Are you ready for the X-Station? Or maybe the PlayBox? According to Sony's former global games boss, it might not be too far away.

David Reeves retired from his joint position as deputy president of SCE worldwide and president of SCEE last year.

And the current Capcom COO believes that development costs may force his former employers to join forces with Microsoft within the next 15 years - if, that is, both companies are still producing hardware.

Speaking as part of a fascinating new interview looking at the future of video games hardware - which will be on the site later today - Reeves told CVG:

"When you're on the first-party side, you realise how really, really expensive it is to develop a platform. Whether it's PS3, or Xbox 360 or even Wii, they cost millions - maybe not billions, but absolutely millions. You don't know when to put that stake in the ground of technology and move on. You know, say 'that's enough'.

"Eventually, it may just become so expensive to develop [their consoles] that Microsoft and Sony say, 'Okay, let's get together.' I'd say it's between 10 and 15 years away. That's how long I think it will take. I don't think it will be the next console cycle, but probably the next cycle after that, where you might have something platform-agnostic.

"But it might be different players, of course. It might be Google getting together with, dare I say, Microsoft, or Google with somebody else."

Reeves, who spent 15 years at PlayStation before his retirement last year, also discussed the future of handheld consoles and the potential of standalone gaming TVs.

In addition, he told CVG that Dead Rising 3 would almost certainly benefit from related digital releases, akin to those attached to Dead Rising 2.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=276488

The first machine produced will still heat up and sound like an electric razor

We need an open platform. Something like, err, a PC running Linux.

Seriously. There's no reason why a standard version of Linux couldn't be produced with terrific game performance and specific limited hardware support. It would be a boon for game writers, and approached sensibly could lead to totally cross-platform games.

Lets face it, the X-box and the PS3 are not cutting edge technology. Consoles never are, except maybe for their first 12 months. Tech gets old quick. I can emulate a PS2 in Java on my mobile phone...

Without competition what drives the market/tech forward though?

Indeed. With an open standard, there would be far more competition to develop better and cheaper hardware. Microsoft couldn't get away with selling boxes that died if ten other companies were making better ones.

The thing about specifically the console market is.. if it doesn't push forward, it stagnates. Over a period (say five years) developers push each generation of hardware harder and harder until eventually they're getting pretty much all they can out of it. Once it reaches that point the generation has peaked, effectively, and sales start to drop. The only way to increase revenue from that point is to bring out new hardware of some sort.

So I think we still would get innovation even if we had a 'unified platform' - after all, it doesn't seem to have done the PC market any harm -but it would possibly be slower; Microsoft were very proactive with pushing the generational switchover between the Xbox and the xBox 360, for example, which wouldn't happen in a unified market.

Plus, as long as we have a market of software makers, we are still going to get development and innovation, in terms of how the hardware is used more than in terms of what it is.

having said that i think he's wrong, there's no real pressure for Sony &/or MS to go into partnership at any point. If anything, things are either going to stay the same or we're going to end up with a 'hardwareless' system like OnLive instead.

Jon

Well, if it did happen, I'd hope Sony would do the hardware and not Microsoft...