Slashdot Mirror
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 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.
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.
Yes. In fact, if you print out this article and fold it in properly, it becomes a whole different story.
Sweet informative mod.
> 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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion