SamuelRSmith on 16 January 2010
With the current players in the market? Never, Sony and Microsoft have proved in other markets that they prefer having propriety software, and stuff, which your suggested model wouldn't allow. Nintendo are probably the same.
Having a single format would probably allow the market to grow quicker, which would be good for software manufacturers - but it would mean that more firms would start producing hardware, reducing the hardware firms current markets.
In short, it would require action from a firm that's not currently in the market, the standard format would probably come out from a coalition from the major software manufacturers - and that will still need to compete with the current hardware firms to take over and change the model.
