N'Gai: Developers should use low-spec machines as lead, up-port to HD

[theRepublic]

SlorgNet said:
Moving the goalposts is fine, but the videogame market isn't a football match, where one side wins and the other loses. It's more like an ecosystem, where different species have to cooperate to survive.

It's not good for gaming if one single console is dominant. Nor is it good for gaming if one single style of gaming is dominant. Hegemony breeds monocultural hubris which breeds an inevitable crash, which sets back everyone.

Rather than seeing it as a problem, I'd suggest that platform parity is something long overdue and profoundly positive: HD-gaming is self-sustaining, low-res gaming is self-sustaining, and mobile/handheld gaming is self-sustaining. Developers who fail to understand this, or think the Wii is low-cost junkware and that they don't need to work extremely hard to succeed in that space, will suffer the wrath of the media-savvy consumer. Devs who create games which leverage each platform's unique strengths in creative ways will do fine.

I'm not sure I agree with you on that point.  The business model for the 360 and PS3 does not seem very healthy to me right now.  When just one flop can destroy a company, that doesn't seem right to me.  I think something is going to have to change at some point.