The Console vs. PC Debate

This debate session covered was on the following question: which platform is the future entertainment hub and which one is struggling to stay alive? Two teams, pro-console and pro-PC (or con-console) duked it out over the course of 45 minutes. In the beginning, moderator Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors, asked the teams to close their eyes and took a silent poll of hands from the audience as to who was pro-console and who was con-console. Only about 20-30 people out of about 150 raised their hands against the console. He then gave each panelist three minutes to state their cases.

On the pro-console side sat Justin Townsend, CEO and co-founder of IGA WorldWide, and Robert Stevenson, VP/business development of Atari Group. Robert’s argument is that the console is situated in a social environment, the living room, while a PC is usually relegated to a corner or basement. This provides for greater social experiences matching those that players are increasingly enjoying online, while easily hooking up to HD devices and stream in content from Netflix or the Playstation Store, or stream out content to a PSP or DS. Or just outright play media in DVD or Blu-ray. Justin’s argument focused more on the failings of the PC to build a full entertainment system, saying how much easier and less expensive it is to build a complete entertainment system with a console rather than a computer

The con-console team consisted of Alex St. John, CEO and founder of Wild Tangent (also one of the original DirectX creators), and John Welch, president and CEO of Playfirst. Alex’s argument against the console was very heavy indeed, and was of course delivered in his usual strong and confident manner that tends to make people sit up and listen. Looking back at consoles throughout history, like Atari and Sega, Alex sees the failure of both the PS3 and the Xbox as just another part of the “photonic collapse” (I like that quote) in the console hardware industry. Sony is no longer the company it once was thanks to the enormous losses they’ve taken on due to the PS3, and Microsoft is still struggling to sell their consoles, slashing prices wherever they can, and their software sales can’t even match the number of World of Warcraft subscribers. In fact, due to Sony saying the PS3 is forecasted to last 10 years Alex went so far as to say “there will never be another console. Ever.”

Right, taking a break here for some of my own insight. It’s a strong statement that Alex proclaimed and that was bounced around several media outlets later that day and the next, but then again there are also stories circulating now about Sony’s plans for the Cell processor and the PS4. So is Alex wrong? It depends on how you look at it. Even today, it’s hard to define these boxes called PS3 and Xbox “consoles” in the traditional sense. According to Merriam-Webster, a console is still defined as “an electronic system that connects to a display (as a television set) and is used primarily to play video games”. Note that last part. While I don’t personally use my PS3 often as a video player or music repository, it does support these functions. The Xbox as well can be extended to other forms of media besides games. So, although Sony is developing a PS4, it could be a multimedia box that happens to be able to play games, but also equally services other forms of media and entertainment. It that case, it would be hard to call it a console, and Alex would be correct. In fact, the console may have already died with the Sega Dreamcast, Sony PS2 and Nintendo GameCube.

What about the Wii? Getting back to the debate, Alex stated that Nintendo didn’t really make a new console, they created a new device. Nintendo could still come out with an entirely new console, and in fact a high-definition system is making its rounds through the rumor mill at this time, but according to Alex they’re still now more of a device company than a console company (Wii Fit, anyone?).

At the end of the debate, several more hands were raised when asked who was con-console, but it wasn’t a substantial shift. A Mozes poll was run that let people text in a vote for which team made the better debate, with con-console pulling in all the votes – of which there were only two, but I hadn’t even noticed that the poll was running on the second screen. I don’t think the debate remained properly focused on the original topic, and kind of degenerated into an economics war at one point, but it still exposed some interesting views into what a console is today, and how it compares now to a PC, which has become a lot cheaper but still too much of a do-anything machine for a lot of people to consider as strictly a multimedia center (excluding, I suppose, those PCs built expressly for such a purpose? That was actually never covered, I don’t recall. It was always PCs in the general sense).

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