Dave Jaffe is a multi-faceted man. When he's not openly criticizing the company that has written his pay checks for most of his career, feuding with gaming blogs, or actually working on the occasional game himself, he takes the time out to make hugely controversial statements about our industry that either work gamers into a fine lather of discontent or a make them beam from ear to ear with glee.
His latest statement is perhaps one of his tamest, but I'm sure it will still be enough to ruffle some feathers. He's making the old "One console to rule them all" argument we're all far too familiar with. What sets Jaffe apart from the pack is how un-rehearsed and genuine his thoughts sound.
Quoteth Jaffe- ""A lot of people will say: well, the game companies would never agree to this or that or the other. And to me, that is part of the problem our business has overall. Competition is great. But I think the leaders of the biggest groups should come together from time to time- like the big Mafia families do in the movies- and make some decisions together for the overall health of the business. Heck, maybe they already do this and I am just not aware. But if they do, they have not made the right decision on the one thing I think that could benefit gamers and game makers in a massive way: a single console."
My thoughts after the jump.
[Via GameDaily]
I agree with Jaffe one hundred percent. Like how movie studios are slowly deciding to support Blu-ray over HD DVD, game developers need support one console so a final "winner" can be crowned. That has never really happened before, as every five years or so we start all over with one, two, or even three new console formats. This is a big part of why gaming isn't more main stream. Casual consumers can't deal with being forced to "pick a side". They will wait until one format wins, then buy it. That's what they did with VHS/Beta, that's what they are doing now with Blu-ray/HD DVD, and that's what they will always do with game consoles unless the industry puts a stop to it.
Let me be clear, I don't want a one console world, but I do want one universal programming format for all consoles to share. Like with PC's, multiple hardware developers could still be in competition, but they would all have to stick to the same format. If this happened, no hardware developer could use "console exclusives" to sell their inferior or over priced hardware ever again! W00T! Oh baby, that's a what I like!
Third party developers would also benefit, as install bases for various consoles would no longer be an issue. Imagine the risks third parties could take knowing that a game they made for the PS3 could also be played on the 360 and the Wii. The install base for the game would be at least 10 times larger, and so would be the potential for sales.
I think the thing that holds the "one console future" back is simple short sightedness and greed. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all want the "one console future". They just can't agree on who's console the "one console" should be. All three have been voting for themselves seven years running now, resulting in a three way tie that does nothing but limit the industry.
Third parties aren't much better, running scared from consoles that already have great games, hoping to their less than deserving titles will sell well on more barren hardware. How many third party developers have said they are reluctant to develop for Nintendo consoles because they can't compete with Nintendo's first party releases? I'd try to count, but I have to got to sleep in eight hours so I don't have the time.
If we had one programming format for all consoles, third parties wouldn't need to worry about that kind of competition. There would be room for everyone. All that third parties would have to worry about is making the best games they could. Sadly, this is precisely what they don't want. As it is now, third parties can sell essentially the same game twice to the same people on by putting said game on two different consoles and adding the slightest differences between the two versions of the game. In a one format future, such shenanigans would not be an option.
That's enough ranting for one day. What do you think, D-Toid? Surely there are pro's and con's to a one console future. If you were king, how would you have it?
Contest:
10:03 PM on 01.13.2008
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Imagine the movie industry with one studio.
But yeah, it would never happen. Nintendo is obviously going in a different direction (innovation/gameplay over graphics), and Sony and Microsoft probably like that they can push the different facets of their individual consoles. Or at least that’s what I think.
Kinda unrelated, but remember the infamous Nintendo Power magazine quotes about the 'Graystation/Graystation Poo, Dreampants and the Whatbox(?)'.
Seriously though, if you think about what you said for even a brief moment you'll realize how silly it was. There are valid arguments against a one console universe, most having to do with chip production companies going out of business and hardware infrastructure innovation becoming stagnant. None of them involve the old "Imagine the movie industry with one studio" trick. All one need do is look at the DVD industry to see why that's invalid.
@ Tazar, yeah, but the text wouldn't fit with caps lock down. I know you can still read it, you cheeky monkey.
Fine, thanks to you Bomber, I'll make the edit.
So because my comment was short I didn't put thought into it? I've been in this discussion before.
One needs only look to Microsoft to see the effect a lack of competition can have on innovative thinking. Not to mention the effect a "one console market" would have on system prices. There is a reason there are monopoly laws.
Competition is the best thing for the consumer. It always has been. It can be seen in every industry, especially electronics.
If you find yourself wishing there was only one console, just imagine that the "one console" was the Nintendo Wii.
Yeah. This one console world isn't all rainbows and sunshine now is it?
