Is the console war coming to an end?

Well, it might be down to a one horse race at any rate. Now, Nintendo's losing lots of money, but they can also afford to lose lots of money for a very, very long time. Sony is facing huge financial issues across it's entire company, and now that the gaming division isn't making the money it used to, some are wondering if there will even be a PS4 or at the very least if the PS4 will be the last system from Sony because if their troubles continue, some tough cuts will have to be made.

But surely, Microsoft will be around in the gaming space for the foreseeable future, right? Well possibly not, and it has nothing to do with it's financial standing. Lawsuits over technology trying to get a game system banned are hardly new, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have all had to deal with them on numerous occasions. In most cases they are completely frivolous and even the legitimate ones are settled pretty quickly because frankly there's just too much money at stake.

However every now and again one gets through that could potentially be huge trouble for a company, which is what Microsoft is facing right now. A judge has ruled that Xbox 360s are essentially banned from being sold in the US due to several infringements on various technologies. This is not a completely done deal, several things, including the President and his advisers signing off on the ruling, have to happen, and it can still be appealed after that. But the real possibility exists of 360s no longer being able to sold after a certain point. How much this would affect the 360s successor is uknown, but I also think that Microsoft could not really afford to not have a presence on shelves for another year or two until that launched if it could launch under the present circumstances.

This of course leads to an interesting situation where not right now of course, but in a few years, Nintendo may be the only console maker around. That could be a very bad thing. No one company should have that kind of a monopoly. Competition is good for business in general. So I'm honestly hoping that if god forbid Microsoft has to drop out because of legal trouble and Sony has to drop out because of financial trouble somebody else will see an opportunity there to move into the space because it will be badly needed.

That's all for today, I should have another post up this weekend. Until then here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Double Edged