Competition is good, but couldn't gamers benefit from there being only one console gaming company?

[Lufia Erim]

So let's talk about Sony, Microsoft and nintendo. Without going into a fanboy war shall we?

Now competition between companies is good. It helps in various different ways, and keeps a company in check as opposed to having a monopoly. However , i can't help but wonder if having only one company, and thus one console, could be beneficial for gamers as far as consoles are concerned.

You see, if hypothetically, there was only one company, the playerbase would be better united. No more split player base between consoles. Everyone would own the same one. Which would mean you favorite multiplayer games would have a longer life span. This would make for better value in our multiplayer games since their would last longer.

We would also get more games of various genres. If the developers are making games for one console only, well then the games and genres will be more varied. We will have most options open to us. No more need to own several consoles to get your FPS or Jrpgs or platformers. There would all be under the same umbrella console. offering us more choice.

We would also have an easier time making our voices heared. Since we would only be talking in one direction rather than several.

While competition is good to keep companies in check, i don't believe this is necessary. Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

So my question is: Do you think it would be ideal to have only one gaming console ( in addition to the PC of course ) ? Do you think there is any benefit for the gaming comunity to have that happen?

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Honestly, I think it would. Just make one console that can do everything and anything gamers could want, and let the companies decide on the stuff like peripherals, gimmicks, etc that it uses. Putting the first party titles on one system I don't feel should be a bad thing

 

[Casual Shinji]

One gaming console? Maybe. One company owning said console? Fuck no.

One company owning the one and only gaming console would give them full control over everything on that system. If a developer wants to make a game the company doesn't want on their machine then that's that (if we're excluding PC).

 

[NPC009]

I can't see this working out. For every informed consumer there must be atleast ten who go with what marketing/whiny kids/their friends tell them. The majority isn't going to be critical and whoever produces that one true system won't be arsed to do more than the bare minimum to prevent a new video game crash.

Another disadvantage for us is the lack of innovation and advancements. Most likely, that one console will end up as some cheap box filled with leftover PC parts. Or worse. Look, for instance, at Brazil. A local company is going to start producing genuine Megadrives. Not so much because the country is filled with retro lovers, but because heavy import taxes on foreign electronics make modern game consoles insanely expensive. The locally produced Megadrives are an affordable alternative. Oh, and you know why the final PS2 games were released in 2014? Because it's was - and still is! - a very popular console in countries such as Brazil. Best case scenario, that one console would still be competing with the PC, but personally, I think those markets only overlap at some points. The tech savvy will turn to PC gaming (and maybe get a Steambox or something) while others will use the console or drop all gaming (aside from mobile and browser games).

And I'm not talking about just raw power, by the way. I'm talking about Nintendo. Nintendo has some pretty crazy ideas that often cross the border into gimmick land, but some of their ideas do stick. The DS and it's touchscreen, motion control... We may lose out on awesome things if there are no companies running around being their quirky selves.

(Speaking of Nintendo, there's no guarantee quality control of the producer of that one console will reach their level. realistically, it's much more likely we'll be looking at a worse version of the other current consoles. Day one patches everywhere, bugs galore, consistent 60fps an illusion...)

As for games, I don't think it'll work out as well as you assume. Right now, console manufacturers promote whatever they think suits their console and audience best. Stepping into a random game store should give you a good idea which titles are valued by producers and sellers. While there is diversity, there is no denying some titles get much more attention than others, and this is rarely based on (just) the quality of games. If you have one console, all these games would be competing directly against eachother. Not just among consumers but, more importantly, among producers and sellers. If there's only one system, the sort of titles that will get the most attention will be depend on the marketing decisions of the company that produces that one system. If the industry has taught us anything, it's that most companies don't like to take risk and would much rather promote generic FPS #492 and Super Mario Whatever rather than, uh, nearly anything else. Having only one console could very well widen the gap between mainstream and niche even more, which is a terrible thing for all developers who're currently somewhere in between.

 

[Fox12]

Heaven's no. The company would take advantage of the publishers, the consumers, the developers... no thanks. Just look at Xbone.

Besides, most games get released on all console. I can't think of a single game I've missed out on.

 

[Lufia Erim]

While competition is good to keep companies in check, i don't believe this is necessary. Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest.

