Before the year 2000, video game systems were simple. You bought a game, you plugged it in, and you played. While there were small exceptions to this ideal, most consoles and games followed the simple plug and play path. As we reached the new millennium, however, the norm has changed. Consoles are no longer about just games, instead attempting to find their place as all-in-one entertainment systems. Taking a look at these efforts and comparing them to existing examples in other media, we want to explore this change, and why these features are likely to become the future status quo.

A Change with Purpose

The decision of major consoles to move to this new ideal wasn’t made in a vacuum. Rather, it reflects the centralisation of the developing entertainment market. For decades, humans have relied on different systems for different forms of entertainment like music, television, movies, and gaming, but in the digital age, this pattern shifted.

Smartphones are perhaps the biggest example of this change in action, where dozens of different tools became obsolete with the introduction of a single pocket-sized computer and the flexibility it brought. Console manufacturers took this idea very seriously, as the success of concentrating entertainment experiences was not without precedent.

“LG Velvet Mobile Phone” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by TheBetterDay

The best examples of centralised entertainment are not in video games, but rather in the online casino market. Illustrations of this today can be found when searching for the best UK online casino. Each of these casino websites offers selections of hundreds of games, and each uses special offers like free spins and deposit matches to set themselves apart. These key features have kept online casinos visible for years, but they only tell part of the story.

Delving into the websites reveals real money casino online games cover the market by tailoring their games to a wide selection of themes. While the bonus offers play a large part, these only open the door, with continued opportunities driving continual engagement. Here, additional features like gamification and new experiences such as the developing live casino market serve to keep both newcomers and veterans engaged.

Questions of Necessity

The problem with gaming consoles chasing this idea relate to convenience and outside competition. Take the prior generation system of the Xbox One as an example. While the naming scheme for this system can be annoying to deal with, it makes total sense in that the Xbox One was developed as an all-in-one entertainment centre. This might have worked if other avenues didn’t render the concept unnecessarily cumbersome.

Streaming through a service like Netflix, for example, was far more convenient through a smart TV. Spotify was more widely used on mobile phones, as was browsing. Essentially, console systems could have worked in this way, but they introduced extra steps that most would rather do without.

“Playstation & Xbox booth” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore

The latest console generation was so widely anticipated for such a long time. When it finally arrived, no one achieved the all-in-one goal, but there’s little doubt that the three major console developers would still like to. The only question is, can they make their systems advantageous enough to be worth the effort? In some cases, such as with the introduction of overarching accounts, setup can be simplified enough that the answer is yes. In others, however, it could well be the case that the greater market has moved on.

Make no mistake, consoles can become all-in-one entertainment systems like never before, but whether they actually will is another question entirely.

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