Are we really that fickle?

A little while ago, I bought an Xbox 360 Arcade solely for the HDMI port.

My intention was to use the original 360 as a media centre in the bedroom but after nearly eight months, I haven’t actually got around to setting that up; the fate of my old (perfectly functional) console was to be a dust magnet in my living room. That was until I returned on Monday from a week’s holiday.

In my absence, the Xbox 360 at work had been sent back to Microsoft for repair as it exhibited more red lights than Amsterdam.

Since its disappearance, my colleagues have been eating lunch at their desk rather than sitting around the console playing Forza or Gears of War. Consequently I bought my spare 360 into work on Wednesday to replace the missing console. The effect of this was precisely nil – everyone is still spending lunch at their desk.

I found this behaviour perturbing until I realised that, since returning from holiday, I have only played once – GTA in our standard Monday slot.

Could it be that not gaming for a mere week has dulled both my interest and that of my work mates? My gaming habits are particularly fitful, depending on the games I’m playing I can play for entire evenings or only a handful of hours a week. The recent spate of releases on the Xbox 360 have lacked my gaming interest’s raison d’etre – co-operative online play. The difficulty is that even a game with such capability still needs to be extremely popular.

There is a gleaming light at the end of this tunnel of disinterest, a light which is partly responsible for the tunnel’s long length – roll on the 14th November!