We've heard them all:

"It's good that X1 is selling well so there is still competition on the market"

"The industry would suck if it was just one machine dominating because there wouldn't be any innovation"

But where actually does it come from? I know of the saying that competition is great for the consumer and this statement is absolutely true. But that doesn't mean that the opposite is automatically bad for the consumer.

Let's look at a few products that completely dominated its generation:

NES, Gameboy, Playstation, Playstation 2, 3DS.

Think about what these platforms accomplished, what games they brought us. Each of those systems had a myriad of games that are even today considered timeless classics. Not only was there quality but also absolute Quantity in games. Even though that shouldn't be the case in a quasi monopolized market.

And it wasn't even those systems alone. Think of what their dominated competitors brought to the table. Mario 64, Halo, Shenmue, Tearaway.

Those were great times. The domination brought just several advantages with it that created a kind of synergy for the advancement of gaming. The advantages for consumers and game creators alike are obvious and brought us great games.

So why argue against such a scenario when it did good in the past? You shouldn't forget that even in a domination there are factors driving innovation. The lust of the dominator for more power and the desparate struggle of the dominated to prove their worth. Add to that the multiple advantages for the consumers and game creators:

- most friends will own the same console and will be able to play together

- developers only need to concentrate on one console meaning less development costs and time

- concentration of all the good games on a single device which creates a bigger pool of consumers for developers to tap into

Looking back, this scenario is not less valid or beneficial than a highly competitive field. It might even be more beneficial to everyone.

So what say you?

A monopoly would be terrible for the industry. There would only ever be incremental steps forward.

It depends whos dominating, if the X1 was destroying the PS4 then we would have all those terrible DRM policies.  

One console dominating the gen

That way you get all the best games in one place. Devs dont have to waste resources porting the same game over and over and over again. Games will look better in general and smaller projects will be more profitable for the debs allowing them to take bigger risks.

On the other hand if they have horrible policies then its a bad thing.
But a product that is not consumer friendly very rarely dominates a market so this is a non issue

Have you read my post?

There is also another positive effect of domination. The gen after that. There might not have been a Wii as we know it if the GC wouldn't have been so completely destroyed. The rise of the X360 happened because they brought their A game after they were completely crushed.

A single platform dominating is perfectly fine, and often even good as long as consumers have a viable plan b should the current market leader go down the toilet. The threat of competition is just as effective at pushing an industry forwards as actual strong opposition.

To put it bluntly, you don't need someone pointing a gun at you to be motivated to work harder. You just need to know the gun exists.

As much as I didn't really care for the N64 or the Saturn the PS1 really didn't completely dominated the industry. You could say that they completely controlled 3rd party publishers but that is only due to the fact that a lot of 3rd party games for the Saturn didn't get released outside of Japan.

Sure the orginal X-box was a non factor in Germany but in the US it acutally did pretty good all you have to do to confirm this is look at the sales numbers of Halo 2 its the best selling game on the console even though it came out less then a year before the console went out of production.

Doubling the nearest competitor is already ridiculous dominatation.

The PS1 TRIPPLED the nearest competitor. It doesn't help the N64 was such a massive piece of shit with no games, either.

~Mod Edit~

This post has been moderated.

-Smeags

Acutally more people prefer the PS1 over the PS2.  Me included even though I liked the PS2 I also liked the Gamecube, Dreamcast and original X-Box.  During the PS1 era I barely played the N64 and never played or even knew someone that had a Saturn.