Console games not innovative?

December 15, 3:02 PMGames ExaminerDaniel Nations

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This rabbid is raving about a lack of
innovation on his favorite console!

While manufacturers wage one type of console war, gamers are in a constant war of their own, a war often played out in the comments section of blogs and gaming websites as the proclaim their console of choice to be the god of all platforms. Known for their beautiful and often poetic scribblings, such as "Xboxers R 4 loserz", "You mean the UnPlayStation?" and "WiiIdiots hahaha", these gaming advocates have added a new member to their elite crew: Randy Stude, the Director of Intel's Gaming Program Office and President of the PC Gaming Alliance.

Not to be undone by those arguing that the PlayStation 3 is technologically superior to the other consoles, those proclaiming the Xbox 360 as the choice for the elite gamer, or those making claims of the existence of a "hardcore game" for the Nintendo Wii, Randy Stude had the following to say in an interview with GamePolitics:

"If someone wants to leave the PC market, we'll miss you. We'll watch with admiration as your titles ship in a diluted fashion without a whole lot of game play innovation, at least until you copy the innovation that occurs on the PC. Well find the great games on PC and we'll play those."

While many people think the "So long and don't let the door hit you on the way out" argument is one generally best left to high school cafeterias, Randy Stude proves that there is plenty of room for it in the business world as well. Furthermore, it's great to know that the fine minds over at Intel think that game designers working on the PC side of things are just plain smarter and more creative than game designers working with the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii.

...as if we haven't seen Everquest repackaged as Dark Ages of Camelot, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and a dozen other fantasy-themed MMOs.

Of course, it is no great surprise that the President of the PC Gaming Alliance would make bold claims about the innovations found in the PC gaming world while downplaying the role of piracy. And we certainly don't expect him to give a long speech about how the rise of the Internet allowed PC game developers to release unfinished games knowing that it is easy to patch them after release.

But here's my favorite part of the interview. When asked if the development cost of new consoles could bring PC gaming back to the mainstream, Randy said the following:

"The guts of every console should tell you that the capability is there for the PC to act as the central point for all the consoles. If you bought a PC and as part of that equation you said, Okay, when you're on the phone with Dell, "Hey, Dell, on this PC, this new notebook I'm buying, can you make sure it has the PlayStation 4 option built into it?"

"Well, why not? Why shouldn't that be the case? [Sony is] certainly not making any money on the hardware. I mean, can't they create a stable enough environment to specify that if Dell's going to sell that notebook and say that it's PlayStation 4 [compatible] that it must have certain ingredients and it must meet certain criteria? Absolutely they could that. Are they going to do it? I don't know. I predict that they will. I predict that all of the console makers over time will recognize that it's too expensive to develop the proprietary solution and recognize the value of collapsing back on the PC as a ubiquitous platform."

Personally, I think Randy should refrain from smoking crack before giving interviews.

Consoles are going to vanish back into the PC? Manufacturers are going to offer a console video game option? Are they going to have parallel hardware inside of the PC, Randy, or is Sony going to stop selling the PlayStation 3 in favor of having emulator available to run on people's laptops?

Maybe someone should let Randy know that the trend with consoles is for them to become more powerful -- even the Nintendo Wii has rumors of a Wii HD in the works -- while the trend with PCs is for them to become less powerful with the emergence of cloud computing, which is using the Internet as a platform and running applications from websites rather than your computer.

While there will always be a need for powerful computers that go beyond the abilities of a netbook, the market for such powerful computers is constricting while the market for gaming consoles is expanding.

A more accurate prediction is that gaming consoles will become the centerpiece in home entertainment, taking on the role of a gaming system, movie player (both disc and on-demand), digital video recorder, music player, photo album and Internet browser -- much of which is already available. And many people will find that their computing needs are solved by their netbook and their smartphone.

But then again, that's a world envisioned without the use of crack.

Suggested Reading:

• The full interview with Randy over at GamePolitics
• Wii has the most sales, but Xbox 360 most talked about
• With SOE's Station Cash, are MMO microtransactions becoming the new standard?