Rampant Coyote said,

The last time I *remember* it being this bad, it was Apple, Commodore, IBM, Tandy, Atari, Sinclair, Texas Instruments, BBC, Coleco, Amstrad, and others on the “home computer” front.

And on the console front, you had Atari, Sears, Coleco, Mattel, Magnavox, Vectrex (Milton Bradley), Bally, and those arcade upstarts Nintendo and Sega…

Anon said,

I also compare this with the mid-eighties and the home computer platform plethora.

If you were playing it safe you went with either a Commodore, an Atari, an Apple (if you had more money) – or if you were in the UK a Sinclair Spectrum.
Everything else would be for “individualists” (not needing masses of software) or people with no knowledge (well meaning parents that bought a TI99/4a for example…).

I also agree that most of these companies will die a horrible death like back then. There’s practically only one surviving computer making company from the eighties that still makes small computers: Apple – because they not only were greedy like the rest but also the most intelligent ones (pushing their Apple IIs in schools was a genius move – and they didn’t spend too much money on questionable projects).
The market will support three or four companies but not with the same success/profit so the remaining big companies will consider leaving the market, too.

However, regarding platform choice (which the gamer has) and architecture choice (which the console maker has) the gamer shouldn’t consider the performance of the hardware in detail (which is an architecture question).

The gamer should instead consider the features of a console and the software/shop support. And obviously the costs. 😉

Why? Because the last time, the PS3 was hailed as the most powerful console – but the majority of multi-platform titles looked sharper and more detailed on the X360 (both platforms had great exclusives but one can’t really compare them). In the end it was a tie, the platform advantage of the PS3 (in the beginning with hardware PS2 compatibility and card readers and Linux support) dissolved pretty quickly.

The generation before that the PS2 won the hearts of the majority of gamers. Why? Not because it was powerful but because it got great software support from all corners, after a slightly rugged start (it was hard to program, too).
It’s competition?
– The first Xbox was x86-compatible and perhaps the most powerful of the bunch. But it was the initial console of Microsoft and while it was innovative in some aspects (it had a harddisk, wide online gaming) it had several problems: Too damned expensive, very few great exclusives and too similar to PCs (it was too far ahead ;-)). Many people simply bought the cheaper version for their PC which was a major gaming platform back then (this has changed, it now simply is one of the many platforms).
– The Gamecube was practically as powerful and had much worse support (even though it was easier to program) and it was seen as a kiddie console.
– The Dreamcast on the other hand was doomed when Sony’s marketing department got up to speed and EA and other companies completely abandoned it. While the Dreamcast perhaps wasn’t as powerful as the other two “next gen” consoles it still was way more powerful than the generation before it (PS1, N64). It’s telling that this console still enjoys some commercial support…

So what the companies learned from their successes and failures pf the past is that they shouldn’t spend resources on developing their own processors.
Especially Sony was “healed” by their costly PS3 experience, I guess.
Microsoft on the other hand initially had x86, tried an IBM multicore PowerPC RISC (to combat the Cell RISC CPU Sony used) and is now back on x86 – which they also do to save costs.
The only remaining big console maker, Nintendo, still bets on IBM and ATI graphics tech (which is of course owned by AMD, who now is on all three major consoles…) because their Wii was such a big success. It will be interesting to see if Wii-U gains ground or if it remains a failure, thanks to insufficient software support – both quantity and quality (support of the specific Wii-U features like the controller) and the problem that its predecessor was first and foremost a casual console and casuals don’t buy consoles as regularly as core gamers…

So now all big console makers use tech from the shelves of the market leaders. While some adapt it to their specific needs (cores, cache size, rendering pipelines, shader units…) it still remains existing tech.

The Android consoles, however small, are even more extreme: Most of them don’t even customize the chips, they really use existing parts (vs. existing designs that need to be manufactured).
It will be interesting to see what the bigger players of the “casual market” (Apple, Google) will announce but I don’t expect drastic custom chip designs either.

In the end all manufacturers use existing designs and the gamer will have to decide what flavour he wants: A mass market core gamer console from Sony or Microsoft, a mass market casual platform from Apple/Google, or an indie platform on the least powerful architecture from smaller companies that don’t spy on the user as much…

Anon said,

> And people will want to use it to show pictures, movies, listen to music and browse the Web. They always do, even when they have to jump through hoops to do it.

The same goes for the very vocal minority that wants to install Linux on everything that remotedly resembles a “Von Neumann architecture”…

But a console manufacturer has to consider costs and most of them will save a few cents if 95% of the owners don’t show interest.

Anon said,

My experiences with other people (family, friends, colleagues) is exactly the opposite: They buy a device for a specific functionality. Most of these people are certainly no hard-core tech geeks, though.

The audience you are referring to is 15 to 30 years old and the geeks you know are of course proficient.
Now ask your dad how he coped with home electronics and what he actually uses.

Every TV set above a certain price level is now a “Smart-TV”, being able to connect to the internet, playing back youtube videos etc.
Guess how many owners actually connect their device to the net? One manufacturer claimed this: Only 14% do so!
So obviously a lot of multi-functionality is wasted like a lot of people never use most features of their mobile phone.

Don’t get me wrong – I personally use such multi-functional devices (like my Galaxy Note 2 smartphone which seems to be able to do everything and then some) but sometimes they are barely usable: Slow browsers, limited video playback (missing codec, stuttering) etc.

What we need for broader acceptance are three things:
– Very easy user interface (I have friends who think their PC is like a toaster and refuse to learn operating it)
– Enough processing power for basic tasks like playing back full HD video streams (next year all geeks cry for 4K video streams, of course…). Similar to how all devices of the last ten years or so can play back hifi audio without any problems.
– Adaptability/flexibility – for updates like codecs. This is an illusion of course as all manufacturers would love to sell you a new device.