Ed Fries, in an interview conducted by Game Informer, the man who helped to create the original Xbox and is currently helping to shape the Ouya, recently touched upon Apple's influence on the current video game landscape. Specifically, how the old guard must change with the times, whether they like it or not.
When asked what it's like to release a new console, when compared to when he gave birth to Xbox 1 a little over ten years ago:
"It’s getting harder and harder for the traditional consoles to ignore the Apple kind of experience. Anybody can develop for the platform, certification is a relatively cheap and painless thing, and in the old days of consoles there are all sorts of myths and legends that say that’s a bad thing to do. That’s why the game business melted down in ’84, there was too much junk on the market…"
The difficulties as it pertains to creating games for traditional consoles is Fries' main point of contention. To illustrate his point, he brings up a recent, and very much poignant example:
"… but now you’ve got guys who make games like Fez who can’t do an update to their game because it costs too much, if that game was on iOS that wouldn’t be a problem, but because it’s on XBLA it’s a problem. Those kinds of ideas have to go away in the next generation."
Fries believes that said issues will disappear when Ouya is released, and if Apple offers something comparable. As for the big three:
"… console makers like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, they have to respond to that, it’s just the future."
Though his following sentiment has ruffled the feathers of many gamers, since it's a model that virtually no one likes:
"Likewise they have to respond to the free-to-play game model, the world is changing, people want this free-to-play experience, game developers want to build free-to-play experiences and the console ecosystem has to adapt to that. It can’t just be $50 product in a box all the time."
Sadly, many signs point towards the free-to-play model being here to stay. And perhaps Fries is correct when stating how, if the traditional players wish to stick around as well, that they had better get with the program as well.
