4K chess moves right here
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D.Lo
Member
Once again, that's because last generation, especially for the first four years, there was another much more successful console eating PS3/360's lunch.
At this point last gen, Wii was 50% of the market. PS4bone would need to be around 90% up on PS360 to make up for the Wii to Wii U fall at this point. PS360 also pivoted at about this point to the Wii audience with Kinect/Move, the former giving MS a near re-launch, while at the same time Nintendo faultered, and PS360 ended up having a backloaded sales pattern and took a prolonged generation to get to their totals.
This generation is an immense drop off from last. There will not be anywhere near 270 million consoles (on top of that 230 million handhelds!) sold.
Melchiah
Member
I have no idea why people exclude the Switch from the equation. When it's added to the Wii U, Nintendo's position this gen isn't that bad. Even if it was, the combined figures of PS4 and XBO show that those platforms are beating their last gen counterparts. Naturally, every platform might not be succesful every generation, but when one flounders it's a far cry from the whole industry being doomed.
The Switch should be counted, but then you need to count handheld sales too, which further increases the drop. Counting 360/PS3/Wii/DS/PSP together adds up to almost 500 million hardware sales. PS4/XBONE/Wii U/3DS/Vita/Switch will probably hit 300 but nowhere near 400, let alone 500.
It is an immense drop off, but IMO it's more of a regression to the norm/market correction than console gaming Dying.
Look where this gen is compared to the ones pre-WiiPS360DSPSP and you'll see that last gen was the abnormality not the norm
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
This is bang on, in my view. The Wii rose to stratospheric heights and then died one of the most abrupt and rapid fall-offs in console sales of any console in console history. The Wii and 3DS (to a certain extent) brought in swathes of very atypical, traditional non-gamers, with games like Nintendogs and Wii Fit, whose interest was more in fitness and lifestyle apps than games in general. Many of those didn't stick around when smart phones and tablets blew up.
LordRaptor
Member
Falling back to ~2001 levels when the worlds population has grown by almost a billion people during that period, and most other entertainment industries have also grown during that period still doesn't look good
e:
To be clear - "gaming" is still growing. "Console gaming" a.k.a. "real gaming" is not.
Almost all of the growth is happening outside of the console space. Feel free to invent your own criteria for success to prove that everythings fine in the console space and things will definitely continue as they are forever.
D.Lo
Member
There is no 'norm'.
Every generation has been huge growth until this one. And WU/XO/PS4 is unlikely to even reach PS2/XB/GC/DC either.
Exactly right. Handheld has nearly evaporated (I'm frankly amazed the 3DS had so much of a comeback to where it is) and consoles have taken a big hit too. The ubiquity of handheld personal computing devices in the form of mobile phones has taken its toll on dedicated hardware markets.
Trying to discredit the Wii with 'Wii fit not a real game' is 2008 era excuse. The biggest selling non-primarily hardware packed-in game of that generation was MARIO KART.
So did we get any sort of estimates about how much Injustice 2 and MK8D sold?
Also Minecraft didn't move at all compared to last month - considering it launched on the Switch unless Microsoft don't disclose digital sales on the Switch it's very surprising that it didn't chart higher.
Also Minecraft didn't move at all compared to last month - considering it launched on the Switch unless Microsoft don't disclose digital sales on the Switch it's very surprising that it didn't chart higher.
For the most part the areas of the world who pushed a billion more people aren't places that buy console games... More developing countries not developed ones.
Chobel
Member
The fuck? How are we supposed to read this? These countries aren't sophisticated enough to enjoy console gaming?
And even ignoring that part, the not-console gaming is growing everywhere: developing and developed countries.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Hardware numbers at the end of the day are irrelevant.
PS3 and 360 numbers look pretty good, but those consoles lost billions of dollars for Sony and Microsoft. PS4 and Xbox One's hardware numbers will probably be pretty close, but Playstation and Xbox are making more money than they ever have. Nintendo isnt going to touch its DS/Wii era of profits but they're also going to do very well.
gundamkyoukai
Member
I mean it is not really hard to see why that happen in certain aspects .
Handheld gaming has been eaten alive by mobile along with a certain group of gamers.
