This new system would allow games purchased from any ecosystem to be fully playable on all supported platforms without requiring multiple purchases. The success of this vision is entirely dependent on game studios signing up to the program which will likely be a hard sell given the expected fall in sales.
I could see a single digital platform for PC gaming and then one for Consoles.
Everything would just be lumped into one platform for PC games or consoles - there would be no loss of sales, only a change in where all the sales came from.
If you wish to get a game on the PC, the sale would be done at one location for everyone. If 1,000,000 copies were sold off one platform vs 250,000/250,000/250,000/250,000 copies were sold across 4 platforms, the developer would still see sales from 1,000,000 copies...there would be no loss of sales.
The only loss would be is that a company, such as Steam, wouldn't be pulling in their 30% cut from the sales or EPIC wouldn't be pulling in their 15% cut (or whatever it is) from sales. This would be the hard sell for these digital platforms....give up their easy money.
How many digital platforms can we buy from today that are required to be logged into the platform so the game runs off their launcher? Steam, Origin, Uplay, EGS (I hear some games require it, but I'm not 100% certain), Blizzard/Activision, Bethesda.....I'm sure I'm missing others.
How many digital platforms can we buy from today that don't require a launcher to run a game? GoG, Itchi.io (???).... are there more? (I don't venture out past GoG for this feature so I'm not sure)
The point is, more and more launchers are coming and some have come and gone, such as Stardock's digital platform (which was changed to Impluse, then purchased by GameStop and eventually the platform was discontinued around 2014) that I did make use of when Galactic Civilization 2 came out. I had purchased a couple of games off of it and had a handful other other games that I could link through it....I don't recall whatever happened to the games I purchased off it. I guess those games are just lost to me because the digital platform is no longer around.
If there was a way to universally lump all games into one digital platform and not require multiple launchers for each individual developer or digital distributor that would be ideal. However, I don't see this ever happening. If you think about, trading in multiple platforms for 1:
Who would house the platform?
How would that company get money to support that 1 platform?
How much money would it need to support that 1 platform?
How would that platform be regulated and who would regulate it?
Who would police and be able to hold companies accountable that try to launch their own platform over joining this one?