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David Jaffe - In Ten Years Just One Game Console
The folks at 'The 1up Show' had the chance to interview David Jaffe, the well-known designer behind God of War. They discuss his upcoming project for the PS3, Calling All Cars, the future of the God of War series, as well as the ever-increasing price of making games. From the article: "A lot of games recently it's cell phone, PC, DS, PSP, if you look at EA they blanket it -- it's everywhere. As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.' There's kind of an excitement that was about that back up until recently. With this new hardware, though, that idea is seems to be going away. Is it really all going to come down to first party now? Or it ultimately going to come to one system? 'Cause 10 years from now there's going to be one system because there's so much more third party software than first party software from any hardware manufacturer. It may not be feasible to make it the war of the first party or the war of the exclusives." The entire interview is viewable online.
As PCs get cheaper I think they will take market share from the consoles, until the PC becomes the de facto single console. I think there are already more PC game titles than console titles, and the penetration of PC's is higher than that of game consoles.
Yes, companies will just GIVE UP trying to make money!
I mean, seriously, the only company making a console now that even was in the game business ten years ago was Nintendo. How many different companies have put out a console since then? There's no way that companies will cease trying to make money on console hardware in the games market.
If he is correct, it will most likely simply be because of computer/console convergence. The only real reason you have a console now is because it interfaces with your TV easily and comes with nice controllers and all the games "just work" on it. If computers become ubiquitous, stable, and easily accessible, I believe it is possible that one day we will have NO consoles. But ONE console -- not a chance.
As a gamer, I find this kind of statement asinine. I really only have the budget for one console, so I am forced to miss out on some games. I love the Gran Turismo series, but am not going to buy a PS3 just to play that when I have a perfectly good xbox 360. So I miss out on that game. To me, the console is a platform; I am not choosing an allegiance to one side or the other.
I suppose he means the PS3 and the 360 for which there will be Halo and Final Fantasy as the exclusives. Nintendo doesn't really seem to have a problem with exclusive games (Mario Kart/Party/64/etc, Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros) and I'd argue the biggest reason behind Nintendo's success is because of their first party games, especially since other than Capcom (Resident Evil 4, Viewtiful Joe), I can't think of any other company that even did GC exclusives (granted, these games were later ported to PS2). With the Wii, it's even more different. The vast majority of Wii games are ONLY on the Wii console. Ubisoft and other publishers are doing Wii-only games with no chance of a port.
So I don't know what this guy is talking about with lack of 1st party support or exclusives, unless he means Sony and MS.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
He is assuming that all the consoles will be essentially the same, just by different brands.
Which, essentially, is true. Up until now at least. The Wii and the DS both have completely different input methods, which makes entire genres of games available which weren't available for other systems.
As long as new systems are not just "the same but FASTER", this prediction won't come true.
Um... It hurts them too. Remember when Nintendo had 90% share with the NES? The put 3rd party developers over the barrel. Because they could. Sony was no different, and I can't imagine MS being more 'benevolent'. Having solid competition between 2 or 3 providers is healthier for developers.
Exclusives are important as they drive sales of any console. Most people only buy 1, and they buy the console for the games, not the other way around.
Can't see the "one console in ten years" happening, either.
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If it does happen I fear for the health of the industry
As it has been talked about inside of the industry many times, when you have one platform which is as dominant as the PS2 is/was you end up in a very bad position; you have (basically) no choice but to produce a game for that platform which makes the company who produces the platform grow arogant and stop meeting your needs. If you look at the PS3 you can see the consequences of Sony's success with the Playstation and PS2; a Blu-Ray player which increases the cost of the syste, Blu-Ray discs which increase the production cost of every game, a complicated (difficult to develop for) platform with an inadequate tool set.
> Console developers could come together and make a hardware/api "standard." Same type of disc, same hardware capability, etc. [...] Each console would then have its own flavor around it. [...] Game developers then could make just 1 game for all consoles that meet the "standard" and would be assured compatibility.
Welcome to 1993 -- it's the 3DO all over again.