LordRaptor
Member
Hardware numbers are coefficients for software numbers, and software numbers are in turn coefficients for revenue.
Theslammer
Member
It's not that they might be healthy; they're healthy. And we're far from the beginning of the generation; we're almost four years into it, and consoles continue to outpace their predecessors. Many were dismissing the incredible late 2013/early 2014 sales as simply demand for new hardware, and then they hid when sales continued to do well because they couldn't admit that was a completely false analysis.
Less AAA games that last longer doesn't seem any worse or better; it's just different. AAA games are expensive, and either you raise prices on all of them, or you make them last longer. That also means budget-conscious games like Knack 2, Everybody's Golf and Matterfall have an opening.
Have you see the numbers for the Xbox/GC? PS4 is outselling the PS2 day-to-date, and the Xbox One is easily outpacing the Xbox. GC and DC barely sold anything, and why would we exclude the Switch from this conversation?
This fundamentally gets one big entertainment industry wrong: movies. The movie business is a huge entertainment business that makes more money even though they sell less tickets.
Also, I wouldn't say anyone is saying things will continue forever. Arcades were bigger in the 1980s, PCs had a totally different library than consoles in the 80s and 90s, consoles have become all-in-one boxes, etc. In 100 years, gaming, movies, music, etc., will all look completely different than they do right now.
I don't get the "real gaming" convention, either. Definitely, AAA games are a thing on consoles/PC only, but what makes Tetris more of a "real" game than Candy Crush?
gundamkyoukai
Member
It's is not so simple .
Like EA is doing much better this gen than last gen .
When it comes to revenue there is more to it than just software numbers .
I mean that is one of the reason why so many games going GaaS .
LordRaptor
Member
It is that simple.
You can't sell software on hardware people don't own.
You can't sell DLC for games people didn't buy.
The specific ratios might adjust as "SaaS" becomes the hot new thing to try and offset increased development costs but static MSRP, but the revenue chain is still the same as ever;
hardware -> software sales -> revenue
gundamkyoukai
Member
That still don't change the fact hardware numbers alone don't tell the story .
Even more so when we comparing this gen to last one .
People buying games more on DD alone already change revenue\profit for some of these companies .
I believe they're presented to appear healthier than they actually are also because the Wii is (usually) arbitrarily excluded, but I think we should look at the whole market.
Ditto for the handhelds, where Nintendo took a huge hit and Sony was basically non-existant... but at least I can't remember a lot of people claiming the handeld market is "healthy".
I hope the Switch will help both (and the start is definitely promising)
Well, I guess it all depends on how much "less" actually becomes. :-\
LordRaptor
Member
I never said they did; but the hard uncompromising truth is that in the console industry hardware sales are ultimately the bedrock all other revenue is built upon.
You lose hardware sales, you lose all of the ancillary revenue dependent upon them, whether that's SaaS subscrptions, accessory sales, retail cuts, licencing fees, whatever.
e:
I mean, look, naive maths;
1 console sale -> [attach rate] * software sales -> [conversion rate] * DLC
with an attach rate of 10, each console not sold literally decimates software sales at the next stage of the chain.
Theslammer
Member
It's not really belief; the consoles have been fast sellers, routinely outselling their predecessors. The only exception is the Wii to Wii U, but the Switch is starting well, and even the NES Mini sold gangbusters despite being a tiny console that only played old games and that's it. The console market is objectively doing well right now. The claim that the early gen console sales were high only because of demand for new consoles has been proven false for almost four years straight, now.
If you'd like to worry yourself about it and take the glass half empty approach, then okay, I guess. =P
Me, I'm drowning in games, sales continue to do gangbusters, revenue continues on the increase, and there's no end in sight to the games. Worrying about a horrible end to it all doesn't make sense when the numbers don't hold up to that hypothesis.
gundamkyoukai
Member
The handheld market is healthy but it's now mobile .
Thing is markets going to change even more so when we talking about a market that depends on tech .
15 to 20 years from now we might now even have a console market but once i get to play the games i like i don't really care .
Just look at how much the movie market has change over the last 20 years .
UpUpDownDown
Member
Wow @ Farpoint.
Nice.
Nice.
