Unified Gaming Platform – An Idea Whose Time Has Come  

Unified Gaming Platform – An Idea Whose Time Has Come

First, let me ask all of you to put aside your fanboy tendencies and look at what I am posing objectively. I know that will be harder for some of you than others. Second, suppress the knee jerk reaction of “It’ll never happen!” There are many reasons why it could and should happen and in the near future. I will stipulate that given the adversarial nature of the gaming industry that it is not likely, unless the players involved are looking long term at the big picture.

We have reached a point in the development of the games industry where the constant format war that wages between the various hardware manufacturers has begun to work against us, rather than for us. Game development costs have gone through the roof, forcing a heretofore unseen level of consolidation within the industry. Because of the high development costs, the days of third party exclusives are over. Metal Gear Solid 4 is the last of the major exclusive titles to come from a third party. What we are seeing instead is a wave of acquisitions by Microsoft and Sony and third parties merging into massive corporations, a la EA, in order to survive. A large part of the escalating development costs are associated with having to develop two completely different versions of a game for consoles with different strengths. As a result less time is spent optimizing the game for a single platform, creating innovative gameplay and compelling content and less time rooting out errors with the console titles.

Add to that escalating hardware costs for consoles that, even this generation, are so powerful that any meaningful measure of their capabilities when balanced against one another is pointless. Both the PS3 and 360 are more than powerful enough for most game designers to realize their visions and the real difference in visuals in most games comes down to art direction, rather than raw power. Both Sony and MS are attempting to mimic each other feature for feature, both trying to dominate your living room with their Trojan horse game machine and both wanting to sell you downloadable content over the wire.

In addition, Sony’s Blu Ray victory in the next gen disc wars has ensured that MS will have to use a Blu Ray drive in their next console and reportedly they are already talking to Sony about it. Any Xbox 360 owner that has had hardware issues with the 360 (I’m currently waiting on my fourth console), and any PS3 owner that has used Sony’s online services (such as they are), would agree that each company has its strengths and weaknesses. The combined expertise and Intellectual Properties of each company would spur the industry to new growth on a powerful, (hopefully) easy to develop for platform leading to the kind of competition that we all benefit from: game publishers competing with each other for our gaming dollar.

If they choose not to go this route the next generation, it has little effect on me personally, I have no trouble justifying the cost of multiple game consoles, though this generation it took me longer than ever before to justify adding a PS3 to my rig (and technically I still haven’t, the PS3 belongs to my housemate), but Hotshots Golf and Ratchet and Clank have pushed me over the edge. Prior to this generation I bought every console at launch as a matter of course because I knew that each one would have enough exclusive content to justify the purchase.

But, most importantly to me, I can stop listening to fanboys of game consoles and electronics companies bicker back and forth about whose brick is better and they can start arguing over which games are better. At least I hope. Odds are they’d just argue over whose accessories are better, Mad Katz or Nyko.

Here are a few things I’d like to see:

A Sony manufactured console that both MS and Sony agree upon in terms of design.

An entirely new controller that improves on the near perfect design of the 360 controller.

A HDD included in every console, preferably a solid state drive, but with the option to add an internal drive to increase storage capacity and/or the ability to link to external storage.

An MS designed user interface and Xbox live type online service, gamer tags, and, of course, achievements!

A powerful, easy to develop for system architecture free of the bottlenecks that plague Sony’s consoles.

So, do you think this UGP will ever become a reality? If so, what features would you like to see in such a beast? Which controller would you like? The 360’s? The PS3’s? A brand new design? What do you see as the potential drawbacks to a unified platform?

And I guess CD, DVD, and now Blu Ray are all Gestapo formats as well? How about Windows? Well, okay, maybe Windows.

Here's a link to my response in the Playstation area: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post13346219

I'm not after making my own personal entertainment easier, as I said, I've owned multiple consoles for years and years and years. I had a Sega Master system and an NES for cryin' out loud. If Sony and MS continue to release separate hardware formats then I'll keep buying their machines. I just think that the industry may be evolving to the point where another format war may be more detrimental to the growth of the gaming biz then beneficial. Just because it always has been, does not mean it always must be so. But you are welcome to disagree, but please, leave the overly dramatic analogies on the shelf.

A unified gaming platform would be a de facto format. I use the term platform in this case because we are talking about a set of hardware specifications that would be universal for that particular generation. Sony and MS could still make their own versions of the hardware if they wanted. Much like Sony and Denon make DVD players or Blu Ray players. The point would be software interoperability regardless of which you chose to buy, thereby eliminating the need for multiple consoles.

My comment about Windows was a joke. I'll add a smiley next time so you know. My larger point was that having a single hardware platform to play games on is not at all the same thing as Berlin in 1940 or not having a choice.

There are some valid points made here, I won't deny that, but the responses consisting of one liners like HDTV-Nut's "Will never happen, bad idea, thread Over." with no further elaboration or rationale don't really further discussion on the topic, but I thank you for logging your opinion anyway.

High hardware prices, lack of incentive to release newer hardware and the resulting excessively long generational gaps are all realistic hurdles and causes for concern. I tend to think that market forces will take care of that, but more importantly I realize that it is games, and not hardware, that drive the industry and that higher competition on that front can only be a good thing. If you view a gaming console as merely a piece of tech then you're sort of missing the point. It's just a means to the end of gaming, not something to be fawned over like a new HDTV or set of speakers.

However, I'll be the first to admit that I could be wrong, as generational shifts are currently motivated by one company trying to get a leg up on the competition by getting a lead o building an install base on the next generation of hardware. But the reason to build that install base is largely evaporating. The point of building your install base was to garner third party support for your platform, which would lead to more games, which lead to more systems sold, which lead to a larger install base which lead to more third party support and so on.

