What If all the major gaming platforms go in different development directions? Would this be good or bad for the industry?

onQ123

Member
For example a PS6 game could not be mistaken for a Xbox game so you're getting a different experience depending on the platform you're playing on but devs would no longer have a easy button for quick ports.
 
Streaming PC ports of console games isn't a different experience with different games. It is just a worse way to access the same content with less friction.
 
Aladdin SNES vs Aladdin Genesis, Batman SNES vs Batman Genesis. Like the old days? Go back to draconian licensing agreements. Let's do it.

Unique hardware, bring it on.
 
I think loosing exclusives is bad for this industry creativity.... having brand defining games was always a big push since forever ... putting all in the same grinder will give, no, it is giving already mostly low quality results across the board.

In the end only Nintendo is really trying to keep its identity intact. Too bad they are stuck on shitty mobile hardware.
 
Devs that already are struggling with running games in 10+TF machines that are all the same reading this thread:
worried-man-smoking-a-cigarette.jpg
 
The excessive cost of development is rapidly bankrupting and shutting the doors on much of the industry, I'm not sure substantially increasing those cost would be particularly recommended🤣
 
Lol at you thinking that money is actually for coders 😭
Money is for time. The changes the OP is suggesting would impact everything in the development process, from code to design to QA to animation and even to marketing where you'd want to be highlighting the unique experience of each console version. All of which is additional time and resources.

Edit. It also obviously includes much more management time from team leaders, creative directors, technical directors.
 
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Money is for time. The changes the OP is suggesting would impact everything in the development process, from code to design to QA to animation and even to marketing where you'd want to be highlighting the unique experience of each console version. All of which is additional time and resources.

Edit. It also obviously includes much more management time from team leaders, creative directors, technical directors.


I don't remember anyone complaining about how much it cost to make NDS , 3DS , Wii or Switch versions of games .
 
Streaming PC ports of console games isn't a different experience with different games. It is just a worse way to access the same content with less friction.


No, Amazon Luna is relaunching soon and will have exclusive games designed for family fun. Amazon is setting up couple of teams that will be creating unique experiences with the help of AI and Cloud.

Like the Game Night game where Snoop Dogg AI converses with you.

Luna will still have streaming of big games like Hogwarts Legacy and Indiana Jones, but they are now going to focus on stuff not found on consoles. Not exclusive to any hardware but exclusive to the service.
 
Realistically speaking, this simply wouldn't happen. If one platform tried to be too different from the others, it would get excluded from the dev process. Some may try to use that platform to make something unique to it (which i guess you'd prefer), but chances of success for such a project would be much lower.

Also worth asking what would those differences be exactly. Graphically, there isn't much that can be unique anymore so it'd have to be the format, like the platform being VR-only or an esoteric controller or something
 
Realistically speaking, this simply wouldn't happen. If one platform tried to be too different from the others, it would get excluded from the dev process. Some may try to use that platform to make something unique to it (which i guess you'd prefer), but chances of success for such a project would be much lower.

Also worth asking what would those differences be exactly. Graphically, there isn't much that can be unique anymore so it'd have to be the format, like the platform being VR-only or an esoteric controller or something

Wrong!

Wii , NDS , Switch, hell PS1 & PS2 was mostly unique experiences & they were all successful.
 
Wrong!

Wii , NDS , Switch, hell PS1 & PS2 was mostly unique experiences & they were all successful.
Different times old man. Switch survives exclusively due to massive nintendo IPs, all these other old consoles were products of their time, when the different consoles had to be unique.
 
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I don't remember anyone complaining about how much it cost to make NDS , 3DS , Wii or Switch versions of games .
? Devs have often cited their frustration with porting to the switch, and Nintendo systems in general, due to cost and optimization issues resulting from the systems unique hardware and power limitations. As a result of this major third party releases have always been lacking on Nintendo systems. The benefit of Nintendo tho is they do have a user base who spend a lot, buy a lot of software and where software prices are much more ever green with far fewer and far less steep post release discounts.

You're also citing much older systems where game development was WAY WAY WAY cheaper. These days you're doing well and operating cost efficiently if you're spending under 100 mil on development. You're talking as tho budgets aren't well past breaking point and as tho there hasn't been a completely relentless stream of studio closure, tens of thousands of job losses, and a massively contracting investment environment for the funding of games.
 
It could lead to some interesting results.
But it would also make game development a lot more expensive, as studios would have to develop very different versions of each game.
 
Competition is always good, doubt anyone would disagree, however Sony, MS, Nintendo all have become extremely greedy and the competition nowadays is who can charge more and get away with it for mediocre products instead of the opposite.
 
This would just ensure that if a game flops, it would flop so hard it wouldn't even break even.

This is something that is only worth doing if Cloud Gaming. So not limited to limited set of hardware.
 
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Every month. Xbox is losing status as a major gaming platform. They want to be a cloud based ecosystem and a third party publisher. It is how they will be different. They are simply done losing money on hardware.
 
The last time this really happened was Wii. You had completely different versions of the same game like Sonic Unleashed. Back then the technical differences made it mandatory and they were still accustomed to having to make a distinct version like the old days. But even then, games on different architectures, PS3 and 360, came out with only performance differences (ie, as if different specced PCs, nothing more nothing less). Which of course, cost a lot less money than just making a different game, and still does. The current scenario isn't much different. The reason for completely different versions has been taken away and the main differentiator is exclusive games, all of which could run on everything else with the same content, just performance tweaks.
 
You would have to split your dev team up into sub-teams for each version. I don't think any dev would want to do that in this day and age, where they barely can get a working game out after 10+ years of development.
 
The piss poor quality of the current batch of game developers has shown me they only have the ability to develop for the fewest and most similar systems.
It's going to hopefully make a lot of them quit and be replaced with actual able bodies.
 
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