That would be a mighty console. You'd get way more value than trying to spend $399 on a PS3, $299 on an Xbox 360 and $249 on a Wii for example. Thats more than a thousand dollars just to play every kind of game by the time you add accessories.

For a big gamer, that would be incredible value even if they charged $599 for it.

I know lol :D! It's one hell of a console!

The competition is between the Publishers and their games. Because there's only one Console, Big Publishers would really wanna make their games the best possible in order to compete. Of course you can still expect a crap load of shovelware however in both Core and Motion Gaming. But the fact that Publishers wouldn't have to worry about Ports, etc is pretty good IMO. Just focus on making great games.

Shit I'd buy this console Day 1 if all were true.

How come?

Look at all the great deals we have gotten from having three viable console makers. Would they have sold the ps3 at a loss if MS and Nintendo weren't there. How much more would live cost with out competition etc. With only one console maker it would remove that kind of competiton, and would probably slow advances as again there would be less competition.

One Console, no Competiton, sharing? Sounds like Socialism, somebody call Fox News! All joking aside, the future your invisioning sounds like the PC market or at least what it should be. I'd be in favor of a standard API for game consoles, if the hardware manufacturers could design and agree on one.

Both Sony and Microsoft sold their consoles at a loss, which is pretty silly if you ask me. I would imagine that a console built this way would be fairly priced at launch and sold at a profit from the beginning. If they hadn't sold their consoles at a loss, the consoles would have been way too expensive, and they would have been punished by the market.

And here, there would be even more competition in the online space, so Microsoft could be forced to lower the price of Live. 

Again, the internal hardware in the console is the only place we would see reduced competition (but companies could still tweak it, like add a better wireless solution or a blu-ray drive), but every other area would have increased competition. It's a small sacrifice compared to what can be gained as far as I can tell.

It would still stifle hardware advancements, which is where game advancements come from. Taking out that competion would be silly. Why would it be priced fairyl? If its the only console on the marklet they can price as they see fit, no need to worry about people buying another console. Its not a small sacrifice, its a massive one. How would there be competition for online networks if any network could play games against the other. All you would see is online advancements also stop as everyone would go with the cheapest service. Why remove compition from companies?

Uhm, how is this true? What games this generation are impossible to recreate on last generation hardware? I can think of a few HD games like Red Faction, but most of these games would be on the Wii, Move or Kinect, most of which don't have much to do with the advances in console hardware.

First of all, if there is a commission to handle how this all goes down, a loft would be set for the price of the console to make sure it starts at a decent price. Like $199 at the most for the basic console (and I mean really basic. No USB, storage, optical drive, network hardware, bluetooth and things like that), and then the companies can start adding stuff from there, like blu-ray, DVD, wireless, controllers, harddrives, etc. which would create competition as the hardware companies race to offer the best package. 

Secondly, each company is entitled to build from the parts they want. If they can get a better deal than others on certain hardware, or otherwise reduce their costs faster than the competition, they can gain an upper hand in pricing, like what we know from the current situation (albeit more limited).

Because one service offers things the others don't? Microsoft can still charge for Live, but they'll have to step up their game to keep on doing that. If they can offer things like cross game voice chat, partying up and other services to their consumers, there will still be people who want to pay. All this "merger" of hardware will do is create way more competition in this area. Nintendo's current online setup would be used by three people: RolStoppable, non-descript Nintendo fanboy #42 and Iwata (when he checks to see if anybody is still left online).

It's not being removed, it's being moved (and only partially at that).

What you described is basically a future of PC dominance without consoles, and with PC's being easy to connect to TV's :P

And PCs being locked hardware sets with plug and play gaming. So consoles. :D