Sony projects $1.1 billion loss, is going to fire 5000 people, spin off TV & PC

[Weltall]

That's a bit unfair... the 3DO (and it is 3DO, not 3D0, I used to get that wrong too) hardware is actually pretty decent for a system released in late 1993. They had several problems, though: since 3DO didn't make hardware themselves, but just licensed it out, the companies making hardware wanted to make a profit -- so the system was really expensive at first. No normal console-style subsidies there. And if you don't have subsidies, you have higher prices, as you see on the PC. 3DO also was slow to get a great game library, but that comes with sales as well as experience... but I mentioned them because that idea, one standard that they'd license out, was what they were trying to achieve -- and it failed in part because the gaming market doesn't really want one standard. Different people want different things in a game system.

Well, that's sort of the problem. The consoles don't do anything unique. The differences between them have always been entirely arbitrary, and any of them would be capable of doing anything its competitors can do.

And on that note, how would your idea work? Would Sony, MS, and Nintendo all share in the licensing fee? That'd cut how much each makes, probably! They wouldn't want to do that. And certainly none would have any interest in a PC-style licensing-fee-free model!

Reality is the unfortunate wall my idea can't scale. :c

Also, by having multiple systems, we have competition, and as I said, it's good for consumers when you have choices and companies competing. Without competition you have stagnation. For instance, everything I've heard about the Madden series since EA got a monopoly on football says that they've let that series badly stagnate. The competition between different hardware manufacturers has been overall good for the industry all along. The key to that are the differing visions of what the best hardware should be. Different people, and different companies, have different thoughts of what the next generation should look like, and what the hardware should be. Even the most similar systems have important differences. If we just had one standard, would there ever have been a breakout hit like the Wii was? I doubt it. Because technology always changes, you can't rely on one standard lasting long-term, unlike, say, something like books. There has been constant change, and that will continue for some time to come, and this is natural and for the best.

But, I don't think we really have competition that helps consumers, most of whom are oblivious to the subtle differences between consoles and just want to play games. Except, to be able to play any game they want, they have to own three different consoles. Besides which, from my perspective, the industry has been stagnant for a long time. The rampant sequelitis we see in game software is not the result of runaway innovation. And, for what innovation there is, we don't need a triopoly to sustain it. Nintendo's been the only one who has made any effort to actually change how games are played with the Wii and WiiU, but the Wii seems to be treated as something of a passe fad and hardly anyone cares about its descendant. As for the others, the XB1 and the PS4 are definitely not anybody's idea of paradigm-breakers, are they? They're just the 360 and PS3 with some incremental upgrades and a handful of new functions, same as the 360 and PS3 were to the Xbox and PS2, and the PS2 to the PS1.

You can't have an open standard on consoles because that would make the licensing model impossible to sustain, and the licensing model is one of the most important keys that makes console gaming different from PC gaming. What you're talking about there is the PC, basically.

As a gamer, I don't see a problem with that.