| Khuutra said: Lack of standardization for controllers would lead to underutilization of a given controller's featureset in the vast (overwhelming, really) majority of games, so that almost all games would be built to work off of a baseline controller with other formats being a tertiary consideration at best. I don't think there's any real benefit of a standardized medium as compared to what we have now. Let the people decide what kind of hardware they want, and the fittest will survive. |
I don't think a lack of standards in controllers would have that effect though. Controllers would be spread out in different proportions over the entire install base, so developers would have to support a few controllers well to make sure their game is playable by as many people as possible.
Furthermore, I trust that developers would utilize controllers where it makes sense. You're already seeing a game like Sorcery which utilizes Move, and many games on the Wii that do well with motion controls. I don't see how that would change. What I do see change though, is that for example, if a game doesn't play well with the Wiimote, it would be playable with a Dualshock 3 as well and perhaps be better off for it. So less control schemes will seem forced on games this way.
I don't know why you would say that the fittest survives. It's totally true of course, but right now we have three main consoles in play, each offering unique prospects over the others one way or another. But it still means the market is split. This means the issue of what hardware to choose becomes bigger when it shouldn't. It should not be about what hardware you're playing on or supporting, it should be about the games. And if half my friends own one console and the other half owns another, then I (as a gamer) have to make a sacrifice, and choose who of my friends I'd rather play with, not to mention what games I want to play the most.
With this kind of universal console, those issues are eliminated completely. What hardware you're playing on becomes a non-issue. If I meet someone on VGC for example, thinks he's a swell guy and I want to play with him, then I have to be lucky that we both own the same console in order to play together.