Nintendo is carving a niche for itself with casual gamers and as the second system in a lot of more serious gamer's homes, with MS and Sony seeming destined to split that more serious gamer demographic evenly enough that both platforms will receive virtually equal third party support. With the cost of developing major titles now, no third party can afford to release a game on a single console and hope to sell enough copies to make it worthwhile. This seems unlikely to change with the next generation of hardware, and probably not even the one after that. A prolonged stalemate has the same effect on hardware generational moves as a single gaming platform.

If you don't agree, that's fine.

That works too, but after three RROD 360's and currently waiting on reciept of my fourth console in three years I'm a little sour on MS' manufacturing capability. That list is just a list of things I'd like to see in a unified format. It's not meant to be a decree on what such a console should look like. I'm far more interested in what the industry would look like if you could buy one machine and play the entire library of games available from both MS and Sony. It's probably too much to hope that Nintendo would get on board, but who knows.

Again, please do not mistake my short list of personal "wish list" for a unified platform as the only form that I would like to see such a platform appear in or the only way that such an idea would work. Games are designed to a closed set of hardware specifications for the given console upon which they are designed to run. With the wildly differing hardware architectures we have between consoles now, even if the discs could be booted and run on all the available consoles the hardware optimizations would be completely wrong if inserted into the wrong console.

What I'm really referring to is something more like MS and Sony deciding on a hardware configuration with processor X, Graphics chip Y, W amount of RAM, Z bus bandwidth and so on so that all of the developers are shooting for the same target. They could build it together, or separately, include their own controller designs, pimp their own online services etc.

The only thing required to run XBox Live is a hard drive and an ethernet connection. Same thing with Sony's Home service. The Sony and MS controllers are both remarkably similar already. Both have dual analog sticks, both have 11 buttons, both have triggers, after a fashion on Sony's controller, both are wireless, both use USB cables to plug back into their respective consoles. Add motion sensitivity to one controller and rumble to the other and other than the physical layout of the controllers (and their labeling) they're the same.

Darklord, I'm not sure where you get the 10% figure from wrt the increase in development costs for a game but I suppose it's possible if you started with dual platform development in mind, however I can only see such an approach leading to a less than optimized game on both platforms in most cases.

I am also unsure why you say that the current manufacturers can not release a unified console. The software publishers you name probably have no interest in getting into the hardware business and the headaches it causes, especially not when major players like Sony and MS are knee deep in the business already.

One more thing, have you read any of the other forum sections here? HDTV's and Speakers are looked at by a lot of people here as THE end, with the movies and music being the means to enjoy that end. There are a lot of folks here who spend a lot of time swapping out gear from speakers to projectors to amps to subs. The gear IS the hobby. My point about consoles being that if the games continue to get better year after year it doesn't really matter what hardware is running them. Movies, music and tv don't really seem to be getting better year after year.

I'm wondering how many of you are ready to buy a new console next year or the year after? The 360 is going to be three years old this fall, 09 would be the four year mark. That's the length of time it took MS to replace the original XBox. Since they're doing much better this generation I doubt they'll make the jump next year, but what about 2010? That's five years. Time to start the clock over by all accounts in the video game biz.

Cynn, you and a few others seem hell bent on ignoring my repeated request not to mistake my own personal wish list for the concept as a whole. Again, a unified gaming platform need not be a single machine manufactured in a joint venture by the powers that be. It doesn't really matter which company or companies build it, but rather the specifications to which it is built be closed and, as a result of subsequent software development requirements for universal compatibility, the same from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Things like refrigerators, HDTV's, DVD players, Receivers, etc. are all hardware devices built around compatibility with one or more software formats that have predetermined and uniform specifications out of the necessity of building a widely diverse array of equipment capable of operating with each other. Gaming works in the reverse with developers building software to run on a hardware standard. Currently we have competing standards. I am advocating a single standard of hardware specs for them to shoot for. One maker or a dozen it's irrelevant. Form a working group and split the license fees among the members.

Sony and Microsoft can still compete for users on their respective online services, for download services and for users to buy the software they publish. Other players might enter the fray with different service offerings on a unified standard.

I am well aware of how much money the game industry is making today. I am not talking about today. I'm not even talking about next year or perhaps even the year after. I am talking about three, four or perhaps even more years down the line, depending on how long this generation lasts. It may not even a prudent idea for the next generation after this one, perhaps it will have to wait one more generation beyond that, but I really can't see Sony and MS doing this dance again more than once or twice more.

But who knows, perhaps the industry will grow so large that no one on either side cares anymore.

Darklord, I am not talking in circles when I say that there are many people on this forum who regard the gear as THE point. Talk to audio or videophiles at length and see how many times they rant and rave about their favorite movies or music, as opposed to the shadow detail in their display or the reality and air with which the music was portrayed. I don't know a single gaming fan that speaks lovingly of the hardware itself. Perhaps the console and the games they played on it in generic terms, but any love of the hardware stems from the quality of games that they were able to play on it.

As for TV and movies getting better with time, better special effects does not make the movie or tv show better. If you want an objective measure of the quality of films, check the AFI's top 100 and tell me how many were made in the last ten years. If all you watch a special effects intensive films and that is what impresses you then perhaps they have gotten better over the years. TV for the most part is a mixed bag, some good, some bad. Do you think the last season of 24 was the best one? How about the current season of any long running show? You really think reality tv is better than the scripted tv of ten years ago?

Music has become of huge blur of relative sameness. It's over compressed, over engineered and to a large extent on the scale of widely available artists has not stopped evolving, but that evolution has slowed to a crawl. It's only going to get worse. It's what happens when everyone is exposed to everyone else's ideas all the time, individual creativity suffers. Sorry you don't agree.