As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
We're funding a new Acquisitions Incorporated series on Kickstarter right now! Check it out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/acquisitions-incorporated-the-series-2
Consoles: Wherein we ponder competition
MKR
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Here's what I see as the major strengths of all the current players:
Nintendo: Enough A-list franchises to help sell the idea of a collaborative console to developers.
Microsoft: Top-notch marketing, ridiculously good at making easy to use development frameworks.
Sony: Has all the hardware industry connections.
At the moment most people have to choose between 1/3 or 2/3 systems, and miss out on others until years later.* Could there be some sense in the big three collaborating on one console and sharing profits, bringing their strengths together, rather than beating each other over the head with sales numbers and system specs?
*Note: Just because some people can justify buying 2 or 3 consoles does not mean this fragmentation is good for the industry's growth.
Edit:
Nintendo: Enough A-list franchises to help sell the idea of a collaborative console to developers.
Microsoft: Top-notch marketing, ridiculously good at making easy to use development frameworks.
Sony: Has all the hardware industry connections.
At the moment most people have to choose between 1/3 or 2/3 systems, and miss out on others until years later.* Could there be some sense in the big three collaborating on one console and sharing profits, bringing their strengths together, rather than beating each other over the head with sales numbers and system specs?
*Note: Just because some people can justify buying 2 or 3 consoles does not mean this fragmentation is good for the industry's growth.
Edit:
To whit, if there wereonly the Playbox, what would drive them to include a larger hard drive, or to drop the price?
WOuld Sony have ever bothered to add runble back in to their controllers if there were no 360 or Wii?
Would MSoft have ever come out with the Elite, if there were no PS3 to compete with, with its HDMI outputs and larger hard drive.
Competition is what drives innovation and breeds excellence. A one-console future would spell the doom of the industry.
Of course they would drop price as the life extends, not as much no doubt, but it's an ingrained part of the lifecycle. The PS2 had this same period where it was an over expensive device. But with each price job they open up thier market to demographics. They would need to, to drive sales.
If they didn't allow third parties to produce compatible units then, no they probably wouldn't keep improving the console over it's lifespan. But in my opinion thats the WORST addition to the console world since the Phantom. It's biggest strength is the fact you have a consistent platform for 5 years.
And on top of that they would still be competition with the Wii 2/N6.
Are you so sure about pricedrops? Look at the iPod pricing model. Every new version is released atthe price of the old version. Yes, the old version is dropped in price, but it has also stopped production, so, in price drop terms, it is too little, too late.
And, as for competing withthe Wii, I'm responding to the notion of a single console, not just two instead of three. I DO contend, though, that more competition is better, albeit with diminishing returns.
Though I said one console in the OP, I've come to realize that there are too many problems with that approach. If I could start the thread over, I would have suggested Sony and MS collaborate, while Nintendo continues to do their own thing.
MKR on
0
Posts
This idea kills competition.
Thus it is a bad idea.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I don't know about you, but I do.
Oh right.
Infinitum labs: Intrigue and mystery.
edit: Damnit BEATED
I've been thinking about this and I'm not sure it applies. Competition implies that all options are equally viable. But because of exclusive titles if you want to play certain games you have to have a certain console. There are really two tiers of competition here and if the market in general goes with the console that you feel is the inferior choice then that can seriously limit your options later on.
0431-6094-6446-7088
Not really. Competition also hurts consumers. See: Blu-Ray / HD-DVD, the bizarre number of re-writable DVD formats, VHS / Betamax.
The video game console is a platform for media to be deployed upon, not a technological toy in and of itself.
The argument that it won't drive technological innovation is a fallacy; developers will call for more powerful platforms, and the manufacturer will appreciate the chance to sell their product over again. There is no reason the Wiimote couldn't exist on any of the other platforms.
A single console future is an inevitability, locking out consumers from certain titles is completely nonsense. Whether it happens in the next 20 years is a toss-up.
As soon as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo just decide to be pals?
Perhaps in the next 20 years we'll have a single OS. Because locking me out of certain software is completely nonsense.
Do you need more differences than Live?
I turn on my 360 almost exclusively for XBLA.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo gives up and becomes a software and peripheral manufacturer, and Sony need to pull it together as a company. It's perfectly viable for the main players to decide to come together in the next 20 years, the expenditure on R&D for console hardware is huge.
Microsoft could sell XBLA as a layer on top of a console, much like they do with the PC.
you know the ps3 has an online network, too. it's free, you can get some great games on it.
i'm pretty sure that the market has grown so much in the last 10 years that three systems can coexist and reap enough financial benefits to continue until the end of the generation.
edit: that's as long as they're patient enough to wait for the consumers to leave the last generation, which they seem hesitant to do
Why would Nintendo want to give up their hardware business? They are making a huge profit off of the hardware. I never expected to hear anything like that since sometime around the time of the GC and before the DS came out.
that would save me a lot of money and still keep competition
(dons flame-redardant suit) Because they're selling units based on gimmicks, cheap parlour tricks to differentiate. I'm not saying that they aren't doing a fine job of it, and that they shouldn't continue, but there is no reason to design whole consoles around them. As I said, the Wiimote would function perfectly well on any other platform.
