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Fear of a One-Console Planet

Blog written by Lou Lantos on May 4, 2008 at 02:17 AM

I was recently reading an editorial in EDGE magazine, and a certain journalist was suggesting that the only way forward for gaming was a future where all of the gaming superpowers collaborate on the same system, and to some extent it's an agreeable target. With all of the biggest wigs getting those thinks caps good and sweaty around the same, designer round-table we could see some incredible ideas born. It creates a far easier job for developers, also, who are focused solely on this single mega-console. In my opinion however, where ease of development and thoughtful collaboration prospers, genuine innovation dies.

Think of it in terms of shopping; one place being home to everything is a convenience to the consumer, yes, but for how long? Prices stay low momentarily, but without other stores offering alternatives at equally budgeted rates you'll see the prices of items slowly rise. Suddenly the store is free to dictate its own rules, and can bend the customer across a barrel with little effort. Buying into the so-called one-stop-shop is a victory for covenience at the expense of our own freedom; as humans we enjoy the luxury of choice, take that away and we're mere pets.

A one-console future could see us succumbing to a similar fate, we lose choice and we accept the standard. Slowly, and with no incentive to push any particular boundaries, the standard drops. Without a frame of reference the world outside the box becomes a mere blur, and we readily allow those benchmarks to fade away.

McDonalds needs Burger King, Coca Cola needs Pepsi, and Microsoft and Nintendo need Sony. It's almost like these opposites are all in some form of spiritual alignment; as if they were meant to co-exist in order to provoke a response from one another. They are, essentially, an atom. A series of protons, neutrons, and electrons conflicting with each other to create an intangible harmony.

I'm running over here - far more than I anticipated I would be. Therefore, the final factor I wish to touch on is price, and the argument that with only one console to buy the consumer wins. It's an idealistic, albeit naive conclusion to draw from. To call back to the point I made earlier about the one-stop-shop, who is to say that that one mega-console isn't the price of an XBOX 360, PS3, and Wii combined? It, surely, isn't such an unlikely scenario? Sony, at the time of the PS3's release, were shifting their console at the $600 mark. And that's WITH its rivals already having debuted at a comparative fraction of that price. To have the audacity to do that, with competition to consider, leaves few prospects for the idea of a reasonably priced machine in a market with no competition.

It's worth ending this article on the following quote from Orson Welles; an artist who thrived under tenuous conditions, and then faultered given complete control,

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."