Eventually there will only be one console

For the same reason that there's only one movie format. Of course there was the VHS vs Beta war and more recently the HD DVD vs Blu-Ray war. But from the beginning we all knew only one could survive.

I remember back in the 8-bit days there were very few multiplat games. Today almost every game is a multiplat. In my opinion this is a place holder for the future where every game is available on one console.

Eventually graphics will evolve to the point where it will not make any sense to fragment the hardware market. When we reach this level, a games graphics will not be determined so much by the console's hardware, but rather by the games budget.

The time for this is not as far away as you think. I predict that this will happen no later than 2020. 10 short years from now, everyone will be gaming on one console. And yes, PC gaming will die or change radically to go along with this.

Which hardware company deserves to win the ultimate console war and monopolize the industry. Well, let's look at the big 3 closer.

Nintendo is #1 in sales worldwide and in my opinion they are the top software company in the world. They have truly innovated in this industry and I feel they deserve major credit for their hardware innovations. The always come up with amazing controller designs for example. They invented the standard D-pad with buttons. Then added more buttons. And when gaming went to 3D, they re-invented analog controllers. Their weakness is crappy hardware specs lately, slow to change, terrible online implementation. But they're #1 because amazing software and ground breaking controls is enough.

Sony always creates the most powerful console in the universe. Or at least they try to make it seem this way. To their credit I think they do a great job. They are truly hardware gurus. What I don't like about them is that they put strange processors in their system so that developers will not be able to easily port games from their system to other consoles and as a result they get more exclusives by default. Also their originality hasn't been so good. They have the same controller since the PS1 and everything else they've straight copied from the competition. But I give them credit for huge power and not to mention marketing.

Microsoft is a great software company. I mean aren't most of us typing here using windows? And the truth is they keep getting better. With xbox the hardware is always good but it seems as they struggle in that department. They either lose money on it or we have horrendous reliability. They would be happier if the hardware was already in place like on the PC. MS has great software and they've innovated with this greatly in the console market. Look at what they did with xbox Live. Look at achievements, Live Arcade games, indie games, movies, tv shows, netflix etc. Their software expertise has benefited gaming a great deal.

I'm thinking each console manufacturer should split the business 3 ways. Sony designs the hardware. Nintendo designs the controller. Microsoft builds the software and online network. This would benefit gamers the most IMHO.

I would hate to see any of the current 3 have the entire business to themselves. But if they unite, what would happen to system wars?

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

Wow. you might wanna rethink what you just said.

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

So PC gaming will die before consoles? You really think the market will give up a completely open system that does pretty much anything and everything in favor of a single gaming system with fixed hardware? Yeah, I'm going to have to go with a big whopping NO on that one.

The time for this is not as far away as you think. I predict that this will happen no later than 2020. 10 short years from now, everyone will be gaming on one console. And yes, PC gaming will die or change radically to go along with this.

alexfla

Seeing anything else in your crystal ball?

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

so sone day thre will only be one car? one car maker?...ect

in buisness there can never be a singular entity it wont work, there has to be competition for buisness to thrive.

1 Console = bad 1st party games (There wouldn't need to be any console sellers), and you think that pc gaming will die? Come on, it's an open platform, no royalty fees to microsoft, sony or nintento.

so sone day thre will only be one car? one car maker?...ect

in buisness there can never be a singular entity it wont work, there has to be competition for buisness to thrive.

WilliamRLBaker

THat's why I think PC gaming (not necessary WIndows, just general gaming done on personal computing devices) will win in the end. It will be like dvds, one standart, but different competing manufacturers. Altough for that to happen we propably will first need to reach the point where only resources put into development, instead of technology willlimit the graphics quality

[QUOTE="WilliamRLBaker"]

so sone day thre will only be one car? one car maker?...ect

in buisness there can never be a singular entity it wont work, there has to be competition for buisness to thrive.

AdrianWerner

THat's why I think PC gaming (not necessary WIndows, just general gaming done on personal computing devices) will win in the end. It will be like dvds, one standart, but different competing manufacturers. Altough for that to happen we propably will first need to reach the point where only resources put into development, instead of technology willlimit the graphics quality

I remember back in the 8-bit days there were very few multiplat games. alexfla

Monopolies almost never stay that way for very long, so no, eventually there will not be only one console.

For the same reason that there's only one movie format. Of course there was the VHS vs Beta war and more recently the HD DVD vs Blu-Ray war. But from the beginning we all knew only one could survive.(...)alexfla

If there is ever a situation where there is only 1 console in the future, pretty much every developer will be all over PC like white on rice. There would be no competition to go against the console which would allow a company of said console to charge any price of the console and their royalty fees. If anything, the prices of games would become insane.

A console monopoly would not help the industry at all. It would basically hurt and diminish the industry. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft knows this. I won't say that they are mean or awful to each other, but they know that competition helps the industry. Working together to make a unified console would be outright terrible.

I see the industry staying more of the same for awhile. If there every is a crash again, Consoles will be the first to die. The last remaining would most likely be Handhelds and PCs, and at a much smaller and weak state than before.

[QUOTE="alexfla"]I remember back in the 8-bit days there were very few multiplat games. delta3074

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

so sone day thre will only be one car? one car maker?...ect

in buisness there can never be a singular entity it wont work, there has to be competition for buisness to thrive.

