A while back, a leading member at EA games made a statement about his desire for one universal console. Almost a year later the debate still rages in both the gaming industry and community. Most game developers want the one console to reduce costs of porting to the separate systems. The console makers want to keep their consoles because they don’t want to share with the other console makers. And the gamers are split on the decision. There are 1 main pro and 1 main con to the situation, the pro being funding, the con being competition.
First I’ll cover the con, competition. If there were one console, the company that made/owned that one console would have a monopoly over the entire gaming industry. By having that monopoly, they would be able to jack up the prices (pretty much) as high as they want and there wouldn’t be much of anything we could do about it. The competition between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo can lead to the consoles being cheaper. Such as when GC was way out of the last generation’s console war, they marked down the price to $99 in a desperate attempt to salvage what little they have left. (It didn’t work but you get my point.) Also when the PS3 came out, Sony was actually losing money on the consoles selling them at the prices they were at (even though they were high.) The console actually cost more to make than what they were selling it for and they were making all their profits off selling rights to make games for the system. Yet another example of competitive prices is the fact that Nintendo kept its Wii games at $50 despite all other new current-gen games being $60.
Another way that competition is a good thing is innovation. If there were no competition between the consoles, the only competition would be through the actual game developers and there is only so much they can improve on considering they are limited to the features in the box they are given. The example most people can recognize today is what Nintendo has done with the Wii and the DS. These systems provided the first (truly successful) way of touch and motion controls, all because Nintendo knew they needed it. Nintendo knew they were screwed after losing the last console war. To take early action before the next console war they released the DS, and that certainly bought them time. If Nintendo had lost this console war as badly as GameCube did, Nintendo’s future would be questionable.
An example of innovation from the last console war, the greatest innovation was the online play of Xbox Live. Nintendo and Sony didn’t explore this much and the little they did was nothing compared to Microsoft’s achievements (bad pun.) The only play, downloads, and community of Xbox Live was one of, if not the biggest innovation in the gaming industry since the invention of the home console. Without Xbox Live, Halo 2 wouldn’t have been so successful, nor would CoD4 have been. The last example of innovation I’ll provide is going back yet another console war. This example was pointed out in an article in the latest issue of Game Informer Magazine. Back in the N64 vs PlayStation war, Sony introduced the first (successful) disc-operated console. That opened lots of new doors for the next generations to come. With the separate consoles it provides new and innovative features, and the choices of which ones you want.
Now to cover the pro, funding. Like I mentioned at the beginning, it costs more money to port games to multiple systems. Game developers will not have to spend so much money on buying console rights or the production of the different controls and whatnot. The developers can take that money they’ve saved and put it towards actually making the game. But honestly, that’s not that true for every developer. There are lots of multi-platform games that are great games; it’s not money that makes a game good. Also, I doubt all developers are going to put that saved money towards the game over a new coffee machine for the company cafeteria.
The funding pro for gamers is sort of up in the air. For those gamers hard core enough to go out and buy all 3 consoles for $1200+, having one console could be cheaper. But also having one console eliminates the whole competitive prices and it probably wouldn’t be that much cheaper, maybe not cheaper at all. It certainly wouldn’t be cheaper for those of us who are happy with just one console. But hard-core gamers don’t want to miss out on any console exclusive blockbuster titles. Having a single console would eliminate that. My PS2 broke after having it like a year and I never got it replaced, and I was perfectly happy with my GameCube and Xbox360. Sure it was no fun missing out on games like Kingdom Hearts 2 and all the Ratchet and Clank games, but I was content with the games I did get.
In the end, I find that having multiple consoles is a much better option. You make your decision yourself based on the facts. Any additional points accepted as always, and thanks for reading my unnecessary ranting.
