Level 4
Competition breeds excellence and innovation.
Gaming as a medium is rare in the sense that it not only lives on the cutting edge of technology but is also an artform, the vision of developers brought to life to entertain, inform or educate how they see fit. While the one-upping each other can be tedious and the fanboy attitudes a total nuisance, there is a clear advantage to compitition in the games industry.
Imagine if the console companies had merged 10 years ago. Would we have Nintendo's motion control technology? Would we have Sony's Blu-Ray hardware? Would consoles have the network capabilites without Microsoft joining the console race? Regardless of if we consider these pros or cons they have provided more options for gaming, helped it evolve and brought games to us we otherwise wouldn't have simply because there would have been no compition to have better technology, a better console capable of more than a rivals.
Another reason for competition is that one companies vision of entertainment and art will be different from anothers. I'm going to risk getting a fanboy label myself now but I absolutely love Sony for how they develop games. I would say that Microsofts vision of entertainment is to make better social networking, and to focus on games for teens and young adults. Nintendo believe mostly in entertaining the family as a whole. Sony's vision of gaming is to entertain everyone.
Many harp on about this but the exclusives show that Sony support developers no matter what game their making - from Heavy Rain's story based plot, LittleBigPlanets family fun and God of Wars violent greek tragedy. Sony encourages diverse gaming like no other company and created a console with the technology to help developers makes games that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Some of these games I like, some I hate but as someone who plays many different games I respect Sony for trying to entertain me through gaming in as many different ways they can think of.That's why I want Sony to stay seperate, not because I'm a fanboy but because I love gaming, I like different kinds of games, I like technology that makes new games possible, I love everything that gives interactive storytelling a new way to be told. That's Sony's vision and if they merged with another company it could be lost for little gain.
Competiton breeds creativity, consilidation leads to lethergy and in gaming, well..... that would suck!
Level 1
I find it funny that the first post says "only sensible posts on this thread please" and then talks about 2 competing corporations joining together to make a console.
One of them has a long history of dodgy business practices and strongarm tactics with monopolistic intent and though it has been cought out several times for these actions by some of the biggest courts in the world has then decided to ignore the courts ruling and continue on as it was anyway paying the fine because that is in its own best interest, not doing what is right legally and for the consumer. The other is not spotless either, but at least they seem to be trying to push the medium forward.
Only wasy for there to be a one console system is if there is an open spec or by going down an open source route/platform agnostic route.
Website ©2013 Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
All content, game titles, trade names and/or trade dress, trademarks, artwork and associated imagery are trademarks and/or copyright material of their respective owners. All rights reserved. [more info]