Theslammer
Member
A good example is arcades. Yeah, arcades are gone (though some places still have them, and they're fun), but you still have a demand for that kind of game, which is why fighting games still exist, arcade indie games exist, Housemarque thrives on it, etc.
So it didn't lead to the collapse of gaming, but along with arcade games, you could also get a game like Horizon: Zero Dawn, or Forza Horizon, or Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto.
It would be a pity if we couldn't get games like this in the future, but right now, there's nothing for me to freak out about. I remember even Jason Rubin, formerly of Naughty Dog, wondering how consoles and console games were going to do past 2014 with mobile gaming growing. Turns out, they're doing better and co-existing with mobile games.
A problem with directly comparing systems to their predecessors is that the PS3 wasn't the market leader last gen, and since the PS4 is the market leader now outselling it is expected. It makes more sense to look at the console market as a whole, and right now it is very healthy, but there are signs of decline that shouldn't be ignored.
But the exception is what makes the comparison void in the first place!
Ok let's look at it differently: why should we ignore the Wii?
It's not that I like... less games, to me, means less choice.
For example, this hit me badly with the WiiU: I went from 60+ games on the Wii, to about 20 on the WiiU. And there's *still* stuff I'd like to buy for the Wii, while I've got everything I want and then some (!!!) for its successor.
You might argue that WiiU is hardly representative of that kind of scenario due to its utter failure, but I think the similarities are there, more or less (after all, this happened due to its market becoming unsustainable so that even Nintendo had to slow the pace)
By the way, I have a huge backlog as well, but I don't think that's the point.
Xbox One (~30m) and 360 (31.5m) should be around even now launch aligned and 360 still has it's Kinect boom ahead of it. In reality PS4 is the only one of the five 8th gen platforms that's going to exceed sales of it's direct predecessor.
The PS/Xbox console market was comparably front loaded too and as the gen's gone on that lead has shrunk. The market's healthy but 8th gen won't really end up breaking any records.
Theslammer
Member
There are signs of health that also shouldn't be ignored. You can look at it as the PS4 compared to the PS2 as market leader, or the Wii, or the 360, and its sales are still extremely impressive.
Who's ignoring the Wii? If anything, people are ignoring the Switch and excluding it from this gen even though it's right alongside the other consoles at a similar power to the base consoles and getting some of the third party games of current consoles (Rocket League, for example). The exception is what you're hinging on, not the entire market, but it just seems like you're a fan of Nintendo systems, got burned on the Wii U, and have used that to color the whole industry.
I guess if you had a Wii U, it seemed worse, but perhaps that was simply a failure just like the Dreamcast was, which isn't at all indicative of a failing console market which is firing at all cylinders.
EDIT: Almost forgot -- there are more games being released now than at any point in time.
I didn't
The PS4 is not going to outsell the PS2. It might match the Wii but it won't make up from the decline from the Xbox One and the Wii U had from their predecessors. Again, don't just look at the PS4 but the console market as a whole.
Theslammer
Member
That's why I'm saying it's healthy.
LordRaptor
Member
Uh.... you sure about that? On consoles?
Theslammer
Member
Correct.
LordRaptor
Member
Well I'm going to require a source on that because XBLIG alone accounted for 3400 games on just the 360 last gen.
Well... you and all the reports that arbitrarily exclude it from the comparison?
Yes, generally speaking I love Nintendo systems.
But I have been thinking/discussing about the lack of sustainability of the AAA industry in the mid-long term since 2004-5 (Iwata actually started talking about this at least in 2001, but I wasn't following *that* closely back then), so WiiU has nothing to do with it - I also own many other gaming platforms so it was never a matter of having nothing to play, quite the opposite due to the already mentioned huge backlog
Source?
Birgitte2004
Member
Nintendo alone doesn't even make looking at the whole console market make sense. Not because of the Wii, but because they broke away from the generations from everybody else, so you can no longer even come up with a comparison which doesn't have a huge gaping hole in it.
Zelmardonpoktendo
Banned
Why do people say comments like this
Where is your proof that the buzz is fading fast?
This is exactly what happened with the Wii and look how that sold. Just relax
Theslammer
Member
PS4 is at 1914 at less than four years.
