The Industry being stubborn

[Reasonable]

The market is fragmented in terms of what different gamers want/expect and the ability of the current consoles to support them. The upshot for game developers is that it complicates their life horribly and increases the risk of a title failling. The result (sometimes) is confusion and anger, which gets directed back to the consumer (sometimes). Not pretty, but there you go.

Clearly this doesn't apply across the board to every developer, but it's there. The Wii is selling great but it has failed to emulate the PS2 in one crucial way - it is not the consistent, massively dominant home to the majority of console gamers and demographics.  It's success is also based on a distruptive approach - motion controls - which has thrown many developers for a spin as well.  I really like my Wii, but I never, from day one, figured it would or could be be my single console or gaming device.

The 360 (and Xbox before it) has brought in the demographic around high end graphics and online - in a sense I'd argue MS themselves brought disruption to the console market and attracted a new demographic.  The Wii simply doesn't support that well.  The 360 also raised the development cost for big titles and intriduced more of a risk/reward environment for developers and raised the stakes for failure.

The PS3 is very similar to the 360 as well as also introducing it's own piece of disruption, or perhaps evolution would be the better word, a new storage format.

The result is exactly the fragmented market we see today.

A developer has to ask themselves: Do I support Wii and motion controls but then exclude PS3/360?  Do I produce a high end expensive title for PS3/360 and exclude the Wii?  Do I make a game that fills a BR disk and exclude 360/Wii or use multiple disks on 360?  Do I make a cheaper game and put it on Wii, PSN/Live?  Am I going to target motion controls or not?  Do I want to deliver amazing online or a single player or offline coop experience?

Too many conflicting choices and no single platform to aim the majority of them at.

I suspect many developers will actually be glad when Natal/Arc hit as they will very likely even the playing field a bit, allowing a developer to produce a lower cost, fun title using motion controls and stick it on every console - a first for this generation.