Reminds me of the days when devs said they maxed out the SNES then Donkey Kong Country came out. There is still alot left in the Wii....this is it's first year.
Who cares, i dont consider Nintendo to be dominating anyway because most people who brought it didnt buy it for anything but Wii sports and other lame "games" (i dont consider Wii sports and games like it games)Ultra-Fatality
sorry to inform you that wii sports bowling is a really fun game.
[QUOTE="BuddaX"] ]I agree this would be beneficial to get Video Games truly mass market with a humongous saturation rate, but what of innovation? After all it was hardware competition that got us this far(Enhanced graphics, Analog sticks, the Wiimote, ect.).
The question is then, if a unified standard did come out, would it kill gaming(eventually)? Movies are different in the fact that they are content driven alone, there is no interactivity. But with games, players will grow tired of the same thing over a period of time. The DVD's have been around over 15 years. Could a unified game standard last that long?
rragnaar
That is a fair point for sure... Personally, I think games need to innovate in ways other than how they are controlled, and I would imagine that you would still have new hardware iterations at the same intervals we have now. You'd still have graphical improvements. I would imagine, if such a console existed, you would have a few different controllers that shipped with it. One Wii-ish controller, and one that has the same functionality as the Dual Shock and 360 controllers, as they are mostly interchangeable.Hardware upgrades would defeat the intention of creating a standard. The goal of the standard is to reach as many people as possible. With mulitple hardware upgrades, you change the idea of who can play what on which system. Companies like Nintendo, MS, and Sony may as well stick to the current business model if that were the case.
With the Wii being an "everybody" console....why spend the money on marketing the harcore games? The hardcore who want it, will go and buy it...without the hype. Then, a few weeks later(when suppies are readily availible on shelves), push it to everybody else. That way, the harcore get there chance to buy, and the casuals can come on board later after some commercials and print ads hit.
Competition is good. It keeps companies on their toes, trying to stay ahead of the other guy. With no competition, there's no drive to improve. Also, who will design this standard platform? Will it use standard or motion control? Will it emphasize graphics power or affordability? Who will control the game licensing (necessary to avoid abominations like Custer's Revenge)?
A standard platform is a nice ideaon paper, but a truly terrible idea in real life.
rragnaar
I'm not proposing that only one company emerges victorious to go on and make a console, I think we need a system where any electronics company out there can make a game console, but that it has to meet unified standards so that any game made can play on it, similar to how DVDs work. That would be real competition. If you had Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Panasonic, and whoever else out there manufacturing game consoles they would compete and bring the costs down, and since they would profit from the hardware sales, they would have no need to make money off of software.
Nintendo, Sony, and MS could keep publishing software and making money on it, without the hassle of trying to be hardware manufacturers. Game developers would be able to reach the widest possible audience, and would be able to take more risks on innovative games. I realize there is a certain magic to holding a Nintendo controller, or a Dual Shock, and Halo might feel different on a non Microsoft console, but movie fans have no loyalty to the box that plays their films. It sickens me that I am so loyal to Sony because they make a piece of plastic that I like...I agree this would be beneficial to get Video Games truly mass market with a humongous saturation rate, but what of innovation? After all it was hardware competition that got us this far(Enhanced graphics, Analog sticks, the Wiimote, ect.).
The question is then, if a unified standard did come out, would it kill gaming(eventually)? Movies are different in the fact that they are content driven alone, there is no interactivity. But with games, players will grow tired of the same thing over a period of time. The DVD's have been around over 15 years. Could a unified game standard last that long?
Let me just point something out. It is getting almost to the point where PC hardware can't advance anymore. Once semi-photorealistic graphics have been achieved, what more can the hardware do to advance? Physics are approaching realistic levels, lighting is about to make the shift to Ray-Tracing (Intel is designing their ticket into the GPU market with the Larabee), AI is becoming more and more human. Honestly, how much further can the hardware advance while still maintaining noticable improvements. After the hardware plateau's, the cost to build a PC that can achieve everything you ever need will be down to $500 or less, and that PC will be extremely flexible in its uses. Also, if consoles continue their trend of trying to be PC's, the line will end up blending and unified hardware will basically be achieved. Just some things to think about.
horrowhip
This is an excellent point. The industry doesn't need to create a unified standard, the hardware will eventually do that for them. Conecting PC's to the living room TV is the wave of the furtue, in fact when graphic do plateau, expect PC's to be built inside of TV's. If that kind of standard came about, who develop for a console when the user base of the PC-TV hybrid would include pretty much like...everybody?
These kind of advancements and saturation level are at least 7 to 10 years away, but the writing is on the wall.
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