Good things are said to come in threes. I am a man of empirical nature possessing a healthy distrust for hex and wives’ tale. Yet even I checked the chicken bones when three monumentally good things appeared in a ten-day whammy:
(1) As I write, hours from sending my first issue of this magazine to the printers, I’m mere weeks into a job that I’ve always hankered after. (2) A fortnight ago we played hosts at the T3 Awards, drenching the finest tech releases of the year in a Champagne-and-posh-dinner-swathed spotlight. (3) Five days ago I became a father. To misquote the venerable De La Soul, three is the magic number.
It’s certainly magic for Sony. They hauled away three trophies at the T3 Awards. As well as the Gaming award and Gadget of the Year for the insurmountable PS4, the original PlayStation was announced as the inaugural T3 Hall of Fame inductee.
Is it an obvious choice for a Hall of Fame entrant? Yes – but shouldn’t a legends award be obvious? Launching this prestigious showcase with anything other than PlayStation would be like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame roster omitting Elvis. PlayStation was as identifiable as a part of mid-90’s home style as La-Z-Boy chairs and yucca plants. 155 million living room carpets were strewn with controllers bearing four sacred symbols like Ankh hieroglyphics. I remember thinking of it as a ‘grown-up’ console, with one laser-focused purpose: pure, unadulterated gaming. Today I carry a single device that does a multitude of things. Some of those things it does very well indeed; some not so well. PlayStation did one thing brilliantly. There were consoles before, but when that perfect meld of style, substance and performance falls from the cast like it did for Sony in 1994, classics are made.
This magazine’s not about future-gazing fantasy, concepts, rumour or scurrilous leak (nor is it about dwelling on the significance of a digit, but bear with me…). It’s about seeking out those products that strike perfection. The bits of kit that, like PlayStation, redefine an area of lifestyle tech to become the new standard against which its challengers will be held.
Informed, entertaining discovery and opinion is what we’re about. I don’t know who, in three years’ time, we’ll be welcoming in to the Hall of Fame. I have no idea what this magazine’s Gadget of the Year 2017 will be. And I have absolutely no clue as to which clown-puke-coated YouTube presenter my toddler will watch on repeat and I shall want to stove-in with a shovel. These things are three years away – but I bet you all the money in my pocket that the process of getting to each of them is going to be a lot of fun in the making.
Threes. Good things come in them. But waiting for them isn’t what this magazine is about. We bring you Tomorrow’s Technology Today – T3. Tom Dennis, editor Twitter: @tomdennis / Email: tom.dennis@futurenet.com