The Role of a Console Manufacturer in Video Game Art
An often-ignored aspect of the console wars: so very little disparity exists between PlayStation and Xbox as hardware. This was the case since 6th generation. The success of the Switch (which is LESS powerful and has already outsold Microsoft’s box, despite launching four years later[i]) demonstrates the real value of a console brand, to which hardware is a secondary consideration: access (through the specific machine) to a library of quality (we would hope autotelic) games.
The job of the console manufacturer is proximately and primarily to cultivate a stable install base of hardware, with well-defined parameters, that developers can use to convey games to players. Their role in the transmission of games between developers and players (as a “material" or instrumental cause, as a paintbrush to a painting or letters to a book) ensures, for better or worse, that console brands ALSO become game curators. They approve the titles published on their platform; more importantly, they dispose of vast financial resources to fund “prestige content”[ii]. This content (which varies greatly between the big three brands) is, to our estimation, the real value of console gaming, of any box or brand over the other.
It strikes us as superficial, akin to video-game illiteracy, to choose a console on the basis of technical specifications. We would rather choose between Nier and Astral (on the basis of their quality and our attraction to their respective universes) than the computing capabilities of PS4 and Switch. Indeed these two titles (or Octopath or Xenoblade II juxtaposed to FFVIIR, Death Stranding to BotW) are sure indication that a talented dev team with integrity and good ideas can create well for hardware of any specification.
References
[i] https://www.vgchartz.com/article/443847/switch-vs-ps4-vs-xbox-one-global-lifetime-salesmay-2020/