Should Sony and Microsoft‘s next Video Game System be a combined effort?

I think that’s a great idea! In both companies, gaming is not the core strength of the business.

The thing is, though, given the competitive nature of consumer electronics, the only way this’ll ever happen is if one company buys out the other’s gaming division.

lol thanks for posting here too xD! Yea I agree I would love to see it happen but it seems like its just a daydream. I never new Bill Gates hated the Asian market : /… The only way the merge would work though is if both the Asian and American market compromise on some things. I guess both companies are so bullheaded though they would never see eye to eye XD.

The gaming industry….. Look how far it has come…. Nintendo vs Sega; Nintendo vs Sony; Then Nintendo vs Sony vs Microsoft. From a consumer stand point, this would be great….. No more debating which is better. No more wondering if a certain game will only come out with only one system. Everybody would be happy!!!! For now….. My theory would be it will be terrible for business. Think about it this way…. Why would someone have 2 people to do the same exact job that only one person can do? Next, this would drive innovation. For example, Apple was not as popular as it is today…. Apple was on the brink of going out of business….. However, turn of events happen…. The Ipod…. Ever since, they have been everywhere. Now everytime competition gets close they come up with something more advance. And that’s main cause there was opposition. Plus, it would be rather boring to just get the same system everybody else have. I like the fact that there is two choices….. Cause if I love video games but I hate the manufacturer, I have a choice. It’s boring if you have no choice. I prefer the PS3 cause it fits me. 360 in my opinion has a better game selection and online capabilities are waaaaaayyyy better than Sony. I’m a loyal fan of Sony but I’m not going to lie about it. However, I didn’t buy it cause of that. I brought it for it’s lifespan and capabilities. Every 360 owner know that the 360 only have a limited amount of time left on earth…. To people that don’t know…. 360 game disk can only hold about 15 gigs on each side. While they are experimenting a 1 terabyte blu ray disk on just ONE side….. That is fucking ridiculous….. But like I said, it helps to know that you have a choice. Have one option can be very boring and pointless….. Let’s create not take away… ^_^!

I think the comments about innovation are pretty interesting. If I remember correctly Sony was having no problem innovating when Microsoft wasn’t around. Don’t forget we have Nintendo. Even though they are not trying to jump leaps and bounds to match Microsoft or Sony technology wise they are still holding down a significant part of the video game market. The few control exclusives you listed have been doing nothing to secure a significant amount of the market for PS3…Wii fit beat out Killzone in sales xD! Since companies like Square are deciding to make games for both the Ps3 and Xbox why not just make it for one is what I am saying. Perhaps you should go through the list of Ps3/xbox games coming out and count the number of exclusives we will be having. You will see the number is significantly less and possibly pointless. You Master O and Shadows have some interesting points about people having choice and stuff. This is only like that though because Microsoft decided to get into the game, When sony and nintendo were around I didn’t see people complaining. I am just wondering if maybe 3 systems is way too much… more than the economy slash market needs right now. Not everyone has the luxury of having both system so regardless someone will miss out on something. Also your point on vanilla chocolate is interesting. As you can see there is a vanilla chocolate flavor xD! So perhaps Sony and Microsoft still could make a system together and still be individual just like vanilla and chocolate are it didn’t kill it xD.

Anyways, Thank you both for your comments

>Don’t forget we have Nintendo. Even though they are not trying to jump leaps and bounds to match Microsoft or Sony technology wise they are still holding down a significant part of the video game market.

Except they have been implementing innovation in the industry too, namely with motion controls. Nintendo wouldn’t have bothered to engineer a control scheme such as the Wiimote if they were not competing with anybody. We would just be looking at another rehash of the Gamecube.

>The few control exclusives you listed have been doing nothing to secure a significant amount of the market for PS3…Wii fit beat out Killzone in sales xD!