Though if such a thing were to happen, it'd help in making these already confused ass parents on what to get and stopping alot of those stupid "What's better? Wii, PS3, or 360?" type questions. I get tired of people asking me or someone else to make an opinion for them or make an opinion simple fact. I can go on about this but the general idea is out there.
As for the subject at hand, the only way it will happen is when the other two consoles aren't making money or give up their hardware model like Sega did. Somehow I don't see that happening anytime soon.
the last thing i want is one console that everyone has to buy. I mean if everyone buys one console and all the games go to it, when does the next console come out? next generation consoles come out in a attempt to steal away users from other consoles. If they have nothing to gain from making a new console they will hold onto that console for as long as they can. 10 years and no new console released, thats not the market i want.
JJ rage is also right about innovation. Microsoft beat apple down in the OS wars and what did we get? We got a operating system that was basically repackaged over and over. Apples comes back and microsoft suddenly has to try and compete again and they dont know how to do it. Vista fails and the new MS Office is suppose to be really bad as well.
In the short run it sounds nice but it in the long run it would fail. would probably kill the console market and boost the PC market.
I'm a moron
Here's some advice for Jaffe, start making games for 360 & Wii.
Can't see it ever happening, but I'd be for it.
But still, your missing the point. Like I said, one console format would rule, like we have with DVD's and PC's. Windows may suck, but thanks to the universal format it gives us, the PC has taken off. Before that it was Apple, Digital, Ibm, Atari, Commodore, the list goes on. It was a mess. No one knew who to back, so no one bought computers. Even worse, PC's were incredibly expensive due to the low demand.
Only when the universal OS came to be did the PC go mainstream. Demand increased, hardware companies really had to compete honestly instead of using "exclusives" to force people to buy their products, so hardware prices went down. Game consoles need the same treatment.
A one programming format console world would lead to better third party product and cheaper, more powerful hardware. That's what it did for PC's and DVD players. The fact that you don't want that to happen is odd.
And the Wii is my favorite current gen console. So I guess we're different in a whole bunch of different ways, huh?
@ Tofucube You'd hate for everyone to have to buy 1 console? How come? The way things are now everyone has to buy 3 consoles. 3 is 3 times more expensive than 1. That's not better, is it?
I wonder at what point Jaffe's brain snapped and he started thinking that we ought to give a shit about anything he has to say, ever.
The guy is like the biggest douche-bag in the industry.
Plus, I can't imagine that my Wii would have cost $250 if it had to have the power to support all the titles that are on the 360 and PS3. No, I rather like how it is right now.
So do the similarities to PC's also include the need to constantly upgrade to keep up with the trend?
"Competition inspires creativity"
I'm not to sure about that. If you think about it realistically, any true artist challenges himself rather than competes. All inventors eventually run out of ideas, it just depends on the mileage.
This poses a very interesting question though, I was just talking to a friend about this last week.
He is what you would call a Pro-Xbox-fanatic, I'm more on the fence because to me it has always been about the games, not what I'm running it on. But we both agreed that having one console may in fact bring the industry back to what it was about to begin with - gaming.
Could drop the over all increase in product costs (out of your pocket), and allow developers to focus more on the games rather than meeting the quos.
Either way, yeah I don't see it happening as I've never seen logic work in a corporation before.
Would it give gamers a uniform platform from which to play games? Sure. But I think we would lose games that are crafted for specific architecture alone.
Also, one media format is not always the consensus. CD may be the most common music format, but vinyl has made a resounding comeback in recent years, and mp3 and ogg formats are also popular with certain segments of the population. Hell, right now dvd and HD/blu-ray are competing for shelf space in the home (even if the latter are supposed to be the future of video). In my opinion, more choice is better.
Consoles should be the same way. All y'all arguing against a one console future need to remember that it's never happened. How do you know it will suck so bad? All I know for sure is how we have it today. You need to buy a $400 PS3, a $400 360, and a $250 Wii in order to play all the best games out there.
You can't tell me that this is an ideal arrangement.
If you got a good product more developers will bet money on it, if you do things right you will sell a ton of those consoles.
If the first thing happens then it probably is because you have hit the right spot with the programing base.
One console or one programing format would only change the excuses. We would hear the developers going on about the weaknesses of the programing codes or the downsides of the "one console".
For us, the consumers, a monopoly on the programing or on the hardware is not good, not good at all.
I like that I was able to purchase the Nintendo Wii for $250. I like that once I make that initial investment, I can play every game that comes out for that system at its best and not have to use "medium" settings because I didn't upgrade to the most recent hardware. If a one console world is really the ideal situation, why not just convince everyone to develop games for the PC?
