When it comes to gaming politics, it's always a struggle between consumer and developer. The NES was a win for the consumer, despite Nintendo's heavy regulation on developers to ensure it didn't suffer a fate similar to the Atari 2600. Consumers created the demand thanks to Nintendo's quality 1st party titles pushing the way, and developers were forced to play by Nintendo's rules or suffer no chance (at it's height, Nintendo had 86% or so of the market, which I don;t believe has been beaten ever since). This is consumer-influenced base.
Then Sony came forward, with an appeal to developers to loosen regulations on them. The result was the polar opposite. People were drawn to the Playstation due to the vast amount of developers working on the system. This is developer-influenced base.
Usually, a lot of one side will encourage the other side, the real only exception being the Wii, which developers were probably unwilling to work with Nintendo's regulations in order to satisfy the broader market. It's now a time where developers dictate to the consumers what the developers want.
Come today....we have developers complaining about second hand sales eating into their market (like it's suddenly something new and never happened before this gen). Could the industry make another consumer-influenced approach and just throw all development support behind the Xbox720, if the rumours are true that the 720 will not allow used games to be played? They know that they hold the cards, and if ll 3rd parties suddenly rallied behind the Xbox720, it would cause 2 things:
1. Consumers would be forced to buy a Xbox720 due to the overwhelming vast library of games, much like what the original Playstation did over the N64.
2. Nintendo and Sony would have to follow suit to lure developers over, by instituting the same restrictions.
We are in a cycle of more and more developer incentives, ever since the Playstation appeared on the market. The Xbox720 may just be the next major selling console due to what developers want, and not exactly the consumer.
What are your thoughts on this?