I don't have that much faith in console players. They demonstrated how spineless they are by subscribing to the premium services and making subscriptions mandatory for multiplayer and other online features. A single console owned by one company would be a bad idea. Prices would rise and fewer incentives would be offered. The alternative is a customizable open source console, but that's just a PC, so why then even bother continuing the consoles?

WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement.

And how many YouTubers, forum dwellers and friends at the time threatened to go to PlayStation? It was easier to protest because they had an alternative that looked better in comparison.

Well my logic being ( and my logic could be flawed) that with the PC still being the powerhouse that it is, it would make sure that advancements to console tech would still move foward at a fair price . People would still have a place to go if the company in charge of the console decides to be too anti-comsummer. Threatening to go PC only would be a bigger problem than just switching to another console. Because, usually when gamers to go PC from console, they don't come back.

As for prices, well as it stands now, games are expensive enough. when you ask most people about their buying habits, they usually say that they wait for price drops and buy very few games on day one. While some people can afford dropping 100$ on a game on a whim, most cannot. This means that raising prices would furthur alienate consumers. Less people could afford games on release, resulting in heavily dropped sales. Again threatening to lose people to PC.

But again this is all hypothetical

 

[Zhukov]

I can see the attraction. Not having to fuck around with exclusives would be nice.

However I don't think it would be anywhere near worth it. You mentioned the XBone uproar. A major reason why people saying "Fuck you Microsoft" held weight was because many of them were saying "Fuck you Microsoft, I'm buying a PS4". If XBone was the only show in town then that could have played out a lot different.

I wish they'd just do away with exclusives. Release all games on anything that can run them. I realize why exclusives are a thing, but damn they're annoying. Gaming is the only industry that puts up with that shit. Imagine if particular movies were exclusive to certain brands of DVD player. See how ridiculous that sounds. And yet in gaming we accept it just because it's always been that way.

 

[WeepingAngels]

While competition is good to keep companies in check, i don't believe this is necessary. Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

The Xbox One is one example of gamers protesting but gamers still put up with too much shit. How much is the average complete AAA game these days?

I can see the attraction. Not having to fuck around with exclusives would be nice.

However I don't think it would be anywhere near worth it. You mentioned the XBone uproar. A major reason why people saying "Fuck you Microsoft" held weight was because many of them were saying "Fuck you Microsoft, I'm buying a PS4". If XBone was the only show in town then that could have played out a lot different.

I wish they'd just do away with exclusives. Release all games on anything that can run them. I realize why exclusives are a thing, but damn they're annoying. Gaming is the only industry that puts up with that shit. Imagine if particular movies were exclusive to certain brands of DVD player. See how ridiculous that sounds. And yet in gaming we accept it just because it's always been that way.

You have to port games from one console to another and that's expensive, not so with DVD's. Poor comparison.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Only one console? I Don?t think so, at least not in the long run. Homogenization means nothing needs to excel; with only one teat for content to flow through and all our millions of mouths to feed, a singular cow would focus on producing high quantities of milk over high quality milk. They?d know there?d really be NO choice for us when the only other option is to starve, so why would they bother?

Variety is the spice of life; what we need is a return to form. We need game devs that worry about producing ?console selling? titles again (remember when that was a thing?) We need the hardware producers to stop shoving pointless apps and redundant features down our throat and focus on giving us consistent, reliable and consumer-friendly GAMING experiences and not entertainment hubs that spread themselves so thin they become jacks of all trades and not the masters of the one trade they should be.

 

[Cold Shiny]

Nintendo really doesn't factor into any of this, they removed themselves from the market a long time ago, and they have benefited greatly from it. Microsoft and Sony are so alike at this point that I'm just gonna start calling them Microsony.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Nintendo really doesn't factor into any of this, they removed themselves from the market a long time ago, and they have benefited greatly from it. Microsoft and Sony are so alike at this point that I'm just gonna start calling them Microsony.

Except they haven't. Nintendo makes consoles, Nintendo has exclusives, Nintendo divides the market just as much as anyone else. Hell your comment proves that point with that " Us vs them attitude".

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

The ideal is a truly unified medium, which would require the eventual phasing out of all consoles as well as PC; all consumers should have access to all the medium can offer.

