Re: A One-Console Future? No Xbox, No PS3, No Wii? (article)
- From: Doug Jacobs <djacobs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:02:40 -0000
Private Private <KSDJ1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Imagine no Xbox ,no PS3, and no Wii. Imagine one box for all gamers.
It's not only coming-it's inevitable.
Sure. Just like there's only OS and one hardware platform for PCs...
Oh yes, the single platform dealie was discussed there as well, even
before the PC was commonplace.
Imagine a unified platform-one-console for all gamers-that would bring a
massive paradigm shift to the industry,where games would become better
in quality,cheaper,and more widely available . Sound good? It can
happen.Better yet ,it's inevitable. It will happen.
A single game platform would certainly have advantages. Games would be
cheaper to produce as there wouldn't be multiple platforms to worry
about. Cheaper hardware as well due to economy of scale.
However, I just don't see it happening. Why? Well, take a look at the
brouhaha going on between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray right now.
The biggest obstacle to a single platform is going to be the companies
themselves. How would you get them all to agree upon a single platform?
Sure, Sony and Microsoft might come to agreements about higher-end boxes,
but Nintendo? When's the last time Nintendo went "high end"? Their
hardware is deliberately not high end to keep their costs LOW. Instead,
they invest more in game play - a strategy that's paid off for them for
over a decade.
Console games still tend to evolve pretty fast as compared to other
technologies. DVD is over 15 years old and will probably be around in
some form or another for at least another decade. Can you imagine doing
the same thing with game consoles? Sure, DVD is nearly as ubiquitous as
the TV, but do you think it would have gotten that way had the electronics
market followed the console's lifecycle? Every 6 or 7 years, coming out
with an entirely new format - which until recently - wasn't backwards
compatible with the previous generation of media, forcing everyone to
upgrade and buy a library of all new titles. That isn't going to work
for this unified console dealie. Heck, it took the consortium of
companies and studios over 5 years to agree to disagree on the current
generation of HD media, resulting in the current mess of HD-DVD vs.
Blu-Ray, with exclusive studios and movie titles for each. And yet,
that's exactly what the game console market is like right now.
Does anyone honestly expect the current players in the game industry to
be able to come together and agree upon a single hardware platform a
console? Who's going to own the hardware rights? What happens when
Version 2.0 is announced?
My thoughts on the "one-console-future" aren't based on any sort of
personal bias .In fact this concept is completely agnostic of the
console wars by nature; It's based on the history of technology and
economics theory. One of the core concepts is something called
commodification-or put it very simply, when something that wasn't a
commodity becomes one. Look at cell phones: When they first
appeared,they were expensive,large,and could only allow people to make
wireless phone calls.
The cellphone market in the US is a mess. Do you honestly want the video
game (or any other market) to mimic the US cellphone market? There is no
unified platform in cellphones. If there were, I could buy ANY cellphone
with ANY set of services, and ANY service provider, and it would work. I
can't do that, however. In fact, some phones just flat out won't work with
some providers because they're using different standards. Heck,
cellphones in the US can't even do their primary job AS PHONES, much less
reliably operate as web browsers, game machines, video streamers, music
players, GPS, etc...
They were marketed as rare status symbols that could bring executive
prestige and beautiful women to your fingertips. Today ,cell phones play
music,surf the net, take digital pictures,and record video. They are
small ,inexpensive,and anything but a status symbol. Cell phones are
even given away freely when people sign up for a service plan. In this
case ,the number of features in the cell phone has ironically become
inversely proportional to its value to the consumer. The cell phone has
become commodified. And history shows technology always becomes
commodified-without exception.
I fail to see how this relates to the author's idea of a unified platform.
Video game consoles have already become commoditized. Heck, sales of video
games are threatening to overtake sales of older, more traditional forms
of entertainment, like movies.
Other areas of technology have become commoditizied too. Printers,
computers, cable/satellite TV, cars... But these things don't have a
"unified platform" either. Tell me you can take the carbureator from a
Chevy and plug it into a Ford. Or, how about using the printer cartridge
from an Epson in your HP? Doesn't work that way, does it?
Now videogame technology is becoming commodified . When videogame
consoles first came out , all they could do was play videogames,but now
they also show movies ,surf the net,download entertainment,and let their
owners communicate via video and audio.
True, but these are hardly the big selling features for what's still
considered a single-purpose appliance...
When a machine grows to the
point where it does more than the market even wants it to do,it's called
'performance oversupply'- and consoles have already hit that point.
No, it's called "convergence" - one of the big buzzwords from the early
90s, before the internet bubble arrived and put e's and i's on
everything. Yes, convergence. The idea that you could create a single
multi-purpose device that would replace an entire shelf or rack of single
purpose machinery. Yes, you would have a single device that played your
VHS tapes, DVDs, audio tapes, CDs, cable/satellite TV, mp3s, email, web
browser....you name it- it's in there. Such devices were clusmy, hard to
use, and more expensive than if you just bought the individual
components. Best of all, if a single component broke down - like your DVD
player - you could just replace it instead of having to buy a whole new,
all-in-one expensive wonder machine.
If you want a great example of why convergence is a silly idea, look no
further than the $5000 refridgerator with built-in LCD TV in the door!
Really now. What the heck were people thinking? I don't know about you,
but I don't normally have a TV, much less computer, in my kitchen.
