Yes, latency would be a big problem for most (action) games. Bandwidth might be easier to solve.

Nintendo would never join with Sony or Microsoft

1 They are making to much money off the DS/ Wii right now
2 They problably hate both of them

Someone I know mentioned this idea EA's proposing a few months ago and I thought it was idiotic then.

Unlike general purpose electronics there is a personal touch, an art to videogame making. The machine is tied to the game. You can't make a generic all-purpose machine for every game. Game consoles work by making a distinct interface that has to be in constant evolution. Controllers keep changing, guys.

Sony doesn't change anything as they come from a more general purpose electronics background. They would be up for the task because they're not really a game company but an electronics one. Microsoft is not an innovator either and their background as a network specialist would make it good for them if they ever worked out the royalties/powerpolitic issues between them and Sony.

Nintendo is the last TRUE gaming company and being self-controlled allows them to create the way they have created all these years. Why they can be such chance takers and reinvent the mold so often. No committee and no sharing of power with others. This is why they're so powerful. The controller, the control. That's what Nintendo's all about and this is why consoles still exist today. This is why the videogame business still exists today.

Before the Famicom you had Nintendo games on Ataris, Colecovisions and the like all with varying degrees of quality (poor quality). When Nintendo made their Famicom (NES) Donkey Kong actually looked like Donkey Kong in the arcades not those poor shadows some of us saw in the early 80s. It was a good thing the deal with Atari fell through in 1984 when they wanted to have them help break in their system to the U.S. or they might have never made it over here due to mediocrity of their business partner.

Like someone said earlier, too many cooks in the kitchen and many mediocre minds without imagination. The soul would be lost in videogaming if that ever took place. Home movies are a standardized medium. From reel to reel to VCR to DVD, all it is is one solid medium that plays a picture. There's not much to it and the remote controls and controls on the playing device don't matter as much. Everything is standardized and the extra little touches never leave out the play, stop, review, fast forward, pause, record functions. There's not much room to grow because the standard worked everything out. All you do is play and watch.

Games are not like movies and have to be designed more personally and with deliberate thought. You have to make an interface that can stand for many different types of games and make them all feel natural and easy to use. And because you don't simply watch but interact your interface must be designed with this in mind.

A universal box will not work for gaming for so many reasons. It's a bad idea and would doom this industry. The wrong kind of people will get involved and it would be the Atari & friends fiasco of the 80s all over again.

If you doubt it, think upon why N-Gage failed trying to be both a cell phone and complex gaming device at the same time. Cell phones interfaces simply don't work for complex games. You can't play Mario Kart on an N-Gage and feel comfortable. You can play Othello and Poker on your Motorola but not much else. Interface is of supreme importance to consoles which is why the controller has changed so much over the years. From Odyssey to Wii, new ideas on how to make the on-screen action feel natural in the hands of the player continue to arise.

However this move tells me that the next competitor in the gaming arena will be a big 3rd party getting together with others to make a gaming device such as this. Long term with all those different visions of what should be done with the machine, it will never take off.

John Lucas 

This worries me. On Uk TV channel 4 Teletext they said something about EA merging with the Xbox brand!!!

No serious couple days ago. At the time I thought nah bollocks... but now this is posted and I'm not so sure?

 QFT.  Nice job of posting.

 I actually wonder if another brand may pop up if Sony leaves the console race, and this may be how they do it.