Electronic Arts Exec Wants a 'One Console Future'

October 19, 2007 | By: James Brightman

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One console to rule them all. That's what Electronic Arts' head of international publishing Gerhard Florin would like to see in the future. He said the current model of walled garden platforms makes things much more difficult for EA and all involved.

Perhaps Silicon Knights President Denis Dyack is on to something. In April of this year, he told GameDaily BIZ in an in-depth interview that he believes the video game industry is inevitably headed towards a standard � one platform for all. Now Gerhard Florin, head of international publishing for Electronic Arts, has made similar comments to the BBC.

Ultimately, Florin believes that having a number of consoles with proprietary game formats makes business much more difficult for publishers, developers and gamers. "We want an open, standard platform which is much easier than having five which are not compatible," he said. "We're platform agnostic and we definitely don't want to have one platform which is a walled garden."

As the world's leading third-party publisher, EA produces games for more than 14 different gaming platforms, including consoles, portables, portable devices and PCs. The logistics and effort needed to tailor IP to every distinct system is no doubt making business for publishers like EA far more complicated. That said, it could be worse; in the mobile industry publishers often have to look at hundreds of different handsets and different platforms such as Java or BREW.

It will take some time, but Florin is convinced that the industry will eventually adopt a single platform. "I am not sure how long we will have dedicated consoles - but we could be talking up to 15 years," he said.

In 15 years (or less), the Internet revolution could lead to an age where bandwidth is far greater and massive game files are either downloaded or streamed. Digital distribution is already a hot topic and there are some bigwigs who believe the next round of consoles won't even deliver games on physical media. We'd all be buying set-top boxes.

"You don't need an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii - the consumer won't even realize the platform it is being played on," Florin said.

Some pundits have said that this type of "one console future" is not feasible, that competition between platforms is necessary. But according to consultant Nick Parker we could still see competition between the major players. Instead of making consoles, Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony could be walled garden content providers and licensors, Parker said. "There could be a Nintendo channel, a PlayStation channel and an Xbox channel on your set-top box," he explained.

Moreover, this kind of future would seemingly put the focus squarely on content � the real competition would come from the quality of the games themselves.