Nintendo are a software developer, and a damn good one. Why spend money on hardware R&D when you can be ploughing it into original IP?
edit: also, the 360's controller rather than the dualshock/sixasses layout
Because they can do both and make a metric shitton of money rather than a metric shitload of money?
Now, I can barely manage two. Now that there are three on the market. I figure that if I can ever manage to afford three, there will be a fourth.
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Because you can make $texas doing both? I don't care if you think they sell on gimmicks, all that matters is that they do sell and sell a ton. I don't have the statistics, but someone once posted profit for each company in terms of generation and from what I remember Nintendo pretty much kicked ass.
As I ninja-edited: the savings on R&D in hardware could go into new IP. Hardware has all sorts of issues from production lines to support to contract agreements and all sorts of aggravation. Software development would play to Nintendo's core strength.
That might be true, but for how long? I am not saying that I am Nintendo's account or steering committee, or even think they should do this, I was trying to show that the concept is at least plausible.
I, personally, would like to see a single-console future, but as I said, it's a toss-up whether it happens or not.
They wouldn't be saving money. They make money from the hardware even if you include the R&D costs. The profit can then be invested in new IP or go into their Olympic sized money pool. They already have more than enough money to develop plenty of new IP.
They seem to keep being successful and I see no reason why they would suddenly fall out. I would like to see a single or two console future, but I don't think its all that likely. All three companies have invested heavily and have multiple reason to stay in the race.
Microsoft – Entertainment and Devices Division (Home and Entertainment) through 4th Q FY 2007 ended June 30 2007
Sony – Game division through 1st Q FY 2007 ended June 30 2007
Nintendo – Overall through 1st Q FY 2008 ended June 30 2007. Average exchange rate: 1 US $ = 118 yen
The Sixth Annual Triwizard Drinking Tournament Part 1 |
Pokecrawl Episode 4: The Power Of One!
Portalflip
Pokemon X: Atlus | 3539-8807-3813
is this sarcasm or
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
You realize Nintendo is responsible for not a few of the industry standards people expect in a console? D-pad? Analog joystick on a console controller? Rumble? See the pattern? The only other major revolutions in consoles I can think of since Nintendo entered the market is Sony making the optical format the standard for games and Xbox's Live kicking all kinds of ass for online services.
Really though your base premise makes no sense to me at all. Nintendo is raking in cash with their hardware so they should stop making hardware because, all evidence to the contrary, sometime in the future they won't make money anymore? Buh?
No kidding about the control advancements.
But there is a more important point that directly flies in the face of Lewisham's desire to have Nintendo develop as a third party over being a hardware+software company:
Nintendo has stated numerous times that one of the main reasons they devise their own hardware is because they can take as much creative freedom with the hardware for their software as they want, and as much freedom with their software for their hardware as they want. They do not want to be constrained, and they want to be able to do new things with videogames that they might not be able to do as merely a third party developer; whether it is because they are constrained by other parties' hardware design specs, or by some strange limits on the type of software they might want on the thing.
Let me put it this way..
Do you think something like Brain Age would exist, let alone be massively successful, if Nintendo were not allowed to devise the DS and develop software and hardware in the ways they want? If it had come out on the PSP?
Do you think Wii Sports would be so successful if it required people to buy an Xbox360 or a PS3, plus an additional 'movement-based controller' peripheral? Do you think anyone would have accepted it as a viable concept at all if Wii Sports or something of that nature were released on another system?
The fact is, however, that Nintendo is succeeding very well as a hardware manufacturer and software developer/publisher. There is no sound business reason to stop creating their own consoles.
To cut off the hardware side of business, they would probably suffer on the whole. Even if they released their games on the 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, PC, and Mobile.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
The Xbox360 and the PS3 are already very similar to each other except for the fact that PS3 blows and does everything xbox does but worse. The Wii is already different enough from the Xbox 360 that it can stand alone as it's own race.
Fair point, but I don't think the mobile market is applicable. If you wanted a touch-screen interface to a home console, you could do it via the wonders of peripherals.
In a one-console world, yes. They already have the box, they get the peripheral bundled with the game.
I am not disputing the sound business, just the idea that Nintendo ceasing hardware production is impossible.
A one-console setup can work. Is it desirable for consumers? That's a point of view. I think it is. Developers can reach wider audiences. Consumers are fully aware of the capabilities of what they have and what they can do with it. They hear about "that Mario game" and they go to the store and they buy it for their "game player thing", just like they do a DVD or music CD. I believe consoles are platforms to which developers deliver games, and that splitting games across platforms is a distinction made because the manufacturers are unwilling to sit down and make a standard.
Is it desirable for the manufacturers? Not now, but is it possible in 20 years? I think it is.
Consumers have benefited from standards in almost all other areas of technology.
Here's a question: what if you didn't buy one box; but there was a standard development SDK, so that all games made for Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are interoperable? How does that change the problem?