By Nelson Schneider - 06/21/13 at 04:01 PM CT
There is a term in the scientific world called “multiple discovery.” This term refers to the concept that every scientific breakthrough is made simultaneously, or near-simultaneously, by multiple different individuals in completely distinct and unrelated locations.
Years ago, I thought I was quite clever in inventing a concept I called the “Third Console Curse.” Recently I discovered that others across the Internet had multiply discovered the same concept. Of course, in retrospect, coming up with the Third Console Curse didn’t really require any great feats of intellectual prowess, but merely the ability to observe and recognize simple patterns.
The premise behind the Third Console Curse is that every videogame hardware developer will completely and inexplicably fail on their third try, regardless of their success or failure on their first two tries. The observational datapoints that back up the existence of the Third Console Curse are the Nintendo 64, the Sega Saturn, and the Sony PlayStation 3. Nintendo revived a dead console market with their first console, ushered in the Golden Age with their second, then completely fell off the map with their third, losing mindshare and third-party support to such an extent that the company still hasn’t recovered either to pre-N64 levels. Sega went completely under the radar with their first console, fought an epic console war with their second, then completely lost the support of their fans and the support of third-party developers with their third, which ultimately killed their fourth console and pushed them out of the hardware business entirely. Sony made an unexpected splash with their first console, ushered in a false Second Golden Age with their second console, then completely mismanaged their third, turning it into a last-place finisher in a three-way console war led by an underpowered wagglebox.
The 8th Generation will bear witness to Microsoft’s third console, the Xbox One. And based on the initial reaction to the yet-unreleased console’s DRM and focus on non-gaming features, it looked like the Third Console Curse had sunk its talons deep into Steve Ballmer’s fleshy… flesh. In the few short weeks between its initial reveal and its E3 press conference, the Xbox One was able to gather all of the ill-will generated by the Internet Hate Machine and consolidate it into one place. The reaction was so powerfully negative that Microsoft, a company not known for backing down in the face of overwhelming hate, has announced a complete reversal of their previously announced DRM scheme (I guess that makes their new console the Xbox OneEighty?). Yet I fear (hope) the damage may have already been done. Gamers, hell people in general, tend to have long memories of things they hate or that make them angry.
So, how exactly does the Third Console Curse work? It’s quite simple. The Third Console Curse is not magic. There is no supernatural component. With its consistency, the Third Console Curse can’t really be seen as luck-based or a function of probability either. No, the Third Console Curse runs on one thing and one thing alone: Hubris.
In every situation where the Third Console Curse has arisen, it has been attached to hardware that is the immediate successor to hardware that has been considered an enormous success, sometimes for two generations in a row. When corporations – the terrible, vile monstrosities that make game hardware and software for our enjoyment – find success, they are inevitably driven by their shareholders and executives to extract MORE success from the same source. And upon extracting huge amounts of success from the gaming public and translating it into profit, corporations develop a hubristic attitude and begin to think they can do no wrong.
As a result of hubris, Nintendo insisted on keeping cartridges with the N64 instead of switching to the larger and cheaper CDs that gamers and developers preferred, while maintaining their overly-strict licensing guidelines (not to mention that awful controller). As a result of hubris, Sega produced a stream of Genesis add-ons that generated nothing but confusion so that nobody knew the Saturn was a distinct console and not another Sega CD, while designing the Saturn to be one of the most difficult platforms to code for… ever. As a result of hubris, Sony tried to sell a game console that had no games for $600, while ensuring that PlayStation 3 versions of multi-platform games would always be worse due to the tricky Cell Processor and divided RAM pool. Now Microsoft, as a result of hubris, has introduced the idea of a game console that stops working if it can’t phone home to a server once every 24 hours, allows gamers to “share” their libraries with friends (if “share” means “play a 60 minute demo”), and makes second-hand game discs worthless without a convoluted online DRM infrastructure.
The hubris that powers the Third Console Curse is what killed Agamemnon as he returned home from the Trojan War. It is a deep character flaw that exists outside of videogames and outside of business as well. When anyone, no matter how great or powerful they are, forgets that they are mortal, subject to the same rules as everyone else, and living in the same world as everyone else, their self-centered egomania can – and will – lead to their destruction. Corporations are not mortal, and they like to play by their own corrupt set of rules that would get any private citizen arrested. Yet the Third Console Curse exists to give these immortal mega-conglomerations a bit of a black eye and ask them, “Are you sure you REALLY want to do that?” while at the same time reminding them that, like false gods, they are nothing without the little people whose adoration gives them strength.
Comments
Nick - wrote on 06/23/13 at 03:28 PM CT
They are evil and can very well "turn on" the switch in a software update after they sell enough of the consoles. Then users will be completely stuck with the features Microsoft "claimed" to have removed to please the fans.
Jonzor - wrote on 06/22/13 at 10:10 AM CT
I've wondered that, too. I think Microsoft can delude themselves into thinking they just tried too much all at once, and couldn't explain all of these things at the same time, so no one understood. So obviously, if they slow it down and go one at a time, they'll be able to convince us all how great some of this crap truly is.
Because seriously, look at the list of features that Microsoft is removing now that there's no used-game DRM and no Xbox-phone-home. It's hard to believe they won't try and bring some of that back to cover up some more Big Brother-type stuff.
Matt - wrote on 06/22/13 at 07:54 AM CT
I just hope that people remember Microsofts potential policies when they release the system, and really, what will prevent them from going back on their word? As soon as someone hacks the system and installs something that Microsoft doesn't on the Xbox One(Eighty), they will do another about face and restrict the console. Just look at what Sony did with the PS3.
Jonzor - wrote on 06/21/13 at 11:30 PM CT
I'm still holding out hope Microsoft seriously eats it this generation. The digital rights war needs a bloody, beaten corpse on a pike to act as a warning to the next company who thinks they're too big to boycott. The uglier the beating gets, the longer the message hopefully lasts.
Microsoft may still pay the price, too. They can act like they're the company that "listened to the fans"... but they're honestly just a company that listened to Sony's press conference. The fans' message hadn't changed since BEFORE they even announced their console... funny how all of a sudden the fans started getting through after E3.
