MS leaving the console race would be good for gamers.

[jake_the_fake1]

Microsoft leaving the console race will not be good for gamers, at the very least Microsoft with the xbox brand has given Sony's Playstation competition and it creates for healthier situation for gamers, plublisher, and developers. I may be a Playstation fan, but I see the value of Xbox in the market, and how it drove Sony to be more competitive improving my console of choice, and in return Microsoft improving their console, this end up being great for gamers as we get the best we can.

Nintendo leaving the console business on the other hand would be a GOD send, it needs to happen and needs to happen soon, they aren't competitive, and their software is currently stuck behind hardware no one wants. People love Nintendo because of their software, their software defines them, so having their software on other hardware (like xbox, playstation) would be a huge gain to ALL gamers who would no longer be forced to purchase shitty hardware with limited functions, hell this would be good for Nintendo as well. Nintendo gaining access to a huge install base across the xbox and playstation brands along with not having the hardware overhead would yield incredible financial results.

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We live in a technological age where it's all about the software and software eco systems, it is no longer purely about hardware, especially so because hardware has become very homogenized. So the differentiator is software and the software eco system. Software gets people into the system and the eco system keeps them in, then if you build your hardware around that eco system people will buy it.

If we look at Apple and Google we see that one has a closed product line designed, made, and sold under Apple, while the other has multiple manufacturers designing, making, and selling their products with Android. The one KEY thing they both share, and it's something which has been critical to their success, is their software eco system. One of the most recent companies to do this is Valve, they built their software eco system with steam and are now moving towards hardware (whether steam machines will be successful or not is another question).

If we look at xbox live and Playstation network, we can clearly see that they both have an eco system which people care about enough to buy both software and hardware. Sony of the two has broadened it's eco system through the Plus incentive accross the last gen, current gen, and handhelds as well as dabbling in the mobile with PlayStation mobile. Xbox on the other hand is trying to broaden it's eco system not by making it available on different hardware, but rather by bringing in more software from other places like the TV markets (again whether it's successful or not is not the question)

Nintendo on the other hand has great software but a poor eco system and hardware, so poor that not even 3rd party publishers or developers want to touch it. One of Nintendo's greatest assets and one with the greatest potential was the VC, Nintendo could have had the service be hardware agnostic, meaning that if you had 1 VC game it could be played on the Wii, WiiU, and 3DS since the emulators would be simple enough to run across all the different hardware. This would of tied people to the eco system, and yet none of these 3 consoles had a unified account system to achieve this goal. Even now that the 3DS and WiiU have a unified account the VC remains fragmented, currently there seems to be no indication that this will change. It also doesn't help that digital software is locked to hardware rather than an account system with user controlled DRM like so many other companies.

So again Nintendo leaving the console market would free their software from the shackles of their archaic hardware, and allow their software to blossom rather than being held back. A benefit to gamers is a benefit to Nintendo. Imagine if Super Mario 3d world was available on PS3 & Xbox360, I could foresee it doing GTA5 numbers.

anyways, that's my 2 cents, take it or leave it, that's up to you.