Ed Fries: Platform holders must adapt to Apple’s business model

The next generation of consoles will struggle to prosper unless Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo adapt their way of business.

That’s according to former Microsoft man, Xbox co-creator and Ouya board member Ed Fries, who reckons that the Apple model for games publishing is the new standard.

It’s getting harder and harder for the traditional consoles to ignore the Apple kind of experience,” he told Game Informer. 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, 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. They’ll go away in Ouya, they’ll go away if Apple brings some kind of product into this space, the console makers like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, they have to respond to that, it’s just the future.”

That’s not the full extent of the change Fries wants to see, either.

Likewise they have to respond to the free-to-play game model,” he added. 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.”