In this, the first article for Play’s Lost Diablog, we discuss Dyack’s recent suggestion of a future console generation consisting of unified hardware.
At the Games Convention Development Conference in Leipzig on Monday, Denis Dyack presented his vision for a Unified Console. In his presentation, he suggested that market factors will soon force commoditization of the games industry. Standardised hardware would be one of the many changes involved in such a shift, a move which would radically alter the way current console hardware is manufactured and sold.
The concept of a Unified Console is not an idea that instantly strikes one as feasible. From an outsider’s perspective, there seems to be scant evidence that the gaming industry would ever be willing to support such a concept; the Big Three have totally separate approaches towards everything from human interface design to on-line support and, perhaps more importantly, completely different business agendas. The Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo brands are worth far more stamped on a locked platform than they ever would be in an open platform model. However, these three companies aren’t the be all and end all of the gaming industry. They’re just the current-generation hardware designers.
The real money for Sony and Microsoft comes from licenses paid by developers to sell games on their respective platforms as well as, for Microsoft, on-line gaming subscriptions. There is absolutely no reason for on-line subscriptions to cease being a form of income for Microsoft. They could quite easily set up a similar system for a standardised piece of gaming hardware and still reap financial rewards.
In addition, instead of developers paying one of The Big Three for a license to sell games on their machine, they could be paying for a license to use APIs written by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. The difference here is that middleware, not hardware or software will be the commodity being exchanged. One dev-kit to rule them all.
Now, everybody knows that Sony and Microsoft haemorrhage money when they sell consoles – the retail price of the hardware doesn’t even come close to covering the component and manufacturing costs involved. So, if someone approached them with a piece of hardware which would allow them to maximise their profits by focusing on the fields that they are already profitable in, it seems unlikely that they’d turn down the idea. Nintendo, with its focus on casual games for everybody would surely see the benefit of having a unified platform – everyone from your son to your grandmother would be able to enjoy the same experience, no matter which brand of console they bought.
From a Developer’s standpoint it would seem like a great situation as well, with different company’s APIs to choose from, as well as different game engines to design with and different peripherals to exploit. The wealth of options for the people behind the actual games would be greatly increased while the consumer wouldn’t have to worry about picking the right brand because their basic hardware would be the same as everybody else’s.
Dr.Gash
When I first read Dyack’s thoughts I wasn’t convinced at all. A lot of very petty thoughts went through my head about Silicon Knights… In fact, I think its fair to say I was ready to accuse Dyack of childish attention seeking. However, the more I think about this idea, the more it seems to make sense. The model Dyack proposes is supported by a pretty sound financial argument. If the big hitters are losing money on hardware production, why not hand it off to all the brands that already flood the electronics market and let them worry about manufacturing costs. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo could move into positions more akin to MGM and Paramount Pictures, funding and distributing the games as well as having in-house developers and offering any other services they wish to, be it online subscriptions or whatever.
Whats your take, Wrestle?
Wrestlevania
Dyack’s “childish attention-seeking” nature is a whole other topic, frankly, and one I’ve no interest in picking through the bones of here. But, regardless: a unified platform for gaming is not a new idea. And to be honest, I think it’s a completely unrealistic one for a myriad of reasons.
Firstly, and rather fundamentally, are we really supposed to believe that—having poured billions into branding, marketing, exclusive publisher/developer contracts—Microsoft or Sony would simply throw aside their respective hard-fought platforms and cuddle up to something else? And from a new company?! Business simply doesn’t work this way. Entire corporations don’t structure their long-term forecasts with a view to throwing away money for no tangible, maintainable result. The sheer stupidity of this point of view beggars belief, quite honestly.
Secondly, whilst the principle of having a single home console platform makes sense from a high-level consumer point of view, in reality: does your average consumer really care? Of course not. If you’re serious about gaming you’ll buy whatever platforms interest you, given enough time and disposable income. And if you’re not serious you’ll buy the platform you’ve heard the most about, which is also likely the platform that your friends are playing on. And this isn’t age-specific either, this is across the board.
So no, I don’t see any realistic merit in Dyack’s argument whatsoever. If people want to play on a unified platform, PCs are ridiculously cheap nowadays – and far more prolific. Microsoft are trying to leverage this sort of development cross-over, though long-term success will come via XNA, and certainly not their hobbled Games for Windows initiative.
