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"Ed Fries, co-creator of Microsoft's Xbox gaming console, believes it is harder for gaming platform makers Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to ignore the gaming and app experience that Apple has created, highlighting the iPhone and iPad maker's creation of a platform that is easy to develop for and affordable for gamers.\r\n\r\nIn an interview with GameInformer, Fries -- who is now an advisor for the Kickstarter-funded Android gaming console Ouya\u00A0-- speaks at length about how the console market still has needs that haven't been met, that there's a opening for an &amp;quot;open console that\u2019s digitally distributed, and it\u2019s just not there.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nWhile Apple hasn't invested in today's console market (yet), Fries is mindful of the effect the company has had on it in the last decade, noting that it's &amp;quot;getting harder and harder for the traditional consoles to ignore the Apple kind of experience.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nBy this, he means that anyone is able to develop for the platform (developers are not blocked by prohibitively expensive certification processes) and that it can cost nothing for a game to be played, let alone updated.\r\n\r\nFries explains:\r\nNow, you\u2019ve got guys who make games like Fez who can\u2019t do an update to their game because it costs too much, if that game was on iOS that wouldn\u2019t be a problem, but because it\u2019s on XBLA it\u2019s a problem.\u00A0Those kinds of ideas have to go away in the next generation. They\u2019ll go away in Ouya, they\u2019ll 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\u2019s just the future.\r\n\r\nLikewise 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\u2019t just be $50 product in a box all the time.\r\nThe former Microsoft executive refers to the costs associated with updating existing titles on consoles, most notably on Xbox Live Arcade. Back in February, we reported on the hoops that console game developers have to jump through in order to roll out important changes like patching and supporting their games.\r\n\r\nTim Schafer, the man behind Psyschonauts, said that Microsoft charges $40,000 to put up a patch, something that smaller studios and teams might not have when it comes to ensuring their XBLA games are 100 percent playable.\r\n\r\nMicrosoft has its reasons: it's\u00A0a\u00A0strategy\u00A0that it employs to ensure that it doesn\u2019t find itself constantly fighting to patch hundreds of game updates, but also that it means developers make their titles as bug-free as possible before launch.\r\n\r\nEither way, the Apple (and soon Ouya) experience is set to change that. Fries believes that Apple's model isn't the answer to all of the console makers problems, but acceptance and adaptability may play a key role in the success of next-generation consoles and gaming platforms."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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