When Companies Win, Consumers Lose.

Should we always just quietly cheer for the underdog?

Let's take a moment to reflect on what has been going on in the industry for ages. In the past, present, and definitely onward into the future. When companies are winning, the consumer sees no benefits.

Most notably, it's easy to look back to Nintendo in the 1980s and early 1990s. In these days, Nintendo essentially held a monopoly on the gaming industry. It's no secret that Nintendo kept the competition out of retailers, aside from Sega. The little guys never stood a chance, and Nintendo continued to dominate as a result. Now, some would argue that Nintendo deserved to be on top but the disadvantage to consumers here was the elimination of choice. Was there a better system? Maybe. Would you ever know it? Not a chance.

Would things have been different in the industry today had Nintendo not played a role in siphoning the life out of the industry's diversity? Who knows? Perhaps, it was for the best in the long run. However, now that video games have been established as a crucial entertainment platform, it is highly unlikely that the risk of them going away will ever come to fruition again.
Nowadays, consumers want to be guaranteed value for their dollar. Unfortunately, companies who are winning their respective "console wars" have little to no reason to provide consumers with additional value. In fact, winning companies tend to display greedier characteristics, particularly when they know what they can get away with.

7th Generation
Last gen we saw the Xbox 360 come out with a very strong start in 2005. For years, the platform dominated the PlayStation 3 within the United States, arguably positioning itself to be the top dog for years to come. While the Xbox 360 did end up in last place for sales in the 7th generation, Microsoft's schemes have formed deep and lasting scars in anti-consumer gaming practice.

From paid online (with no benefits of Games with Gold, like today), $100 Wi-Fi adapters, to faulty console hardware, the Xbox 360 was plagued with a number of issues that haunted gamers for the vast majority of the 7th generation. These problems took YEARS to address as Microsoft didn't have any real need to rush in fixing them. People kept buying Xbox 360s, even with a reported failure rate of 54%. Consumers kept paying an extra $100 for Wi-Fi separately. Without protest companies are free to continue their gains, regardless of how ethical or fair they may be.

Today
Most recently, Sony announced that their plans of backwards compatibility on the PS4 would not support physical discs. Much to the dismay of many gamers who have retained a PS2 library over the years, any hopes of actually being able to use the emulator have been squandered. Based upon the information we have available to us there is little reason to believe that Sony would lock the emulator behind a paywall for anything other than to reap the benefits of profits. Not only that, older titles are being released for as much as $14.99. A steep price to consider for those who already own physical copies of the titles available. But, Sony knows that their base will pay. Some hardcore fans aren't complaining, in fact they seem to be praising the idea of a paywall.

In contrast, the Xbox One, trailing behind the PS4 in sales has a very successful strategy for backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games, allowing for the use of already owned discs.
Considering the gap in competition, Microsoft has scrambling to become as appealing as possible
in the least amount of time to maintain relevancy. Admittedly, their efforts have been quite awesome thus far, and while emulation isn't perfect on Xbox One, it certainly is nice to not have to repurchase games you already own. Consumers are winning on team Xbox, but losing on team PlayStation.

Ultimately, consumers should realize that the platform that wins is typically plagued with issues in one form or another.There is no benefit in defending business practices that hurt YOU. Practices that are designed to keep you double, triple, quadruple dipping into the same things you've already bought. As a gamer, your first priority shouldn't be "how much of my money can I give to Sony?" Unless of course you're a corporate slave.

This time around, it seems that Sony doesn't seem to want to let go of that money. And, if the tables were turned and Microsoft was leading again, the Xbox One we have today would likely be very, very, different. And not in a good way.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Discuss the joys of economics at - Video Games Anonymous