Tekken boss interested in one-console future

Generally having multiple consoles on the market tends to force devs to stay competitive. The issue is also pricing. If you have no competitors then you control pricing. With no competing product on the market then prices will skyrocket because hardware makers can do so without any repercussion.

A competitive market keeps things fair and balanced. While it would be nice for console hardware makers to adopt a unified programming language for easy porting across multiple hardware, but the reality of this situation is far more dire then hopeful.

Having variety means more choice. We do not need developers to become complacent and resting on their laurels when one machine rules them all. Of course there may be some merits to having a single console, but thinking about big picture the negatives far out weight the positives.

You guys are looking in the wrong place for your uber console. PC emulation is catching up to consoles and next gen PC's will be a lot more powerful than next gen consoles.While game companies like Sony and Nintendo are reluctant to combine forces independent coders have already made every console except this last generation playable on one machine. I've got an Snes, NDS, PSX, Neo-Geo and Saturn on my PC and it runs Skyrim with tons of mods on high. 

yea, never gonna happen, i once remember when nintendo and sony team up to make a system (early beta gamecube, i think), sony wanted all the rights from nintendo, if they make the system and nintendo said f*** u and went to panasonic. so i doubt nintendo, sony and microsoft ever going to come as a deal.

It would be awesome if I could play wii,xbox, Ps games on my pc or phone

To be honest I believe that he has some genuine ideas, though of course he is pretty idealistic. Yes, competition does force the industry to innovate. Ironically though this has created a large gap between the companies that seems to have widely distributed the flow of revenue between the three companies and with the consistent loss of revenue across many industries including the gaming industry, has caused them to try to cover this loss by including more fees for numerous software such as DLC, or any other things to cut costs/ restore revenue. From the looks of it the use of competition has not been very favorable to many of the companies. I believe that a contributing factor to this is due to the large variety in gaming systems that were not thriving in older gaming periods. There are casual gamers and  hardcore gamers, more gaming companies, more consoles available, and multitude of different factors and many companies are trying to appeal to all, some of them like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are trying to converge/integrate all of the different groups into a singe console and are starting to lose balance of their gaming community by trying to do to much (a problem in convergence).  I believe another point of Harada is that due to the difference in coding and interface in the consoles they have to develop different multiple types of the same game which costs money. . As competing companies they do not want to take risks that may benefit their competition as that may potentially lower profits thus are less willing to take risks in general and through such common occurrences as "exclusive content and games". I know that collaboration in the utmost may not be beneficial to them or to us. Though all my points are of course debatable, my point is that some cooperation may benefit all as they would be able to dedicate more time to a single demographic or genre.

Here we go again, 1 thing.

When these jaded and burnt out game designers wake up can they keep their odd dreams to themselves, we've been getting this kind of tripe a lot lately.

An impossible dream

There's no way there'll be 1 platform. Possibilities I see are:

1) We keep this. 3 big dudes.

2) We have 2, cause one "lost". One on one, and the one that fell out is doing something else. Software or just straight dead.

3) We have one, but that's cause the other two "lost". No partnership, just domination. Least likely to happen, but still more likely than all three coming together equally somehow.

Companies need competition in order to push themselves to do better like when Tekken was a Playstation exclusive they use to sell a lot better than when they went multi-platform I don't know why Harada-san doesn't see this. 

Competition forces all sides to push the envelope to be innovative as to get an edge on the competition, without competition there would be no encentive to do so. While it might be easier for a game publisher to not have to create versions for multiple systems it would be disastrous got the console market. Especially in a time where the cell phone game market is booming having the choices of consoles being limited would destroy that market.

I believe if this happens, then there'll be no competition...and we all know it's because of this competition that we see products getting better each day...

it's not a good idea !!!

I do not see this happening any time soon. I could see us cutting down to just two. I do not think we need three. I could see ms and sony working together.

Oh, it'd e interesting... it'd also be a win for gamers everywhere.  It's also NEVER going to happen.

But we not, Thank you

A marvelous dream indeed. However joining together could just as likely bring a downfall. After all Competition brings ideas, Ideas bring innovation, and innovation births something never seen or done before.

Competition is what keeps the game industry both growing and evolving.

Oh god no, one console to overprice them all... Though I think it's more of a pipe-dream statement than anything else. If you look at the forerunners of any industry and how good things would be if they combined forces, but it'll never happen (Touch wood).

not sure about the big 3 joining forces but it would be cool to play against anyone online regardless the console/platform. i think that is a more realistic probability.

Hope they fix the online feature, Tekken 6 was lag city! Tekken 5 DR wasn't that bad.

Such an alliance would likely be a bad idea: competition forces companies to offer better merchandise at lower prices to stay in the market.  Having one "super-company" would result in a monopoly that forces us to pay the prices they desire. 

Although, were this to happen, it likely would drive an alternative company to offer a new system, something that might restore the competition.

It's likely for the best that the system stays similar to how it is already.

I think maybe in the late.. late future this might happen.. idk about 3 of them but maybe 2 companies might merge and come up with a ultimate console.. maybe tho but its sounds like a great idea but I do agree in the end it wont turn out great for us consumers... sooo I say.. Long Live The Big 3!!!

While it may seem like a "nice" idea, it would be very bad for the consumer.  Console and game prices would skyrocket unless another company offered some competition.  Once you get more than one console maker, then you have the same thing all over again.  It would be better if they agreed to specific programming/graphics parameters, so that the games developers didn't need to program 3 sets of code for each console. 

Instead of console wars there will be continent wars lol The asian market gets this first or exclusively,the us later and europeans gets as less as usuall :)

A console alliance, instead of the fanboy console war, would be glorious... Sony's electronics, Nintendo's creativity and Microsofts software/business skills would make one hell of a console... With no exclusives (or all exclusives, glass half empty/full)

Not to mention fanboyism would die down a bit, although I'm sure some people would argue about which part of the console made it sell so well, lol.