On the contrary, those exclusives are the primary reason the PS3 has been able to stay afloat. I guarantee you were it not for titles like Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, Sony would not have sold nearly half as many systems. If those games were multiplatform, there would be little reason to purchase a PS3 aside from brand loyalty and a cheap blu-ray player. It would be like if Nintendo decided not to make Galaxy and Metroid for the Wii.

>Perhaps you should go through the list of Ps3/xbox games coming out and count the number of exclusives we will be having. You will see the number is significantly less and possibly pointless.

And perhaps you should go through the list of games coming out for both systems and count how many TOTAL games we will be having. Right now the release schedules for every console are pretty bare. Not that many titles have been announced for this holiday season, and I expect the number of games both exclusive and multi-plat that are announced to rise once E3 comes along. Also you fail to recognize the immense influence Nintendo holds with their exclusive IPs, as I mentioned earlier. Exclusives are long from extinct, and although they may not interest you or I, they still exist.

Just recently I was able to purchase the Lost and Damned GTA IV episode from the Live Marketplace. The entire reason Microsoft commissioned that DLC to be made was to procure exlcusive content for their system in order to steal software and hardware sales away from Sony and their PS3. If Microsoft did not have anyone competing with them, then it would be highly unlikely that they would have bothered paying Rockstar $50 mil for this content, and we would probably never see anything like it. The existence of exclusive content like this is solely due to the competition between companies within the industry. Far from pointless.

>This is only like that though because Microsoft decided to get into the game, When sony and nintendo were around I didn’t see people complaining.

People have always been complaining about the differences between consoles since the Atari and Nintendo. It’s only slightly exacerbated now due to the online space.

A VERY good example of what you are talking about is when Sony and Nintendo were going to co-produce the SNES-CD back in the late 80′s. If their contract and the console actually came to fruition, we would never have had the PS1 or PS2 as we know them today, arguably two of the greatest consoles to have ever existed, nor advances we’ve experienced with Disc-based media. The existence of Sony’s Playstation brand is solely due to the competition between them and Nintendo.

>I am just wondering if maybe 3 systems is way too much… more than the economy slash market needs right now. Not everyone has the luxury of having both system so regardless someone will miss out on something.

Just about every generation has had about 3 consoles availaibe for consumers to choose. Just because some people don’t have the luxury of being able to pick up both consoles does not mean that luxury should be taken away from the people who can. Citing the economic climate as a reason to cut down on competition is a poor reason.

>Also your point on vanilla chocolate is interesting. As you can see there is a vanilla chocolate flavor xD! So perhaps Sony and Microsoft still could make a system together and still be individual just like vanilla and chocolate are it didn’t kill it xD.

The point was that there would be only one single flavor to chose from as opposed to several flavors. What you are saying is the equivalent of complaining that there should only be one flavor to chose from due to not having the luxury to have all the flavors at once.

>Once again my point…we have nintendo..we don’t necessarily need to have microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to have competition in order for innovation. 2 companies would be enough.

And once again my point, the more competition (real competition, not just flooding the market with half assed knock offs), the more motivation and drive companies will have to develop quality content in order to succeed above and beyond their peers. The entire point of the SNES-CD example was that if we continued to have just 2 companies, Sega and Nintendo, we would have never seen the advances made possible by Sony with their Playstation consoles. At least, not the same ones that would have been brought on if we were stuck with just the SegaCD and the PhilipsCDi (another great example of a combined effort to make a home console turned into a complete flop).

>so who wants to purchase 2 systems for 800 dollars and the have to spend 120 dollars on the same game in a rough economy just so they can play with all their friends.

Nobody. The point is that if you cannot afford to pay the excess amount of money for both systems that you choose which one to pick up based on their advantages/disadvantages. That’s how inferior consoles and technology are driven out of the marketplace in order to make room for good ones.

However, I understand the desire to be able to play with all your friends on one single unified system. It’s also a problem for me personally when I want to play L4D and Team Fortress 2 with my 360 friends, but I can’t because I opted to buy the PC version. Same goes for SFIV between the 360 and PS3.