Sony, Nintendo, M$, all have consoles out. So technically it's a 4 format race, PS3, Wii, 360, and Windows XP, or Vista, or whatever they're doing now.
If there were no consoles, then we'd be able to look to PC's for what a one format gaming landscape would look like. But as of now we still don't know.
While I'm sure everyone would like to live in this perfect world where one console can play all games but that world is impossible and communistic, so Dave is a commi-bastard.
You can't compare it to the TV or DVD player market because those platforms aren't as complicated. If you put in a DVD today, it doesn't look any better than if it came out 10 years ago. The movie doesn't have graphics that need to scale up or down. DVD players don't have an online platform that needs to be played over. You don't have to choose between the "classic" controller or "motion" controller. The analogy just doesn't work.
This argument would have held up a little better before the Wii released but not anymore. The success of both the Wii and the Xbox 360 (and to a lesser extent the PS3) shows that there's a market for both types of consoles. High end, and low end.
Imagine if this ONE console used the same online strategy as Nintendo and that was the only game in town. Not cool. You could say that 3rd party companies could come up with their own online platforms and they could compete but then the user base would be split up again between them and every game would have to take those platforms into consideration. That's assuming this one console lets you use any other platform but it's own.
Imagine if the Wiimote was an optional controller that didn't come with the console. Would it still be a success? Do remember the Xbox motion controller that came seperately?
There's just too many variables in the video game market to compare it to any other platform. It would never work and if it happenned, it would NOT be good for the consumer.
We aren't going to stop buying games, that's a given. So, knowing this, a developmental standard OS would kill the advancement of new technologies in gaming. The single-console theory would result in a complete stagnation as the industry would have no motivation to lay out the R&D costs for new hardware. Why would they? We'd still be buying games for a fifteen year old system because there was nothing else available and we like video games.
Console makers made new consoles because they had to, because competition arose with more advanced hardware. This didn't come about because some philanthropist decided that they wanted the world to have more polygons and higher framerates.
And your argument about the DVD industry is utter crap. DVDs exist because of competition between television makers leading to the demand for greater resolution images, creating a competitive format against Laserdisc (despite the relative obscurity of that format) and the opportunity to make us all buy our VHS tapes again. Oh, and look at that! Now we have two new formats which might seem like they're competing with each other when the real fight is against DVD. Once one of the HD formats wins, it will slowly gain market share against DVD because it is a superior format.
The bad news is that the boundaries can only be pushed so far. There are only so many ways to trick a system or overclock it before it burns out. You'll eventually come up to a situation where the hardware simply won't go any farther.
That being said, this could also open up a new development space for third party hardware manufacturers of peripherals. Let's say we followed the DVD standard and console and game manufacturers formed a group to decide on a universal standard. Let's say that this console was top of the line, best of the best. Who is to say that at some point down the road, Nintendo couldn't create a peripheral like the Wiimote for alternate control schemes?
It's a good argument to be sure. I'm all for a one format future. But there would have to be a few requirements. The system would need to be around the $400 mark and have at least the power of the PS3/360. It would need an online service like Xbox Live. It would need a replaceable/upgradeable hard drive. It would need two forms of control: WiiMote-type and traditional. It would need at least 6 USB ports for future upgrade use. It would need built-in ethernet and WiFi. And the group would be required to set standards for new systems every 5-7 years or so. This way, we get a system that will be pretty well used for close to a decade until the next one comes out.
The day Microsoft helps any other company earn money is the day hell freezes over.;)
Still, I don't think hardware advancement would just stop. That's silly. As I read it, we're talking about consoles here, not PC's.
A single PC system is DEFINITELY not going to happen. That's farther away from all probability than Jaffe's plan. That market would still do R&D, and if the "one console to rule them all" lagged 15 years behind the PC, guess what's going to happen? People would buy a PC.
Also, the way EA and Ubisoft are going about their business now, is it really that unimaginable? The reason that games still have to be ported is that there are three competitors, all three with no desire to cut the others some slack, and all in it for profit and great justice. They also spend an assload of money buying up titles/developers (I'm looking at you, MS) to be (timed) exclusive to their system
Right now, the console makers have the largest interest in the publishing/sales of games.
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If somehow a fourth party would come in between that did not mess around with systems, but instead bought up ALL titles and published them....they would have enough leverage to make big N, MS and Sony do whatever the hell they want them to.
And a unified code base would be one of their first interests
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EA would probably want to do that, so would activision. Problem is, they're not big enough yet.
To quote the immortal words of Captain Will Turner: It's all a matter of leverage.
Or time. Or both. What the heck do I know...