Well... you and all the reports that arbitrarily exclude it from the comparison?
Then either you're not being honest or, more likely, you think I'm trying to be dishonest.
Where am I ignoring it?
And I can see how having a Wii U would make you think things are awful, but I have high hopes for the Switch, especially as portability becomes a thing but demand for AAA gaming (or even AA) remains.
LordRaptor
Member
Apart from the fact the very link you provide has Far Cry 5 listed as two seperate games, that is not a proof of the claim you made.
Theslammer
Member
Did you look at your link? Because you had different variations of Xbox Avatar games, which contain far less content than Far Cry Standard and Far Cry Deluxe.
So yes, it is proof. You can look at wikipedia, which shows 1700+, more than half of what you linked to a console that released games for 9 - 10 years, if that helps. *shrugs*
D.Lo
Member
So Xbox+GC+DC barley sold anything? The Xbone will probably not reach their combined total (56m), so I guess it has 'barely sold anything'. And PS2 sold 155 million, you think PS4 will reach that?
And as others have mentioned, that's still a pathetic bar, to go back to sales from a decade ago to get something comparable.
Exactly. The PS4/Xbone's mild gains over PS360 is vastly overshadowed by the fact the Wii was the clear market leader and that whole 50% of the market as it was in 2006-2011 has essentially disappeared.
Put it another way - the Wii was the new PS2 last gen, at least for the first 4-5 years. Nintendo and Microsoft's gains came partly from market expansion, but mostly from Sony's losses (PS2->PS3 = -70 million consoles). Nintendo and MS's gains were ~+130 million consoles, so assuming PS3 got no new consumers over PS2, 60M was market expansion and 70M was taken from Sony by Nintendo/MS. Any claims that all Wii/Kinect gamers were 'new gamers who didn't buy games before' will have to explain where the 70 million missing PS2 gamers went.
So what is the new Wii this gen? Nothing. Wii U cratered, and PS4/XO have only mild gains over their generation losing predecessors, which IMO is mostly just because they started at and got to better price points more quickly.
This generation is down ~40% so far, not even counting handhelds. Try and tell a stockbroker that a market being down 40% is 'healthy'.
Papacheeks
Banned
Available stock definatley stops the train.
And seeing it was beet by PS4 in a slow month says it all. It's also not going to get better until the whole bidding war for toshiba ends with more factory's.
Which wont be close to end of the year going into 2018.
Things will get worse before they get better.
I don't think you understand how dire the situation for stock is right now for switch and how it wont be getting any better till possibly 2018. Holidays if they dont have at least a decent surplus of stock, PS4/XBOX are going to be the items people buy.
LordRaptor
Member
So are you going to back up your claim or not?
XBLIG was shut down after 7 years, and racked up around 9 new titles every week for the entire duration.
You can say "Oh, theres more work in Far Cry 5 limited vs deluxe than 2 XBLIG titles" all you want, but those are all separate games and Far Cry 5 variant editions are not.
There are fewer retail releases this gen for consoles than there were last gen - this is indisputable fact, and you can search for CosmicQuesos graphs on the matter in previous NPDs if you wish.
The only element in doubt it in digital only releases, and the prodigious releases of XBLIG alone make me question that statement.
Because you said "more games are being released today on consoles than ever before" - the onus is on you to prove that that is true.
Theslammer
Member
If the argument is that the Xbox One won't be able the match the combined total of three consoles, then that's an impressive stretch.
I did. Now you're trying ignore the link you gave, which lists E3 2007 as one of those 3400 games. Remember that rad game?
Now we're talking about "what counts" because now you're limiting it to retail games. Hate to break it to you, but Nex Machina is every bit as much of a game as a Bombastic or Mister Mosquito is. And someone making DLC isn't that much different than making a sequel using the same assets (which happened frequently), and if you want to split hairs with me about that, then oh boy.
EDIT: Damn, your link lists Facebook as a game.
ronaldthump
Member
so, um, slightly OT but isn't ROCKSTAR meant to be a mess and horrible people to work for?
if they're selling so many copies of GTAV I don't see why they can't treat their staff nicer.
if they're selling so many copies of GTAV I don't see why they can't treat their staff nicer.