Hypothetically, what if Sony dominates?

[attaboy]

Good discussion, people. Read every post and liked how things turned out. I'm just going to comment on a few thoughts I had tonight (during a date, no less. What's wrong with me?).

When I mean dominate, I mean "DOMINATE". I mean that the Xbox One and Wii U can't compete at all because Sony owns such a large share of the market. In the past, the most popular console has never been the most powerful. The cheapest console has never been the most powerful. This looks to be a new beast entirely. There are virtually no weaknesses to be exploited on the PS3.

I think that if the Xbox One isn't a smashing success, Microsoft is gone from the console gaming business. Poof. No more Xbox. Though I never count Nintendo out, the Wii U is being widely ignored by third parties.

Look back at when the Nes was the dominant console. We had shoddy versions of games like Bad Dudes, Double Dragon, TMNT, etc. The console just wasn't powerful enough and Nintendo was okay with that. It took Sega to up the ante with the Genesis and make significant headway for Nintendo to get up off of their laurels and launch the SNES. Had it not been for Sega pushing Nintendo, would the SNES have been as good? Would we still have to look at Nintendo censorship and shady business practices? Sega was trying everything under the sun to steal Nintendo fans away. Full body motion control with the Activator, Menacer gun, Sega CD and 32-X, Six button controllers, Lock On Technology--you name it, Sega tried it. The competition brought out the best and worst in both companies and it was a golden age (in my opinion).

Look at when the Playstation emerged. Nintendo was more than happy to continue using cartridges that sometimes cost over $80 at retail. They still felt that Sony was no threat. When Sony showed they meant business, Nintendo had to adapt or fall behind. They fell behind.

When the PS1 and PS2 were dominant, things were great. There were tons of great games in every genre but it took Microsoft and the original Xbox to push Sony. Sony was satisfied offering paltry online and darn near defective hardware and no HDD. If Nintendo didn't push the Rumble Pak or the analog controller, it's likely Sony wouldn't have pushed it, either. The competition made Sony a better company and Sony made Nintendo and Microsft better companies.

When the Xbox 360 launched, it offered $50 a year online and M$ did everything they could to make sure that $50 was well spent. Sony came in and pushed Microsoft by pretty much matching everything Microsoft was doing and offering it for FREE. When Sony finally decided to charge $50, the tossed in tons of "free" games. The result was Microsoft offering free games.

Would Playstation Plus be what it is if Microsoft wasn't pushing Xbox Live so hard? Would Nintendo finally be an online presence if M$ and Sony weren't so popular amongst the online community? Would Microsoft have gone with Kinect (fuck you, I love it!) if the Wii weren't such a smash hit? Bottom line, the competition amongst the companies is what has driven innovation amongst the hardware developers. As great as the PS2 was, it was shit online compared to the Xbox. As great as the SNES was, it was shit when it came to "mature" games and sports games when compared to the Genesis. Your favorite companies were forged by great competitors.

We can have competition amongst developers on a single platform like those days of domination but I don't think it will yield the same results. I fucking LOVE my 3DS but I wish it weren't so far ahead of the Vita. I love my Vita and it has a lot of features that I wish the 3DS would have copied. The hardware is just better. Because the 3DS is in such a dominant position, there is absolutely no reason for Nintendo to do anything the Vita is doing.

That's what I fear will happen if the PS4 dominates. It will be a great hardware with lots of great games and lots of shared memories but who knows what we'll be missing?

If you just read the longest post ever, thank you.