Squilliam said:
I think you have your analogies on backwards. If you want to make a car analogy the cars would be the games people played and the road would be the console to play them. Just because the roads are provided by a government monopoly doesn't mean that they aren't designed to cater to the needs of people. When there is a monopoly in gaming, some of the very best games are produced. We have people waxing lyrical about the quantity and quality of the games produced for the PS1, PS2, SNES etc which were the monopolies of their day. Its because game developers can target the biggest market and therefore potentially get the highest return for riskier product development. As for innovative controls such as the Wiimote. Theres nothing that says that had we had a single console existance that something like the Wiimote wouldn't have been produced. Game publishers like EA could very well ask for something like the Wiimote, third party companies can still make them and find traction -> see Guitar Hero for referrence and all console manufacturers knew that many people would simply refuse to pick up the typical console controller. Nintendo was the first to do something about it. |
Those Guitar Hero controllers are only used by guitar games and will never be used by any other games. Most of those controllers are bundled with game anyway. And for every other game, user base would still be too small even if it were usable with them. Even balance board user base is still considered too small to make games which require balance board (this may change though). So I don't think that is very good example. Third parties generally don't support new controllers unless almost every console owner has it (well, at least over 50%). For new type of innovative controller to find traction in unified platform, it should be bundled with several games and consoles.
As for another reference, check your PC. Current PC keyboard layout was created in 1984 and only 2 buttons have been changed in layout after that ("Windows" and "Menu" buttons which are only nuisance in games). Keyboard layout is not perfect or even good but people are used to it and everyone has it so few dares to change it (heck, even QWERTY was originally created to SLOW writing to avoid key jamming). And those who have tried, have always failed. There has never been a innovative controller on PC which has replaced the old controller. The same has happened with consoles as there have never been a third party controller which has replaced old controller in the middle of the generation.
Btw. Even Guitar Hero can be played without guitar controller.