...however, what makes the medium unique is in just how diverse it is in terms of interfaces. Literature is, ultimately, just text. Film is just a non-interactive linear video regardless of how/where it's viewed. But gaming? Gaming is mobile on a tiny screen, it's esoteric inputs (say, twin flight sticks in a space sim) on a hi-end screen at home, it's VR (across multiple SKU's), it's the conventional efficiency of the two main consoles, and it's---- whatever the hell Nintendo keep doing.

So whilst I don't see competition by itself as being praiseworthy (even if it's a necessary evil it's still an evil, one which means consumers will always be the loser), the medium's naturally inclined to fragmentation due to how different experiences are shaped by interfaces because it's a creative medium bound to technology like no other.

Indulging in some hypotheticals, and maybe looking at how the industry could be overhauled without contriving/enforcing a single platform; MS and Sony are just dragging out 'competition' for the sake of profit - neither is truly offering anything unique (the Xbox Elite pad could be, but it not a standard piece of kit and it works just fine on PC as well). In some wacky alt reality they would join forces on a single platform, resulting in, I'd reckon, a much healthier industry; we'd have Nintendo doing their Nintendo thang, PC more or less leading the field creatively and technologically (by way of specs and sheer variety of interfaces and IP's), and a mainstream console manufacturer no longer needing to squabble, bicker, and snipe at another company more or less putting out the exact same experience.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Nintendo really doesn't factor into any of this, they removed themselves from the market a long time ago, and they have benefited greatly from it. Microsoft and Sony are so alike at this point that I'm just gonna start calling them Microsony.

Sosoft not any good?

OT; One console to rule them all, and in the darkness, bind them.

It wouldn't be in the consumers best interest. One of the things keeping (console) gaming cheap, is that fact that there is competition. If there were but one console, how long before prices start to creep up?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

Look at all the crap the industry currently pulls that gamers not only accept, but actually defend, and tell me again that gamers are not idiots. I beg to differ.

No offence, but you are incredibly naive to think that having only one console would benefit anyone other than the company behind that console.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

Look at all the crap the industry currently pulls that gamers not only accept, but actually defend, and tell me again that gamers are not idiots. I beg to differ.

No offence, but you are incredibly naive to think that having only one console would benefit anyone other than the company behind that console.

No not really. people use different systems for different things. The Switch and 3DS for example, fulfill a different function to the PS4\Xbox One\PC.

And a monopoly is never a good thing.

Gamers are not idiots

HA! Great joke.

My question is hypothetical and it truly may be a horrible idea. Except both of you failed to give me a reason why other than the kneejerk implication that gamers are indeed idiots.

Hey maybe you guys are right and im just a naive optimist who should just give up on the dream of a unified console base. But concrete reasons with conrete examples would be better for discussion value. Or at the very least educational purposes.

As stated in the title, i am fully aware that competition is good, but the main argument seems to be less that monopoly is bad, and more that people have no faith in the companies that supply us our entertainment. Which to me is weird that we openly support companies we have absolutely no faith in. Which in and of itself may point to an underlying problem in the gaming industry.

But thats a topic for another thread.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

Look at all the crap the industry currently pulls that gamers not only accept, but actually defend, and tell me again that gamers are not idiots. I beg to differ.

No offence, but you are incredibly naive to think that having only one console would benefit anyone other than the company behind that console.

No not really. people use different systems for different things. The Switch and 3DS for example, fulfill a different function to the PS4\Xbox One\PC.

And a monopoly is never a good thing.

Gamers are not idiots

HA! Great joke.

My question is hypothetical and it truly may be a horrible idea. Except both of you failed to give me a reason why other than the kneejerk implication that gamers are indeed idiots.

Hey maybe you guys are right and im just a naive optimist who should just give up on the dream of a unified console base. But concrete reasons with conrete examples would be better for discussion value. Or at the very least educational purposes.

As stated in the title, i am fully aware that competition is good, but the main argument seems to be less that monopoly is bad, and more that people have no faith in the companies that supply us our entertainment. Which to me is weird that we openly support companies we have absolutely no faith in. Which in and of itself may point to an underlying problem in the gaming industry.

