Growing up through the 90s, my console of choice was my PC. I didn’t get a Nintendo, a PlayStation or Sega whatever to enable my procrastination in homework or chores. In fact the first console I owned was the XBOX as part of a Speakeasy promotion for getting DSL service back in 2002.

I’ve owned every Tomb Raider game in the series for PC with the exception of Tomb Raider: Legend (which, in my opinion, is easily the best in the series), I’ve owned Final Fantasy VII and VIII (when they made the short-lived leap to PC). Countless Star Trek titles from games to interactive technical manuals and a handful of hella-advanced-for-their-time Commodore 64 titles.

But where did the shift in improvements originate?

With any software title, there’s a round of aggravating bugs that not only detract from the gaming experience, but often cause obstacles preventing the progress or resolution of the game. Us gamers would agonize over tips from other aggravated players at software publisher’s forums, technical support knowledge bases or on the line with a clueless representative who did nothing but apologize for our inconvenience.

Sooner than later, we were blessed with a patch, a downloadable executable that would automagically fix our reported issues with the game. We hoped. Most of the time it worked, sometimes it didn’t, waiting for the next patch, or even worse, the fact that the publisher might not release any other patches for the title, claiming their work was done before moving on to the sequel or next title.

Fans of Tomb Raider will know the issues that hounded The Angel of Darkness, the sixth in the series. The game was repeatedly pushed back because of production delays and internal conflicts and the product launch was plagued with bugs, angry fans and patching requirements, including the console versions. This disastrous launch prompted publisher Eidos to move the franchise’s development from the original studio Core Design to Crystal Dynamics.

Fast forward to today, I have a PlayStation 3 and am enjoying impressive titles like Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, LittleBigPlanet and a number of downloadable games from the PlayStation Network. All of these titles have had at least one downloadable patch, sometimes 2-3, often adding additional functionality that went beyond the sellable talking points that were printed on the box or listed in the original download summary.

So what happened to the old practice of “launch, even if we’re not on schedule or the product is below our QA standards?”

Console makers realized the power in automated updating from computer operating systems like Windows and OS X. They realized that sending out a software title that consumers would purchase needed to have immediate issues resolved in order to prevent negative reception, further complicating future titles in a franchise or potential franchise.

Updates such as these came to the XBOX 360 console and later to PlayStation 3, and therefore severed the old business practice of build/sell/fix immediate issues/move-on and moved gaming to the new business practice of build/sell/learn/improve/proceed.

Aside from automatic patches for games, the console’s operating system also received major updates from the same update system, often adding major overhauls to certain functionality while introducing new feature sets and interoperability between the platform and its network,  including functionality that compliments or succeeds computers for common tasks; tasks such as media playback/recording, digital content purchasing, gaming subscriptions (scheduled downloadable content), web browsing, networking and remote device interactivity.

So the next time you power up your next-generation gaming console, take a moment to appreciate how the PC made many features you take for granted possible. Then, by all means, frag away!