I read the news bit about SquareEnix CEO Yoichi Wada, and it got me thinking. Thoughts which may border of blasphemy... That is, is it possible that the ever-escalating hardware race is perhaps too much of a good thing? I'm talking mainly about consoles, but it definitely would apply to PC gaming as well. Think about it for a moment before you cut my head off.

How much have you paid for the latest console? On the cheapest end there's the Wii, with a comparatively reasonable tag of $250. This is a bit skewed, though, since it's really last-gen hardware floating around in there. Anyway, in the middle is the Xbox 360 which runs about $400. At the top you have the PS3 weighing in at a hefty $600. Last generation, we were all crying about the PS2 being $300, and how it was too expensive. This time around only the PS3 is raising a din amongst the masses. Are we so rich now that the once lofty tag of $300 is trivial? I'm not so sure about you, but I'm not really making much more money than I was a couple years ago.

As I addressed in an earlier post (April 6), console manufacturers are starting down the path of the PC in their numerous upgrades and whatnot. Not only am I still concerned about that issue, but also the future. Besides worrying about if/when I'm going to have to upgrade my current console (which I paid the previously mentioned obscene sum for), I have to wonder in fear for what the tag on the PS4/Xbox whatever is going to look like.

I've got a Wii as well, and it's fun and a half. We all know that the combo of accessibility and price point is remaking Nintendo into the behemoth it was 10 years ago. Now we've got the CEO of one of the development giants saying that these self-same points are what is going to drive a large portion of S-E's efforts. Is this perhaps indicative of what some other, smaller studios are thinking? Are we, as Mr. Wada suggests, seeing the beginning of a shift in dynamics? Time will tell, but it's going to be interesting at the very least.