The problem with this is that even if you reduce the number of systems you need to purchase in order to get “the complete package”, in the end you won’t save any money. The whole reason console manufactures cut down the prices for their products is because they have to stay relevant to the competitor’s price point. Imagine if there was no Xbox 360 this generation. The PS3 would most likely have stayed at it’s $600, if not even more considering they don’t have to compete with a cheaper console besides the Wii, which Nintendo would probably have increased the price on. By having Microsoft and Sony monopolize a huge chunk of the market would only mean disaster to people like you and me who don’t want to feel robbed every time they pull out their wallet at the store to pick up a new system. And again, the worst part is that the console would end up not even being half as powerful seeing as there would be no reason to create and develop advance technology when you don’t have much of a choice either way.

>I am just proposing for the future what if we didn’t have to do this….I think saying that its a poor reason is a bit dismissive. I am not saying this to cut down competition. More to make better use of the resources have the best of both worlds even if possible.

Again, it is like trying to argue that Apple and Microsoft should combine forces to make the best computer and operating system instead of wasting resources competing with each other. By removing a third company’s console so there would only be two is cutting down competition by definition.

>why couldn’t Sony and Microsoft try making if not a game system, Something together. What if they came together on Home….. Ps3 Avatars and Microsoft’s online capabilities I think would equal awesome. Also Vanilla and chocolate ice cream where still able to remain as individual flavors. So they would be able to remain as individual companies. That is what I was saying. : )

Hmmm…..You think that both companies should come together to develop a single product, while also making their own individual platforms separate from each other? As soon as they combine their efforts, the are no longer competing with each other, thus they will no longer make their own consoles separate from their shared system.

Sony’s Home and Microsoft’s Live service? Those wouldn’t even exist if it were not from the competition they were faced with. As long as they do not face opposition (Nintendo notwithstanding), they have no fiscal reason to develop those awesome capabilities for us. Nintendo’s online space is barebones, so Sony and Microsoft are really just competing with each other in this regard.

To re-tool my Ice-Cream analogy, as of right now everyone has three flavors to choose from: Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry. You think we should get rid of Chocolate, so that people only have to chose between Straw and Vanilla (or instead combine two flavors together like combing Sony’s and Microsoft’s efforts), seeing as they’re all ice-cream anyway. But what about the people who still like Chocolate? You could argue that you could still get Chocolate with Vanilla, but it wouldn’t taste as good, due to stagnation from a lack of any real perceivable competition.

If you are aruging that there is very little reason to own both consoles aside from the paltry offering of exclusives then I whole-heartily agree with you. Neither the PS3′s or 360′s library offer anything drasticlly different from one another, and I think this is the truly valid point in your article.

I am just dismissive of the idea of those companies joining forces to create a single console. I don’t see how any of us can benefit from it realistically speaking.

There was a thread on GT about this yesterday.
I couldn’t agree more with Master.
Without competition, there is a surge of widely accepted mediocracy.

Sure, in an ideal world, Sony and MS working together could produce some truly satisfying forms of entertainment.

This isn’t an ideal world.

I’m sure you’ve all played NFL Madden?
EA Sports gets by selling games year after year with slight graphical upgrades and new player rosters, because they have a monopoly on licensed NFL games. Back when there was COMPETITION, there were great football games with new catchy features left and right. Now that EA Sports and only EA Sports can make NFL-based football games, we are fed utterly generic products, and they make their money.

If Sony and Microsoft would work TOGETHER, we would see a spike in quality, and we’d have a year of terrifyingly awesome products, but as quickly as they come, they will go, replaced by mediocre games and consoles that come up just because “They can”. The sad thing is, with nothing else to turn to, if we want to keep gaming, we have to keep buying the “MicroSony” products, no matter how lacking in quality they are.