Microsoft announced something yesterday. I'm not convinced that it's a game console though. They'll actually have to prove that at E3 in a couple of weeks. Of course, the internet is already ablaze with articles claiming that Microsoft have lost their minds, and have produced something completely worthless. Well...I'm not ready to make that claim, but it's great to drop that as a knee-jerk reaction. After all, the presentation didn't tell me anything more than "you can watch TV and surf the net AT THE SAME TIME", and frankly, I can already do that. I have a Nook Tablet, a Dell XPS laptop, a netbook, a Sony smartphone powered by Android, and I can even browse the net on my WiiU gamepad. Seriously, we've got this covered.
But I don't want to do yet another commentary on how Microsoft has temporarily estranged their users with the announcement of their new console. I want to talk about a pattern present in the history of video games.
It starts in the early 90's, at the end of the 16-bit era.
Throw away consoles like the CD-I and the Jaguar are falling into ashes around Nintendo and Sega, who are still fighting a console war that still overshadows the competition between contemporary consoles. The next generation is on the rise, and everyone knows that both Nintendo and Sega have new hardware coming out. The Playstation is coming as well.
Sega botches the launch of their third home console, the Sega Saturn. A ridiculously high entry price and an emphasis on 2D gaming holds the system back until the system ultimately met its end. There's more to that story, but let's keep it on a surface level. The two graphics chips made development challenging for many studios.
Nintendo launched the Nintendo 64 in 1996, to high praise for its launch titles, followed by a shortage of new titles, and even hardware. The hardware was cartridge based, which meant that many developers weren't interested in trying to shove the next generation of games into such a small space. Less than three hundred games were released for the system in America (I don't have total titles made quickly available).
Ultimately, the Playstation won out over the Saturn and the N64. Everything seemed to fall smoothly into place for Sony, and they followed up with the PS2 in 2000. The PS2 found great success as well.
The Playstation 3 followed the rough start that the X-Box 360 had, boasting that the next generation didn't start until Sony said it did, and other similar absurdities. The extremely expensive hardware and, and architecture that proved hard to develop for were not boons to the fate of the system. The PS3 didn't hit its stride for several years, and sales still lag behind the behemoth that the X-Box 360 proved to be.
Three systems, all following major successes for their respective companies, all met similar fates. Either middling success, or flat out failure. I wouldn't go so far as to call and of these systems bad. In fact, they all have their niche in the market. The N64 was a breeding ground for fantastic 3D platforming titles. The Saturn was unmatched for arcade gaming. The PS3...well, it certainly had some great exclusives, and tried to keep the JRPG relevant to gamers. Let's face it, the PS3 is a console from a time where exclusives are rare, and diversity in gaming is even more so.
All three of these systems weren't quite the follow up that they were hyped to be. Whether the difficulty and cost of development, or any other factor, they weren't the hits that they could have been.
And now we have the X-Box One. We have a console that has three OSs running at the same time within a system that has 8GB of RAM. Okay, that's quite a bit of system resources getting chewed on right at the gate. I could see that being challenging to program, but I don't know for certain because I am not a programmer. The X-Box 360 was a hit. Yes, I'm leaving out parallels, and not divulging a lot of detail here.
The fact is, we don't know enough yet, but it's interesting to think about what's going on. It's Microsoft's third round, which is where Nintendo, Sega, and Sony all had less than stellar runs. It's not a mark of failure, by any measure, but it's a point where the wrong decisions were made, whatever they were. Microsoft might be looking at a long struggle to get back to where they would like to be. They might not even have a problem. It's an issue of speculation more than anything. From this perspective, they might have a terrible era, where they've banked on the concept of a media center, rather than a game console. That, or they'll have a breakout success. It's way too early to say.
It's certainly an interesting thought...
Anyway, this is a just a point with which to indulge in thoughts of Microsofts fate.
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