Alas, it'll never happen, people and companys don't know how to work together, only how to screw each other around.

That ubiquitous console already exists....it's called the PC.  The PS4 and 360 are just dumbed-down PCs anyway.

I really think this is a good idea. Having one console would make it easier to develope games for I would think (no more games working well on one console and not so on another) and the competition would lie in developing games for the one console so I could see how one console could be a good thing. Also it would be awesome for the gaming community since everyone uses one device and playing multiplayer games would be much easier now. You could connect everyone who owns a console sort of the way you do it with computers.

I don't see this happening but it is a really neat idea.

Sony and Microsoft should team up.  Microsoft operating systems and software prowess is exactly what Sony is lacking.  It wouldn't only affect the videogame side of things it would really allow Sony to help Microsoft build better products to compete with Apple and Google in the cellphone Marketspace.  It would also allow Sony to have a leg up on Samsung in the television and home entertainment space.  Something similar to this was going to happen a few months back when I heard Rumors that Apple was planning to buy Sony.  I was jumping for joy at the possibilities...From a games standpoint it would be easy to create just one system and have the separate companies solely focus on Games and software and not worry about hardware marketing and what have you.  The competitive edge would still be there with Sony games studios trying to create better games than Microsoft game studios ect.  Also, would allow other developers to save cost by not having to create the same game on 3 different systems. 

This will never happen Sony and Nintendo will never join forces. Otherwise we would have had the Super Nintendo CD-ROM add on The Nintendo Play-Station back in 1993. So Nintendo and Sony will never get along. The only way for this to happen if Microsoft directly conquers Sony and Nintendo. By buying Sony and Nintendo and adding their distinctiveness to Mircosofts own.

But the days of Microsoft buying up their competition are over. Microsoft has become second fiddle to Apple. Which they almost were successful in extiguishing apple.

given how much money Sony is losing, teh PS4 is already in danger.  If the Wii-U doesn't do so well (and if really at the rumored $300 it will do poorly) then it will tank and there will be only one.

No what he is suggesting is bad there would be no competition for this console and that would be very bad.

and yes the days are gone for one console games like fable..  forza.. killzone...  and uncharted..

Golden words by Katsuhiro Harada..

the main thing is.. we have more choices now.. we don't have to just buy whatever sony and microsoft sells now-a-days. nobody can have the monopoly.. the main problem i see with consoles is the 'very costly games' unlike pc. the cost of consoles is quiet ok now-a-days, but games r too costly and i m sure sony & microsoft do make some money from game developers for the games they make for consoles.. so they priced consoles less . this way both game developers and console makers earn huge money from us( thats what i think..) has somebody ever known actually why few developers don't make some game for pc but only consoles?? but this can not happen any more.. are you reading Katsuhiro Harada? you will have to make tekken for pc too if not now but soon you have to.. our android phones are also good but we need controller options for them. the crytek has also said the same words..

although i know the three giants can never work together for a single unified console.. and we dont want them to.. but we want them to come down to earth.. and provide us with good hardware for our money which is future proof for at least 5 years.. cant ask for more then that.. and don't need to.

This will not happen. There is far too much at stake and greed will take over. The egos will never be able to be in the same room without arguing. They will never be able to get on the same page. Someone will have to take a pay cut that probably needs it(due to the fact that they are way overpaid, not because they aren't doing their job) but won't accept it. Those will be the major things that hold them back. Although they would never tell us the truth.

a one console future has advantages and disadvantages, with only one console they could end up limiting what devs can do because the one console didn't have those capabilities. I'd prefer something more modular, a kind of console pc hybrid that can be upgraded but still has that plug n play nature of a console.

Another week, another software developer on his soapbox. What is it with this current spout of developers coming out with "genius" statements like this? Actually, we can hardly blame them: they need a reason to justify their pay checks and swollen egos.

I would like a one console future too. It would relieve developers a bunch and allow for more money to be put into the game rather than paying for the port. Although I don't know how they would ever achieve this and the price of the hardware would probably have to increase because I don't see them selling the hardware at a loss if there is no competition for machines.

It i probably up to Valve, bring on the Steam box!!

It would be awesome, no question about it. However it's not in the cards for a variety of reasons. First of all, there would have to be a boss, and conflict over that alone could unravel the deal. It's also likely that this will never become necessary. Think about it. The only reason mergers happen is because of the promise of higher fiscal gain for both sides, but if all of companies merged, what difference would it make? They would all still make the same amount of money that they currently do. I also don't think that there would be a lot of innovation. Just because they are all building hardware together doesn't change the level of achievement allowed by the available technology. Still, it would accelerate innovation some, and only having to own one console would be pretty sweet. Not to mention having all the best features of each of the consoles.

I think it is very possible. Next generation hardware is very expensive.  A three way split should cut down costs. 

Microsoft handles online, development kits, and infrastructure, Sony handles hardware and provide studios, and Nintendo is there just to slap the crap out of Sony to make sure they don't put any unnecessary overdeveloped, under performing components that gives developers nightmares over *cough emotion engine *cough cell processor and they don't have to sell the console at a loss. A person can dream.

lol Only in his dreams...

Not going to happen period. If there was only one consol you would never get house holds having more than one console - what I mean by that statement is I know friends who have a wii, 360 and PS - with one console companies will be reducing their profit overall. Lack of competition would also lead to lack of a need to be creative and obtain a competitive edge, while the first or second generation of this "uber" console may be great the generations after that would steadily see a decline in innovation and possibly performance. It's a short sighted suggestion.