But thats a topic for another thread.

The fact that gamers are idiots is beside the point.
It's a matter of simple economics without competition to drive the prices down the company could literally charge whatever they wanted and we'd have no choice but to pay it. They could also do whatever else they wanted because there would be no alternative for us consumers to get that product. Even if gamers weren't morons, no amount of whining in the world would do any good because the company would have no obligation to listen to us. Not that companies do now because, as stated, gamers are morons.

Edit:
Here let me let Jim Sterling explain it:
Start at around 2:40

 

[Lufia Erim]

Gamers are not idiots, i truly believe that if the company was to make a poor decision, such as raising prices too high or delivering a poor product, gamers would simply protest. WE saw it with the original Xbone announcement. We can and will band together if something is too unfavorable for us. That in and of itself is enough to keep the company providing our entertainement in check.

Look at all the crap the industry currently pulls that gamers not only accept, but actually defend, and tell me again that gamers are not idiots. I beg to differ.

No offence, but you are incredibly naive to think that having only one console would benefit anyone other than the company behind that console.

No not really. people use different systems for different things. The Switch and 3DS for example, fulfill a different function to the PS4\Xbox One\PC.

And a monopoly is never a good thing.

Gamers are not idiots

HA! Great joke.

My question is hypothetical and it truly may be a horrible idea. Except both of you failed to give me a reason why other than the kneejerk implication that gamers are indeed idiots.

Hey maybe you guys are right and im just a naive optimist who should just give up on the dream of a unified console base. But concrete reasons with conrete examples would be better for discussion value. Or at the very least educational purposes.

As stated in the title, i am fully aware that competition is good, but the main argument seems to be less that monopoly is bad, and more that people have no faith in the companies that supply us our entertainment. Which to me is weird that we openly support companies we have absolutely no faith in. Which in and of itself may point to an underlying problem in the gaming industry.

But thats a topic for another thread.

The fact that gamers are idiots is beside the point.
It's a matter of simple economics without competition to drive the prices down the company could literally charge whatever they wanted and we'd have no choice but to pay it. They could also do whatever else they wanted because there would be no alternative for us consumers to get that product. Even if gamers weren't morons, no amount of whining in the world would do any good because the company would have no obligation to listen to us. Not that companies do now because, as stated, gamers are morons.

That's a fair point. However, i would argue that the benefit for a luxury item such as videogames and specifically videogame consoles, which this thread is about, to increase their prices would be slim.

Firstly, as it stands at the moment, most gamers wait for price drops for games as well as consoles. If prices were to raise, it would give gamers an added incentive to just wait for price drops. We see it already if games dont sell a large amount of copies in the first few weeks of telease it is regarded as a failure. If games are too expensive then more people will just decide to wait for price drops, publishers and devs will be displeased.

This goes double for consoles. Remember the Ps3s launch? Dispite playing blu rays as well as games, the pricepoint was so high that few people could afford to buy one. For the first few years of the PS3s life it was regarded as a failure. Not only was it expensive, but it was hard to develop for. Remember the meme "PS3 has no games"? It was just too expensive.

Secondly. It would not be a true monopoly, because PC gaming would still exist. We already see a flux of people leaving console gaming to go to PC gaming. What do you think would happen if Console gaming became more expensive that it is now? More people would flock to PC. And that would hurt more than anything else. PC gamong would keep the console market in check. Why would i pay more for a console game that i would a PC game?

The same goes for the tech. Console at the moment have inferior tech than Pcs. This is mitigated by the fact that consoles are plug in an play ( to a certain extend), don't need to be upgraded ( for the most part) and are cheaper than PC gaming ( to buy or build a gaming capable rig). If a consoles specs were so far behind a PC as well as being more expensive, any incentive to buy a console is gone. Any advantage consoles had would vanish and it would then become obsolete in comparaison to the PC. A position that people are arguing already. [ Insert Pc master race joke here].

__

Sure monopolies are bad, but videogames are a luxury item, if they screw over the enthusiasts too much, or put their product out of reach, the consumers will just drop it and find something else to do with their money. You talk about economics, but price point also factor into econimics 101. If your product is too expensive you lose buyers, if your product is too cheap you lose profit. The point is the find a balance.