Billy Pidgeon, IDC

On whether the industry will develop a standardized gaming platform: The idea of a single platform for the video game console industry has been kicked around nearly every video game cycle. Publishers would gain leverage over console manufacturers or forego licensing payments altogether with a collaborative organization to develop standard hardware and software specs and requirements. I don't believe such a consortium could bring about a single console system. Business models and publisher strategies are too divergent to enable agreement on a hardware platform.

EA's Gerhard Florin recently proposed that the industry could embrace a single console in 15 years. By that time, most software could be distributed over the network and network-based processing could enable less dependence on client-side processing. This could solve hardware compatibility issues and could bring immersive interactive entertainment to simpler clients like televisions, media servers and cable or satellite receivers. While the hardware differentiation will go away, proprietary networks will not.

The processing and programming would be unique to the network, so we'd likely see providers like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo offer competing technology over the network as the client device evaporates into the home entertainment system and the convergent mobile device. We'll likely also see proprietary game networks from EA, Disney, Activision and others, connecting gamers across publishers' game libraries and proprietary networks. Business and technology models would be similar to cable television or mobile service provider models with another layer added by differentiated proprietary network processing underneath publishers' games and service providers' user networks. I hope that we also get those jetpacks we've all been waiting for.

On the PC already being the de facto standardized gaming platform: Games on PC are often disappointing for new consumers who bought devices with the expectation that the device will support any software offered by a publisher or service provider. For instance, consumers buying a PC expect to be able to play games on that PC.

If the computer has integrated graphics or out-of-date graphics hardware and cannot play a game, the owner will be unlikely to buy another game for the computer, and consumer dissatisfaction could be a problem for the PC brand as well as the game publisher. The wildly divergent hardware and software base of mobile phones has significantly worse compatibility issues than the PC. But both mobile and PC have the most to gain from realizing the promise of a unified platform and much to lose as long as the reality is write once, then port and debug everywhere.

On how independent developers would not benefit in a market with a single gaming platform: Developing for multiple platforms is painful and expensive, but dedicated platforms are hungry for content and offer a superior business market environment for third party publishers. In fact, fans of a particular franchise can be persuaded to purchase a franchise across several platforms and pay for additional downloaded content, so platform proliferation can actually be more profitable for third party publishers. Also, when publishers cover a wide range of platforms, retailers will buy larger quantities. To sum up, it's in the industry's best interests to make the unified platform promise of PC and mobile games a reality and to leverage platform differentiation on dedicated gaming devices and proprietary networks.

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