| Munkeh111 said: It's a nice idea, but I don't think it is going to work What differences could there be in the boxes? Would it just be that the Sony console has blu-ray and the M$ doesn't? And then they can have completely different controllers? So would you have motion games and then controller games... Surely the different control methods would lead to quite a lot of fragmentation and extra costs for the consumers. I think the main problem is getting the 3 hardware manufacturers to agree on a common piece of hardware. I know M$ and Sony might be able to come to some kind of agreement, but I don't think Nintendo would play along. I do like the idea of the common online community, but the issue is the cost of Live if all the online services worked on the boxes together, then why would people pay for live for online gaming The other problem comes in handhelds, where you will never get Apple playing along with Android, and the issues with android being fragmentation and of course the physical controls Also most importantly, you said less hardware manufactures when of course you meant fewer |
The only difference out of the box is what the companies choose to provide. If Microsoft wants their box to have five games, two controllers and six months of Live included, then that's one offer. But yes, the main differentiator between the consoles (hardware wise anyway) would be the controllers. And no one is to say that a game can't support both Nintendo's motion controls and Microsoft's dual analogue controller at the same time. It's a little extra work for developers, but it's work that is oh so very worth it I think. 
And people would pay for Live, because it is the better service. This merger-of-consoles would make the competition in the online arena much more fierce, so Sony and Nintendo would have to step their game up or lose customers to Microsoft. Not everyone will go over to a service where you pay, but some certainly would.
And I guess I wasn't clear, but I meant for this to be on home consoles only, handhelds are a different beast right now. 
