A senior figure at publisher Electronic Arts has mooted his hope that one day there will be a unified games platform on which all titles will be playable, describing such a system as "basically a boiled down PC," according to Computerandvideogames.com.

A de facto gaming standard would save third-party publishers fortunes in development costs, while making life much easier for developers charged with creating the same game on multiple platforms at present.

"We want an open, standard platform which is much easier than having five which are not compatible," explained Gerhard Florin, EA executive VP and general manager of international publishing. "We're platform agnostic and we definitely don't want to have one platform which is a walled garden."

Such a model could take 15 years to arrive, says Florin, who also tells the BBC that the machine could stream games via the net to PCs or set-top boxes. Moving to a one standard business could push down costs for the consumer, but could also stifle innovation, with little competition to drive things forward.

"Gaming will just require potentially a £49.99 box from Tesco made in China with a hard drive, a wi-fi connection and a games engine inside," Florin envisaged, in conclusion.

What are your thoughts on this idea, I wonder?

By Luke Guttridge

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  1. Phayz Unregistered 1 year ago

    If there was only one box, it would not make it cheaper for the consumers, because there would be no competition for the producers and they could then charge whatever price they wanted to...also having unique platforms encourages innovation and good quality - although that has been not as high as I would have hoped in recent years