One Console Should Rule Them All, Says EA
Here's something I could almost get behind. Almost. In the words of Electronic Arts' Executive Vice President Gerhard Florin, we apparently need "an open, standard platform which is much easier than having five which are not compatible."
Why? I'll play devil's advocate and politely disagree with GamePro: Because having to develop for multiple and sometimes radically different architectures is strangling the industry time and resource-wise.
Now just...before you respond, hold up a second. This isn't about EA, or rather, forget that EA said it. Consider the argument on its own merits independent of any dislike you may or may not have for a company that, granted, has some responsibility to share in terms of what's stunted creatively speaking about gaming at the moment. Who cares if it makes EA's life easier, in other words, I just care about whether I get to play more and better and for-less-money games.
Most gamers (read: not writers like me or the very niche enthusiast market that hangs out on message boards) just want to have a good time with something that works out of the box. They don't play games to feel superior because they have X system instead of Y. They don't care what the internal micro-multi-dual-quad-core processor can do, or how many bits can dance on the head of a pin. Glossy finish? Who cares. Extra USB ports? Whatever. Just show me where to plug the camera thingy in, or the headset doojigger, so I can pummel my friend three states over.
A unified game hardware architecture would make life for software studios dramatically easier. It levels the playing field and simultaneously increases competition by pitting more developers against each other. It says "Everyone has access to the same toolset, so you can stop complaining about how hard X is to code for or worrying about allocating resources to different teams for different platforms, and instead simply focus on making really, really, really mind-bending stuff for one system."
Having a unified game hardware architecture wouldn't necessarily thwart your choices as a consumer, either. As it stands, gamers who care enough to want those choices are usually the ones who end up owning everything anyway. In any case, think about how many more choices you'd have, and how much less it might cost you to make them with a one-console approach. Want to play Zelda, Halo, and Metal Gear Solid with gamepads and Wii-motes and anything else anyone dreams up without spending at least a grand on two or three separate architectures? Now you can. Sega had the right idea when it got out of the hardware business, in my opinion. Ask anyone, the money in this industry is in software and service plans, online transactions and peripherals. Not hardware. Not unless you're Nintendo and you've stumbled into an opportunity window that time and competition won't leave open forever.
If you still think the proposition's nuts (and hey, it may well be) maybe you'd like to keep Blu-ray and HD-DVD at loggerheads so you can take it in the shorts when a movie studio opts to release its catalog on the one format you didn't bet on?
To be fair, having a single console wouldn't be without its problems. Who sits on the open-standards committee? Who decides when to upgrade the internal hardware? Whose hardware standards should such a committee follow? Would the interface standards (wireless, USB, Firewire, etc.) be "open" enough to accommodate radically inventive peripherals? What does the history of gaming tell us about game hardware and peripheral diversity so far?
Just remember, having too many choices can be just as onerous as having none. I don't know about you, but I play games, not hardware. An open-standard approach to the engine under the hood sounds like it'd give me more choices in terms of software and peripherals long term, not fewer.
I'm just saying.
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Now i would disagree because with one system the cost to buy one would be like 2 grand and then it have like 5 different grahpic crads and like 3 different processors(wii's being the best) Different stroage dievices and different controllers inputs for last gen system, and becasue of sony and m$ The system would huge and over heat where the wii is small and never over heats. it woulld need 2 different disc drives. All im saying its a bad idea, and plus devploer might not like it because then there software is for anyone.
This is the first time I've been so horrified by an article here that I had to post.
That is not at all what the EA fellow is saying. You have completely misunderstood what it means to have an "Open Standard."
An open standard means that every console OS developer would work from a single API, a single interface by which all console Game developers would be able to program. That game would be compatible on all systems, even if those systems are dramatically different in terms of their implementation.
Please go to Wikipedia and type in API. The basic idea is that there's a set of pre-defined commonly understood and easily abstracted interfaces which could be universally applied across all applications within the gaming console world. This wouldn't cause there to be a single console. Precisely the _opposite_. It would open the door to any number of other companies developing their own consoles using their own hardware, while still being compatible with existing games.
