Recently, Sony announced that the next PS4 update will include compatibility to stream to PC and Mac computers. Not one to be left behind, Microsoft followed suit with an update that would allow the Xbox One to stream to PCs (and not Macs, of course). This news got me thinking, what about a console that is compatible across all gaming systems? Though an all-in-one gaming console would be impossible in today’s economy, it seems to me like Sony and Microsoft are taking steps towards one. The future just might have a single, all-compatible gaming console in store for us.
Such an all-in-one console would be compatible with all gaming hardware, from the Playstation all the way to Nintendo. This would mean that either Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo continue to make games for their own systems and just happen to work on the all-in-one console as well, or the all-in-one console runs its own games and happens to be compatible with other consoles. It would also require only one standard architecture that would work across all consoles. We’re getting close with Microsoft and Sony, but this is especially difficult when trying to include Nintendo, which both uses a different architecture from all the other current-gen platforms and tends to try out new gimmicks like motion control and touch screens.
In addition, such an all-in-one console simply cannot exist right now because we have a market economy, and each company would be unwilling to give up their secrets and control. The market economy depends on competition to function as fairly as our dear Adam Smith dreamt it should. Creating a monopoly, as an all-in-one console would, raises prices exponentially. The manufacturing company would control everything about the product, from functionality to game certification. As such, unless something drastic happens, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will never allow a third party to fully emulate their systems. They, especially Nintendo, make too much money from hardware sales and exclusives to allow an all-encompassing console to exist.
That being said, an all-in-one console might exist in the future if one of the current leaders collapsed due to unforeseen circumstances, economic or otherwise. It would only be logical for the surviving companies to take over. Though the all-in-one console would be more expensive as a result of increased production costs, the profit would far outweigh them. In addition, if all three companies pooled their resources, they could create exceptional games. Just think, a Zelda RPG from Sony and Nintendo. Furthermore, game developers would no longer have to estimate which company would sell more of their game or worry about producing ports for different kinds of systems.
An all-in-one console is even more lucrative because of the aforementioned monopoly. This is great for whichever company holds the monopoly, as they can control everything. Most especially, they’d control the price by controlling the flow of supply. A monopoly can be good, because the console can be made affordable and more accessible to game developers. If left regulated by unwise business practices, however, a monopoly can cause quite a few problems. The most significant of these problems is censorship. Take the current YouTube scandal for example. YouTube has a near-monopoly on online videos and is striving to control their content just to take money from their clients. The very same can happen with a monopoly on an all-in-one console, with game developers forced to adhere to the console maker’s vision for appropriate content instead of their own.
Although an all-in-one console could be convenient and cost effective, it is an unrealistic dream. The current console makers have too much riding on keeping control of their own hardware. Even without that hurdle, a monopoly will always be abused, as our history tells us. A lot in our society and economy would have to change before such a console would be reasonably priced and certification fairly conducted.