Standardized intercommunicating backends...

[DMiller]

My thoughts are that it is a great idea that will never happen. That would require the console makers to cooperate with each other, and MS is especially going to be against it since their online experience is probably the biggest selling point of the system and one of their biggest money-makers. You could say standardization would help a lot of different markets, but in competitive markets I don't think it is always possible without the government forcing it upon companies. In this case I don't see any compelling reason for the US government to get involved.