The Futility of the Console Wars

I kind of touched on this a few days ago, but I wanted to touch on it in more depth. It comes as no surprise that Nintendo, XBox and PlayStation are in a 3 way war with each other. But what is really the point?

Gamers tend to polarize in favor of their favorite platform. Their preferred is the only "real" console, and too be a "real" gamer you have to have one.

But what are these companies really accomplishing? Increasing fractional points of their marketshare? What does that even mean anymore? How many households really don't have more than one? True, a few truly can't afford it. Some just don't care. But after all these years, people that want them pretty much have them. Going off the prices of the brand new consoles (let alone what their prices have fallen to over the last couple of years) the total cost of all 3 would have been $1400.  A large chunk of change to be sure, if paid all at once. But, when you break it down over the long term, the XBox 360 was the first of the new gen to come out, and it came out in November 2005 (not a bad strategy. Come out a year earlier than the PS3 or Wii and get a head start). That was 62 months ago, though. If you set aside just $23/month, you'd have all three right now. And that's going off of new prices, let alone the massive drops we've seen in the last couple years.

So, if you really wanted all three, you could easily have reached that mark by now.

 So really it comes down to what you prefer in your console. More and more, the consoles are trying to overlap each other. The Wii started off catering to the family market, trying to appeal to a broad base, and offering a family friendly system that parents and grandparents would feel comfortable getting their kids. With their innovative motion control system that got the kids up off the couch, and being the first console to develop software that went beyond simple gaming, the Wii has a strong base. Mario and Zelda will never go out of style, and their party games are changing how families spend time together.

XBox has long been the console appealing to the 18-34 male demographic. Halo and other FPS titles are what the XBox was built on, and their offering of Achievements and online multiplayer struck true with the "hardcore".

PlayStation found a niche in the middle. A large number of strong exclusive releases keeps it popular among hte hardcore. Games like LittleBigPlanet and ModNation provide options for families. Almost most importantly, PlayStation's creator, Sony, is able to add alot of functionality that the others couldn't. It comes with a Blu-Ray player (which of course was developed by Sony), and through firmware updates is able to keep on the cutting edge without the need for a lot of excess hardware. PS3 already supports 3D technology, and all signs point to it not going out of date for a long, long time.

But now, it seems that they are all trying to trample on each other. The Wii is trying to pick up more ports of the "hardcore" games. XBox and PS3 both are embracing the action-controllers with their Kinect and Move respectively. XBox is making a serious push to put out exclusive family-friendly games like Kinectimals. And the PS3.... well, the PS3 has Kevin Butler. And that just plain makes them epic.

But I wonder what would happen if instead of trying to simply grab more customers, these consoles (in particular the Wii), especially when it comes to their graphics device) moved more towards simply improving their experience. Focusing on what they do best, and perfecting it, and giving their fanboys a taste of what each console individually has the potential to become.

Right now, the only real victims are the players. Berated by their friends for buying the "wrong" console. Feeling obliged to defend their choice of console to other gamers they come across, and the idea that whichever console you happen to own, you must clearly fly their fanboy flag.