WilliamRLBaker

actually with as much as the consoles share, its not really like that at all, multiplatform is the same road and they all play it the same it seems. Or drive on it the same. I dont think PC gaming will be the winner, its still the most expensive hobby PC gaming.WilliamRLBaker

I know how all you system wars folk get v ery polorized on this topic and very passionate about how it'll never be a once console future, but I hate to tell you that it basically already is. Ps3 and 360 are basically the exact same thing. they share 95% of their game libraries and a similar online service yet you feel justified in buying both consoles. Sony and MS are laughing at you all the way to the bank.

What was the reason for PC gaming dying off or radically changing. It may just be me, but you seemed to breeze over it without offering any arguments as to the cause. Seems like you were stating it out of necessity to your argument, rather than based off actual occurrences.

You really want a market with zero competition?

There won't, for the same reason there's more than one fast food franchise.

wishfull thinking, but no chance.

There might be only one dominant movie format but there are multiple companies who make the same product in this case it is a DVD Player or Blu-ray Player.

That is what keeps cost down is the companies making the products lowering the prices to compete in the same market.

There will always be more then one console just like there is always going to be more then one company making the devices that we play the movie formats in.

If there's still profit to be had from selling consoles, and exclusive games, controls, and content to got with it, why would companies stop selling them?

Consoles in 2020...

[QUOTE="alexfla"]I remember back in the 8-bit days there were very few multiplat games. delta3074

I wouldn't say common until PS1. Remember when the Final Fantasy series was exclusive to only Nintendo systems? The same as Phantasy Star was the Genesis' RPG line. If you wanted to play Mario you pretty much had to go Nintendo and if you wanted Sonic it was Sega. I agree there were plenty of multi-plats going on but there were also exclusive lines as well.

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

I once postulated, quite a long time back, that consoles would evolve to the point of eventually becoming brand name Gaming PCs, much like Alienware. That a future Playstation wouldn't just play games and media, but have full PC capability to install and run any software, from office suites, to Photoshop, to web and video development apps, and so on. This line of thought coming from seeing how far consoles have come and how many PC features they adopted over the generations.

However.... yes there's a however here; the idea of a no console future where all gaming is on PC still needs to address a very important fact of why there's a console market in the first place - simplicity & cost.

If all gaming is on PCs only, could it be offered on low cost machines with the simplicity of consoles? I'm talking simple to no set up, game installations that are automated like what consoles have today, and cost of $400 or less for pre-built store bought brands (that can still run any app as expected from PCs), as there will always be people who just don't want to build their own electronics setup. Since PCs aren't uniform hardware like consoles, we need to address that games can't be automaitically assumed to run on one person's given system, where the console market offered assurance to just buy a game and know it will run.

No, eventually console gaming will die and will be replaced by pcgaming, which will evolve to cover also media centers. And most likely games will be streamed through web browsers, making them independent from the hardware and OSes, so you will be able to see play the same game on your PC, on your TV, on your tablet and phone.

AdrianWerner

I partially agree. Although OnLive and other streaming services will have their place I think that most would much rather stream games from our OWN [Insert PC/Console/Device] instead of paying a hefty monthly fee for a streaming service with a range of drawbacks.

My guess is that Microsoft will be the first to bring the software that would make this possible to the market to counter OnLive aswell as other streaming services that could - potentially - pose a threat to the XBOX platform and to a lesser extent Windows.

No this will never happen because of one thing competition.

so sone day thre will only be one car? one car maker?...ect

in buisness there can never be a singular entity it wont work, there has to be competition for buisness to thrive.

WilliamRLBaker

competition between console makers has yielded good things, except for maybe the attention grabbing gimmicky things, but Microsoft started an arms race with Sony and this generation we saw some powerful consoles hit the shelves with impressive exclusives and as a result 3rd party publishers and developers can also take advantage of the hardware, competition meant Microsoft streamlining online console multiplayer, downloadable games, Netflix, friends list and party chat, DLC... fair to say, Sony is trying to follow to keep up and these features will probably remain standard on next gen consoles, thuswhat competition yielded

think if MS had not been in this race, where would we be, I can say for certain the PS3 wouldn't have been developed as advance as it was to compete with the Xbox 360, rather it would have been developed to just be better than the Wii which wouldn't have been hard at all, if we had a one console system there'd be no desire to put advanced hardware in these machines, no desire to launch new consoles to compete with others

if anything a one console maker system would be an anti-capitalistic monopoly and surely lawsuits would arise

publishers have a lot to gain too, with different systems suiting different tastes the userbase for both is really big and multiplatform sales have had a good chance to take advantage of the large combined userbase, but they're also able to exploit the console fanboy area, for instance fanboys jump on exclusives all the time, all one publisher has to do is be like "we're going to make an exclusive for this system because it's the best" and fanboys are like "haaaa, this is going to rock I'm sooo going to get this", and they will even if it's a piece of crap because the publisher learned how to touch a nerve that yields loyalty to their product

1 Console = bad 1st party games (There wouldn't need to be any console sellers), and you think that pc gaming will die? Come on, it's an open platform, no royalty fees to microsoft, sony or nintento.

firefluff3

[QUOTE="alexfla"]I remember back in the 8-bit days there were very few multiplat games. delta3074

i sure hope it happens, just to see sw be turned into publisher wars :|

[QUOTE="alexfla"]For the same reason that there's only one movie format. Of course there was the VHS vs Beta war and more recently the HD DVD vs Blu-Ray war. But from the beginning we all knew only one could survive.(...)Kane04