Will there ever be a one console future?

[Mako]

By this, I mean only one home console. Maybe all the manufactures could work together to make one device they are all happy with. Maybe one of these manufacturers buys out the other two and no one else enters the market... It could happen many different ways, but do you think it ever will happen?

I personally doubt it, but you never know.

[Luinil]

two words, antitrust lawsuit.

that is all.

[El Duderino]

Well in the early days with Atari and NES there pretty much was only one console that clearly dominated the market... and it never really worked out... Atari crashed hard and Nintendo treated devs badly during the NES and SNES era leading to a migration to sony...

now with three large contenders that are getting a decent piece of the cake no one can really afford to treat devs badly without risking that they will take their business elswhere (looks at Nintedo trying to regain 3rd party support with the WiiU)... and thats really good... so I doubt there will only be one console maker in the near future... especially seeing how much money is in there... if there was there would probably be a large shift back to PC...

another scenario is that EA or Activision might bring out their own console and publish all their games exclusively on that platform (or make them cheaper with more extras and better online on their platform)... possibly even something like that OnLive service... seeing that publishers don't want you to really own the games anymore going the next step and not even having you own the hardware seems like the next logical step... would also get gamestop and pirates in trouble...

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