Console business needs radical rethink, says Romero

Vikingod

Source: GamesIndustry
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John Romero expects home consoles to undergo a radical redesign if they are to compete in the future against cheap PCs and the services they can offer.

For Romero, ex-designer at id Software and Ion Storm, the Xbox 360 and PS3 will need to offer all the functions and services of the home PC – not just gaming, but every aspect of home entertainment.

"My prediction is that the game console in the vein of the PS3 and Xbox 360 is going to either undergo a massive rethink or go away altogether," said Romero in an interview with The Adrenaline Vault.

DudeBoyz

As if he was even remotely considered relevant anymore.

At this point in his "career", he is certainly not the "authority" on gaming he seems to think he is.

BlueMak

Come on! You are not fair, he is the founder of the company that made such classics as Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3.

Vikingod

Actually, I agree with him. Future consoles are getting more and more expensive to produce. We saw it with the PS3, and even the Xbox 360, to get the premium edition, is really just about the price of a PC. The convergence does suggest that it may be viable for someone to build a PC instead of getting a console. YOu have unlimited backwards compatibility, and it does more than play games. It appears to me the consoles are actually turning into PCs, with content like movies and music, even chat, becoming regular items. It is something to think about, especially when considering the next generation of systems. How much cheaper can a console get? When you look at the trend, every generation has gotten more and more expensive to produce (not just sell) the hardware.

edit: In a sense, the Wii might acutally be ahead of the current generation. It really mihg tbe what future consoles strive to be, something that offers features above what the PC current'y does.

Da_Jewish_Fonzy

DudeBoyz

All I really remember about Daikatana is that I spent more time trying to kill the in-game mosquitos than any other type of bad guy...

Sandok

While I agree that consoles are getting more and more like PCs, I think it'd be more proper to say they are becoming like HTPCs... They are still media orientated (at least for the time being).

However, the PC vs Console debate ain't really valid in the sense that for the price of a console (Xbox360), you can't get a decent PC to run anything at all... I dunno, I think the two domains are well seperated.

DudeBoyz

With Microsoft releasing a software development environment that can produce output for both the Console and Vista with the same base code, and the expansion of XBox Live to the PC side, it's quite possible the platforms may end up about equal in the eyes of many gamers.

I can't play first person shooters well unless I have a mouse and keyboard, but lots of folks seem to be adjusting to playing them on consoles.

If you can go online and choose opponents regardless of their platform, it may not matter if you have a console or a PC - you can still get a good game going.

Mazuko

With all the negative against him I still think Romero has a good point. As was mentioned in a few of the comments above all a console offers at this point is "exclusives" a more portable means of playing games at friends places (c'mon it's so much easier to move a console than it is to move a PC/Monitor/Speakers or Headphones/keyboard/et all.), and a control scheme that changes more often than the price of a burger at McDonalds.

Really, PC's challenge the graphics of a console and vice versa. What really brings people back to consoles? The fact they are not actually sit down and use a keyboard PC's.

BlueMak

What made me buy my first big console (used to own a DS, and own a PSP) was the games that are not going to be on the PC and not having to have a high end PC (meaning upgrade every 1.5-2 years) to not only play but play with full detail all games.

After several months of owning one (xbox 360) I found a "hidden tax". The price of each console game is way way higher than PC games, and where PC games drop their price after a couple of months, most console games remain at the same price for like ever.
So, since I bought the xbox the ratio of PC to Xbox games are like 8 to 1.

And I just don't get why they have so high price. It's not like they have to spend extra time on development for making sure it works on a variety of hardware, nor do they release like 5 patches to make tha game stable. Piracy is very limited compared to PC games, so why are they still so expensive?

SFOSOK

Well it depends on if the public will notice or not.

I think consoles will have to get to about 800 + for them to actually notice that they could not only save money buying a new PC but play online for free.