However, it was believed that this fridge would turn the kitchen into the
central hub of the household. The TV was also a computer, able to keep
voice or text messages from family members, keep track of your food
inventory, alert you when food (like milk) was about to expire, fetch
recipes off the internet, and even order more food for you from your
shopping service. In addition, you could watch TV or a movie while
cooking in the kitchen. (yeah, that's a good idea! let's be distracted
while using sharp knives, fire, and hot boiling liquids!) Seriously, if
you DID want a small TV in your kitchen, why not just buy a normal fridge
for about $1000-1200, then a small TV for maybe another $1000 at the most
and finally an answering machine? This would give you a better, more energy
efficient fridge (because it doesn't have a hot-running computer & LCD screen
stuck in the door!), a better LCD TV AND SAVE YOU THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Really now, the whole convergence fad isn't THAT old. Didn't this guy
learn nothing from the follies of the 90s?
For
instance, two years ago,over 250 videogames were released in
November,which is more games than gamers can actually play or support .
As compared to how many DVDs, books, magazines, TV shows...? Heck, how
many models of cars and trucks are released each year? Surely more than
what the market can support, right? So...what, we should just have ONE
car model each year? Need a new car? Come down to Bob's Car Store and
buy...CAR'08. Comes in any model you want so long as it's CAR'08.
Yessiree! It's CAR'08.
Games like Gears of War did not compete against Resistance:FOM because
most gamers didn't own both a PS3 and 360.
What about people deciding which console to buy? In that case, R:FOM and
GoW would be in competition as exclusive titles.
It's no small wonder why most
videogames struggle under these split market conditions,and it's not
helped as development costs for games increase.
Costs may have increased, which is why exclusive titles - like the ones
above - are becoming less and less common. This is especially evident
when considering his next point:
The market is also split
in an unhealthy way between the major manufacturers ;
Nintendo,Microsoft, and Sony all may have equal market share this
generation,making it extremely difficult for third-party publishers to
choose what platform to focus on.
Again, which is why multi-platform titles are much more common this time
around than before.
Third party developers re the only ones who would really stand to benefit
from a single game platform. They wouldn't have to worry about doing
ports - they would only need to worry about a single platform, like any
first party developer, or platform exclusive title.
A single platform doesn't make sense for for the harware manufacturers or
their first party developers.
Not that it's easy for first-party
manufacturers ,either. Microsoft ,Sony,and Nintendo have put tremendous
resources into trying to make the best hardware,including spending
significant amounts of money trying to get exclusive mega-titles like
Grand Theft Auto on their system first. Despite all this ,it's still not
enough . The economics of the proprietary models seem to point toward
spending more money and receiving fewer returns with each
generation,with no clear winner.
Wah-wah-wah. The margins in the PC industry used to be as high as
20-25%. This meant for every $100 the consumer spent, $25 of that was
pure profit. Nowadays, PC sellers are lucky to see even 5% margins. Most
equipment is at 1%. This results in lower prices and fiercer competition
- better for the consumer, no?
The same transformation is going on with games right now. As for lower
returns, I don't see that. A smash-hit title on the PS1, 10 years ago,
would be, what, about 1 million copies sold? Now you have Halo3 which did
over 3 million copies in 3 days. Lower prices means larger market, means
more copies sold. Sure, you won't be making $15/copy, but then again,
you'll be selling many times more copies, too.
A one-console future will emerge not because anyone wants one,but simply
because the market cannot sustain itself under these conditions. Market
pressures on both first and third parties point toward a unified open
standard,where all games will work on one open-standard format. This
format will likely be be decided by a consortium of game makers, but
that standard would allow anyone-including
companies like Toshiba,IBM, Panasonic,and other non gaming companies -to
manufacture a game system for this format,very much like televisions
today.
Again, ONLY the software makers would benefit from a unified console
platform. The hardware makers don't have anything to benefit from it -
their profits are PURELY from the software sales. They're selling the
hardware AT A LOSS. A single console platform, with manufacturers who
aren't producing games, would mean HIGHER hardware prices because now all
manufacturers would need to make a profit from the sale of the hardware -
which doesn't happen now! So, you think the PS3 was expensive at $600,
well, it'd easily cost $1000 if it was a "normal" electronics product.
The 360 would easily cost $600-700. The Wii would still be the cheapest,
at about $300, if it's true that Nintendo was already making a slight
profit on the hardware from day one.
Sure, all TVs operate on the same signals, but that's because those
signals are the standards - not the hardware. Can you imagine trying to
get even two companies to agree upon a console architecture, from the
processor(s), to the memory, to the firmware? You're basically talking
about a computer here, and guess what? We already have those - and they
haven't gone to a single platform despite the decidedly monopolostic
efforts of a very large, very prominent software company who's been around
for over 20 years.
The price of hardware will drop and quality will increase as the
model of perfect competition emerges in the hardware marketplace . No
more expensive ,small hard drives. Games would not have to be made for
special controllers and proprietary specifics, and consumers would be
able to buy any game without worrying whether it would run on their
system. Zelda,Halo,MGS, and GTA would all play on the same system.
Publishers wouldn't have to choose what platform for which to make
their games. With 100% market penetration assured ,publishers would
become more profitable and more competitive. Ultimately ,these wins
would lead to cheaper and more creative games for the consumer because
developers wouldn't have to split their resources between two versions
of the same game.
Oh yes, it all sounds so happy and cheery...that is until one manufacturer
decides to include some extra memory in his console - you know just to
give it a bit of a competitive kick. Helps the games load faster, you
know. Maybe another console maker decides to sell a better graphics
card...you know, a little upgrade for your games. And so it begins...and
we end up right back where we are right now.
The only way you could have a single format, a single platform is if it
were totally owned by a single company. Otherwise, you'll always have
problems - non-standard products, competiting upgrades, the works.
--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.
.
- References:
- A One-Console Future? No Xbox, No PS3, No Wii? (article)
- From: Private Private
- A One-Console Future? No Xbox, No PS3, No Wii? (article)
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