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