James Brightman spent some cozy one-on-one time with Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack, world-famous for shooting the messenger when the entire video game industry couldn't help but tell him Too Human looked like crap at E3 in light of the hype they'd raised. Dyack continues to reassure us that the game is still the best thing they've ever made and is coming along "beyond everyone's expectations internally at Silicon Knights and with our partner Microsoft, so it's going extremely well" behind closed doors. Like the lochness monster and Michael Jackson's rumored functioning penis, we'll believe it when we see it. Personally, I'm sick of hearing both too much and too little about that damn project.
Anyway, back to my nifty graphic up yonder. Gaffers pointed me to a portion of his interview where he also believes consoles are to become a commodity -- one console to rule them all, sort of speak. The basic arguement is that future generations will have access to photorealstic graphic processors that cost peanuts (I remember when 2mb Diamond Stealth 2D video cards were $300 ten years ago, and now you can buy them for ten bucks) so consoles become consolidated. It's an interesting read, even if you could drive a bus through the logic behind it.
Why am I'm skeptical as usual? I believe the hardcore consumer in any industry is always looking to drop big money on the latest and greatest, and companies will respond to that. Yes, you can buy a TV for $100 today or you can drop $6000 on the latest HD set. Dyack cites free cell phones as an example, oblivious that yuppies and businessmen will continue to drop $300+ for the latest Blackberry year after year and the premium plans that come with them. There's no market for the Model-T, 286 computers, or monochrome cell phones that only play Snake today.
In short: People are insatiable and that's why games are no longer made for the NES. We didn't all just sit back and say it was enough. Until you can simulate the complexity of the galaxy within a console, Will Wright is not going to be happy -- and that's not going to happen within our lifetime. So honey, please, get back in the kitchen and make me a nice video game.
Story follows on: GameDaily Biz
Contest:
8:17 AM on 04.06.2007
| 
I think the only way there will ever be one console is if both Sony and M$ back out of the industry. Nintendo is in the video game market because it wants to be, not because it has to be. I know a lot of people think that video games are the biggest income of Nintendo but the fact is that they make more money on Pokemon cards that their entire Gameboy collection. They can make cards for fractions of pennies and sell them for $8 for 15 of them. and they sell millions of packs, but i digress.
I think M$ is also in a similar boat as Nintendo. They are in the video game market because they want to be. They pretty much own the home PC market. They make ridiculous shit tons of money. Making games is just their next step to taking over the world, and they are doing a good job at it.
Sony on the other hand, video games have become an extremely large part of the companies income, and they depend on it. Sony hasn't taken a loan in over 15 years, and they took a huge one in order to start manufacturing on the PS3. They are investing a lot of money in their video game branch. It is the one area where they are still the majority of the industry. They have fallen behind in PCs, laptops, TVs, portable media, pretty much everything. Sony used to be at the top in those areas and have not kept up to their competition and now they are really hoping the PS3 sells as well as the PS2 did.
So in short, my post has somehow turned into how Sony is the most likely to fall out of the video game market. But the important part is that we won't ever see a single home console.
Of course I'm talking about their games divisions. What else would I be talking about.
Do you really believe that Ted? That Sony will just up and leave gaming when you previously stated how important the income from gaming has become to Sony? Could you clarify?