Let me start out by announcing that I am a Nintendo fanboy. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I go into this. Let's begin...
I think that a one console world would be the best thing to happen for a number of reasons:
1. The cost of developing, marketing, and selling consoles is getting ridiculous. Sony and Microsoft practically never had a profitable year during the 360/ps3 generation. Microsoft is probably losing a ton of money on xbone right now. Sony is doing good for now (but so was the Wii U in it's first few months, so I'm not sure the ps4's success will last). Nintendo is obviously losing a lot of money with their Wii U. If these companies merged to have 1 console, they could split the development and marketing costs a third each (which would save their companies a TON of money) and they could split revenue generated from selling their consoles evenly too. That way, no one single company owns the console, but also no one single company is financially impacted, to the point of devestation, by the cost, marketing, and sell-through of the console.
2. Each company could offer their own controller that can be used on any game that is willing to implement it into it's programs. I think this idea would be awesome to start next generation, but if we look at the current generation just for an example of what it COULD look like I think my point will be proven: Imagine being able to play games like Knack, Watchdogs (for EVERYBODY, not just Wii U owners), and Batman games (Arkham City with the gamepad on Wii U is my only 100/100 reviewed game ever so far... such perfection) with the gamepad. Imagine being able to play Supersmash brothers, 2-d side scroller epics (like Rayman legends, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, and FREAKING SHOVEL KNIGHT!!!), and all the street fighters games with a controller as comforatable as the xboxone controller or one as pleasantly complicated (if your into that sort of thing) as the playstation 4 controller? Consumers could buy whichever's companies controller they wanted to in order to play ANY companies games on the ONE console = Consumers Win!
3. Having one online shop that includes all the games from xbox arcade (or whatever it's called), playstation store, and Nintendo eshop would be amazeballs!
4. This isn't a monopoly of gaming power, it's a consolidation of a specific type of gaming power. The Triple AAA people need to unite under one flagship console in order to survive the onslaught of Apple and their legion of birds with anger style games. This way consumers have a clear choice of what console to buy (instead of being like many consumers are now, and waiting until they know for sure what console the games they want are coming out on). Everybody will know what console (the one) their favorite games will be coming out on, so they won't need to wait.
5. Say goodbye to software droughts. If you think the combined forces of Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, all their second party developers, and the army of third party developers can't pump out a triple AAA game every 1-2 weeks, then you are crazy. We will never have to deal with a year like the 3ds's first year, what the Wii U went through in 2012-2013, and what the Xboxone is about to be dealing with again.
6. This would also crush any upstart ambitions by the likes of Amazon, Apple, or any other company that is considering making a real gaming console. They wouldn't even bother trying to compete with a console that has that many exclusives.
I could keep going on and on but I've got to go to work soon and I feel like my point has been proven enough. I don't have time to check for spelling errors, enjoy this raw post!
