (RIP) the freezer has enough to last me a couple hours. A perfect gaming day!

I own Portal 2, but it’s for the PS3. PS3 games can’t be played on any system except the PS3, because Sony is evil. I don’t want to hook up the PS3. It’s big and I don’t know where all the cables are and I don’t want to wait through 14 hours of system updates to play a game offline. The Portal series is super popular, so surely it’s available for download, right? Nah. Doesn’t exist for Playstation outside of the PS3. Super.

Okay, Xbox. Maybe it’s available for the One? Ooh, it is – but I can’t download it on the console itself, I have to use a computer. Sure, that makes zero sense. About as much as my buying a game I already own – twice I think, I just remembered I bought it on Steam a while ago. Download says 360 only. What. Try to load it up – the One comes with a 360 emulator of sorts. Weird, but okay. Finally! Now I’m thinking with portals!

The lack of backwards compatibility is a ridiculous, unfair monopoly. Screw you, Sony.

I should just buy a fucking PC and be done with it.

WAH. First world problems, and all that – I just want to buy a melon.