What do you think about console wars in video gaming?

I think it’s pretty silly, personally. However competition is usually good for innovation, so it’s probably good for the industry as a whole.

Personally, it’s all the parentless handheld devices I feel sorry for. All their parent consoles going off to war, never knowing if they’ll see them again… it’s a sad, sad situation.

well people are always going to have an opinion, its exactly like with cars, people like certain types. Nothing you can do about it.

There was an attempt at a “one game console” 15 or so years ago with the 3DO. It didn’t work out so well. There’s also the PC platform.

When it all comes down to it, it’s all about competition and innovation.

But I have to admit, it would be interesting if Nintendo went the way of Sega and just made software for both Sony and Microsoft. Not that I’m hoping that happens, but it would be interesting to see.

that would be an interesting gamming experiance. it would be cheaper to play, im sure there would be more rewarding competitions, but i would worry about being limited to only a few styles of game play.

Competition is what drives the industry and has led to the major innovations of the past 40 years of gaming.

The PS2 was a major factor in the success of the DVD format and the PS3 is pretty much the only reason blu-ray was a success. Nintendo surprised everyone with the Wii and introduced millions of outsiders to the world of gaming and changed player interaction forever. Multiple PS3’s can be substituted for a supercomputer. We’ve come a long way since “Pong”.

There were other technical revolutions with every generation of the console wars. Each group saw a weakness the old console one had, and improved upon it.

At any rate it seems impossible to have a “single console world”, at least for now. No one would be content making a game for a console if they knew they could improve upon the system’s design and make way more money. If you want software innovation, it usually follows hardware innovation.

Wait until gaming platforms are so incredibly powerful they can render anything you can imagine, instantly, and with perfect clarity, are functional enough to play any kind game with any interface that exists or might exist in the future, and are affordable, and you might just see the end of the technical arms race.

Competition drives innovation.

If we had a single console, it would be updated and made better everyone once and a while, but there would be no need to be make it much better.

Having one console is like there being only one car brand. It’s a very competative buisness and every brand has it’s own pros and cons. Nintendo is strong in the classics, the handhelds and has a rather innovative concept in the wii. Microsoft has a pretty strong online community. They also have the rather interesting community made games. Sony focuses on the multi functional platform doubling there systems as decent DVD/blueray players.

Ps: we miss you Sega genesis :(

Imagine it’s 1988, and you have one console that plays both super mario bros. and sonic the hedgehog…...what!? that’s just crazy talk.

Free market. If you can find some idiot to buy it, then you can make it. That means whether or not having various console AND various game developers makes sense is a moot point.

-Dan