David Jaffe Thinks Having One Console is a Good Idea

Quite a lot of people called Denis Dyack crazy when he described a unified platform as “inevitable,” but David Jaffe has joined Dyack in the sentiment that a single console would be a good thing. And don’t tell him that the lack of competition would be bad for gamers.

The argument that keeps coming up is, ‘oh, it would stifle competition and competition is good for gamers!’

But I don’t understand this in regards to console hardware.

One game publisher would be bad. One giant game developer would be bad. I get how those things would hurt gamers. But why would one unified hardware platform?

We have it with DVD, we had it with VHS. We have it with televisions (in the sense that- for the most part- every tv is capable of broadcasting the same signal). So what do we lose by having it for game consoles?

Sure you miss out on some features that may otherwise be available if another console was there to compete. But this is always the way when one format wins over another and becomes the standard. And for those few features you lose, don’t you make up for it in so many other ways? Massive content choice, being the main one. And what about better quality products because the makers of the software/television shows/dvds don’t have to spend one instant struggling to make the same content for 2-3 different systems and instead can focus on making grate content right out of the gate? And you get MORE competition on the software side- which is, to me, where it counts- because there is MORE competition to be the best on a single system instead of content creators splintering and never ever worrying about competing with 2 out of the 3 groups.

He expressed these sentiments on his blog. While he admitted that he didn’t have the key to making all of the pieces fall into place, he did ask that if anyone that knows why “a single console is wrong,” that they share with him. Several commenters were quick to label Jaffe a communist, but, silliness aside, it got plenty of reasonable responses including this one on Game|Life. It pretty much perfectly illustrates the flaws in the plan, so I won’t bother trying to water it down.

What do YOU think of a one console (platform might actually be the more appropriate word) future?