It’s true that the PC endures little innovation year-on-year in comparison with the console market (Sony’s EyeToy, Xbox Live, DS’ touch screen, the Wiimote), which may lessen its appeal to casual gamers, much less encourage uptake of potential games players from untapped demographics. But a unified console platform wouldn’t achieve this either. Compromises in design would have to be made, in order for the machine to appeal to as wide a range of consumers as possible, from both a hardware/interface standpoint as well as that of the price. Sure, developers will continue to churn out titles for whichever system best suits their latest title. But behemoths like EA seem to have no problem with publishing one title across all present formats if they so wish and staying in business.
You see, the more I scratch away at the surface of this argument, the more I’m left with the feeling that this is Dyack’s own personal beef; for whatever reason, likely cost- or profit-based, he doesn’t like the idea of multiple platforms.
Dr.Gash
Hold on. We’re starting to talk about a piece of hardware here and I think we’re missing the heart of the issue, which is standardisation. Compromises in design only occur when a company fails to meet “the standard” expected by consumers. No one knows what a standard console is because there is no definition of one. It doesn’t take a company to step in and build the thing, only to lay down a set of guidelines for other manufacturers to meet; Does it access memory in these ways? Does it handle processing like this? Does it output sound in these formats?
Branding and exclusive contracts both have a place in a market built on standards-based hardware. Nothing has to change in terms of what gets sold to the consumer – which is to say, an Xbox 720 or a Playstation 4 or a WiiToo. The difference is that those consoles all contain a standard set of internal hardware components which are compatible with one another. The brands themselves don’t suddenly disappear, only the weakest hardware platforms, as dictated by that generation’s sales figures.
Part of the problem with Dyack’s presentation is that he talks about a one console future. What he should have remained stricter on, is specifying that it has nothing to do with companies destroying each other, but rather all companies agreeing on a video game equivalent to Red Book audio. There is a reason that companies agree on these standards, and that’s because they recognise that there is higher profitability in part ownership of a larger shared market than there is in total ownership of one piece of a fractured market.
Wrestlevania
See, now, whilst I can appreciate your spin on context with the Red Book audio example, I still don’t think it stands up, because a modern console is a complex and necessarily diverse amalgamation of many technological standards—not one.
So should all future consoles come with a hard drive? Should they all offer motion-sensitive control? Should they all come with a high-definition format drive? To all three: no, because this prescription to rigourous structure chokes innovation and advancement.
Consider if this sort of cross-company homologation took place and you picked motion-sensitive control as a focus point. Sony would not drop SIXAXIS, Nintendo would not drop their Wiimote. These two technologies are intrinsicly incompatible in some sort of homologated scenario, at a very fundamental level. They offer wildly different user experiences, and this difference is certainly the lynch pin of Nintendo’s on-going business strategy, whilst Microsoft have no tangible interest in this area of gaming whatsoever.
But let’s bring things back to the present – and Mr. Dyack – once more. I stated earlier that I wasn’t interested in pulling apart Dyack’s “unified console” idea on a personal level relative to his own personal circumstances. But, in light of Silicon Knights’ state of affairs right now, I think it’s now foolish to discount several pertinent factors—least of all Dyack’s massive commitment to providing a currently-in-excess-of-$250 million budget trilogy on just one platform. And it’s a platform who’s growth has suddenly plateaud in the last quarter, short of Microsoft’s long-touted boasts of a “10 million units sold” market penetration by this point. Short by almost 2 million units no less.
Whilst I freely admit it’s cliched (and out-right detestable) to say Dyack may be cracking under the pressure, I really can’t make sense of his argument any other way, given the facts and our discussion here. Whatever the reason though, I certainly have no interest in a single platform standard for consoles. It would destroy the very soul of what drives gaming to an ever-expanding spread of players. It would make console gaming bland, predictable and slow to innovate. However stupid it might seem, I’m convinced this unified platform would be dominated, steered and held-to-ransom by the mega publishers that plop out the same fucking games year in, year out.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to be proven wrong in this respect; it might cause developer costs to plummet, the uptake of video gaming by the masses to explode, the diversity of titles in the library to grow exponentially. But I really can’t see this happening if every machine out there is basically a branded clone, adhering to the same bland, mass-acceptability template. A template decided upon not by the people who actually care about gaming, but who care about profits from licencing. Because that’s what this would likely descend into: a mass pit-fight of manufacturers joslting to have their standard for whatever key aspect in The Box.
And who wants just a box?