I'm not so sure that's what he meant mrrara. Never mind the fact that everyone else reporting the story interpreted it to mean a single, unified console architecture, we already have a "single API" system. It's called the PC. Florin is definitely not suggesting we put "maybe you have a junky integrated video mainboard but maybe you have an 8800 GTX" boxes on our TVs. Crysis is going to be "compatible" with much older PCs that meet its minimum reqs, but I certainly wouldn't want to play it on one.
The API's only *half* of the equation. The efficacy of the set top approach is that people plug it in and it "just works" but moreover, that it more or less equalizes the playing experience.
The universal gaming system is called a PC. With easy USB hookups you can even attach an old N64 controller up and play Goldeneye.
Of course that's what he meant. That's what an "open, standard platform' means.
And the PC, while being an open, standard platform of hardware, is hardly an open, standard platform when it comes to OSes. Even within the context of Linux, there are so many variations that don't play well together.
In any case, we're not talking about PC's. We're talking about Gaming consoles. In other words, he is suggesting that the easy at which hundreds of companies can develop games for Windows, they too should be allowed to develop for a single standardized platform.
Just as people have attempted to push for a standardized CSS/XHTML format, so too would it be in the best interest of everyone to develop based off a standardized set of Tools and APIs, for both software and hardware, for Gaming consoles. That doesn't imply there's only one console. It only implies they all speak the same language.
Just because others fail to understand him, doesn't excuse the conclusions drawn.
A PC running Windows is the closest thing that we have to a single format (I'm not saying it is, I'm saying it's close). And you can see what happens there. Many Independent game companies and large companies compete at various levels. Everything from web games, MMOs, to FPS and Retro. Take EVE's numerous awards in the MMO category and line it up with WoW.
Not to mention innovation happens more with PC than console. Where were the FPS games before Wolfenstien and Doom? How about MMOs? All that the PC lacks are peripherals that consistently work. I'd say if you want fresh new games a single hardware standard can deliver due to it's open availability for smaller companies to take those innovative risks, no devkit needed.
The PC competition is fierce, but also reliable as PC gamers can switch on a whim without having to buy a whole new computer. I say it's a win-win to go with one standard console. Either that or M$ it up on a PC and get going already.
---Now i would disagree because with one system the cost to buy one would be like 2 grand and then it have like 5 different grahpic crads and like 3 different processors(wii's being the best) Different stroage dievices and different controllers inputs for last gen system, and becasue of sony and m$....---
in response to this, WOW anyone who thinks a wii processor can play any of these next gen games in next gen graphics is nuts. the only reason it is next gen is because of the control scheme. not to mention a system would only need one REALLY good graphics card and like a quad core processor running at 3.2 Ghz, and when you play a lesser HW consuming game it would use less cores.
that out of the way, we overlook the most important factor of all.... who would be the lucky company to build such a machine?? you would inevitably have six different companies fighting to market their own versions of the "one for all" console and you would have the same problem all over again.
I couldn't agree more with Gerhard Florin. Reading from other users comments stating PCs are the universal game system is the complete opposite. Yes is has USB port but they don't all have the same sound, video cards and processors. For those who use to play games 10-15 years ago might remember the 3DO system. Yes it did fail but it had a good concept of selling the manufacturing rights to Panasonic and Goldstar. Which both system played the same games and both were manufactured by different companies which created competitive prices for the systems and played the same games on both Panasonic and Goldstar versions. It would be nice to see the current companies sell there hardware rights to 3rd party developpers to decrease the cost of gaming and expands the gaming environment.
You guys are forgetting something. Isn't that what Microsoft has been trying to get moving for quite a while now with XNA? It is supposed to get Xbox and Windows to run on the same basic design. Once things really get moving on it, it would be rather dumb for any company to NOT make hardware that will use it. Now imagine if Sony and Nintendo realised that XboxLive is where it's at (which it is), so they design their next consoles to run on the same software technology and create their own Live-based servers. The entire software architecture everyone is using means all the games should work on all the consoles and PCs. Now, the competitive aspect is strictly on hardware. Which controller works the best; which system could run the games the smoothest; etc. Then on top of that, which Live-servers allowed the best deal for downloading games. Now we are down to an actual apples-to-apples comparisons... and the consumer is the winner in all cases.