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Could a console that focused on "traditional" gaming be successful?

Could a console that focused on "traditional" gaming be successful?

With this i mean a console built to play games, call them core gamesor whatever does not matter. Where every cent goes towards creating a good high end gaming standard.

without any focus on casual gaming like kinect, move, or multi media features like bluray or windows 8, or pvr etc?

Just a really powerful console with a traditional controller sold at say 400 bucks?

No gimmicks, no extras.
 

params7

Banned
You do know that's exactly what Valve claims Steambox will be and is joining the console competition next gen right? Yeah it'll be successful. No doubt about it.
 

Raide

Member
The market is so much more diverse now. I just don't see someone aiming at a narrowing band of gamers at the cost of wider market coverage (i.e. Wads of cash)
 

guek

Banned
Success depends on expectations so...yes?

As big as any of the big 3 are today though? I don't think so.
 

Derrick01

Banned
You do know that's exactly what Valve claims Steambox will be and is joining the console competition next gen right? Yeah it'll be successful. No doubt about it.

Steambox is a PC so it can do whatever a PC can do like Netflix and facebook. Doesn't count.

Shadow of the BEAST said:
Am i the only one who dont use my consoles for anything but gaming?

Nope that's all I use them for. I don't have or want a Netflix account and I use facebook on my PC.
 
With an appropriate library, advertising campaign, and price point, it could most definitely survive. Getting those three points to converge on one platform, however, is another story.
 

tokkun

Member
Seems like a waste of resources to put a powerful CPU and GPU into a box and limit it to only play games (or only core games). People are so ready to drop hundreds of dollars on high end smartphones because it's not just a phone, but a full computer with web browser, multimedia player, calendar, games, etc.
 

Xander51

Member
I feel like this would get the reputation of being the "thing that does less" and people tend to like more features in their devices. More features do not necessarily preclude amazing traditional game experiences. See: all the consoles we have right now.
 

Copenap

Member
You have to be more precise. Is the "gaming experience" up to date? Meaning party chat, gamer tags, all that stuff? Or are we talking N64/PS with some online multiplayer here?
 
The 360 and PS3 each shipped more than the SNES and Gamecube combined. They both served a similar market and still moved that much consoles. The sky is the limit for whoever knows how to their product best in the "core" gaming sector. The Wii was pretty much a gaming machine that could play Netflix and it is gonna settle at 100 million as well. The audience there is not so faithful though.

MS bleeds money, it seems. Sony's gaming division seemingly had to carry the burden of it's movie division in the form of the stupidly expensive BD drive. I'm interested in seeing what happens when RROD and exotic technology aren't producing mountains of red ink.
 
Market is definetly different now, with a lot of people using their consoles as entertainment boxes.

Personally, the only thing I ever do with my consoles is play games. I'm not interested in doing anything else such as movie streaming and apps mainly because of my setup at home, but if I didn't have a PC connected to my TV I probably would like to be able to stream content on my PS3 to the TV.
 
Since modern consoles already have 'traditional' or 'core' games(in addition to other crap), I'm not sure what removing everything else would do. Do we only get the multi-platform games that are good? That's fine, I just don't know what the advantage is over the other consoles. Also, what it means for a game to be 'traditional' or 'core' is pretty nebulous. The industry would say Modern Warfare multiplayer is a 'core' game, but that's the last thing I'm interested in buying a console for.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
I wouldn't buy it. Our "game systems" are the middle of our entertainment boxes since we haven't had cable in almost 10 years now.

I still have cable but the PS3 is great because being a lot in a box. Don't need separate bluray player. It also lets the family use prime videos and netflix. I would want no part of a game only machine these days. This is not the year 2000.

I could agree with the original post if was about getting rid of gimmicks but not getting rid of the very useful functionality.
 
I own a ps3. I have never used it for its media functions. Hell i dont even own a blueray disc.

I tried to use it once, but it did not support the format.

Frankly i dont know anyone who uses their consoles for anything but gaming? Most of my friends play their fifas and call of duty. That is pretty much it.

Most people i know uses their laptop or media players for movies etc.
 

Ivan

Member
Sometimes I wonder how the fuck we got to the point where we have to talk about all this. I remember my young self thinking about the future of gaming: "If we have this now, imagine next 20 years...". Motion controls, kinect, "casual gamers", thumbsticks on a touchscreen...little did I know.

If PS4 doesn't fuck up with the controller, I'll be ok.
 

Orayn

Member
Gaming and non-gaming features are not a zero-sum game. Microsoft doesn't allocate the Xbox division a fixed amount of money and make the OS/software developers and hardware teams fight over it.
 

Nessus

Member
Higher end graphics means games are more expensive to create, means bigger development teams, longer development cycles, and a far more risk-averse climate.

You don't make that kind of investment and then intentionally decide to market it to fewer people.
 

Mandoric

Banned
Most of the features you're talking about removing come free with the high end gaming standard. Many of the others -are- part of the high-end gaming standard now, with waggle having dragged itself up to Skyward Sword levels and the Move having found its niche as a competitive FPS controller.

You could shave perhaps ten bucks off the price of the console by ditching Blu-ray and DVD playback, which are the real entertainment-only features. Nintendo did this. That's not going to buy you enough power to differentiate.
 
Btw im not against ps4 or xbox3 having netflix or other software stuff.

Im against them using precious silicon catering to such things.


Gaming and non-gaming features are not a zero-sum game.

yes they can be.

look at ms and their proposed 3 gb dedicated to os features.
or the blueray in ps3

or the fucking wii?
 

Orayn

Member
yes they can be.

look at ms and their proposed 3 gb dedicated to os features.
or the blueray in ps3

or the fucking wii?

Again, not necessarily a zero sum game. The software team probably didn't come and twist the hardware team's arm to reserve a certain amount of memory of OS and non-gaming features after the total amount had already been chosen. The two teams were likely working together and figuring out how much would be needed the entire time. If there were absolutely no non-gaming features being considered, those consoles very well could have wound up with less RAM.
 
Not to the level that you'd like OP, no.

Too many services available on too many devices that the consoles have to compete with to get that hard earned dosh.
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
Shadow of the BEAST, at first, I thought you were suggesting a console that only had classic, old-school games and gameplay.

But you seem to be talking more about a system that ignores many of the "new" functions that games have now-a-days, in order to simply be an old-style game system.

... In that case, I don't know. If a system goes out of it's way to prevent maxamizing it's potential, does that send a good message?

"Have this really awesome disk drive... it only reads our gamedisk!"
"Have this awesome internet connection... BUT IT'S ONLY FOR MULTIPLAYER!"

I quite disliked the way the Wii and, to a lesser extend, Gamecube, totally avoided having DVD or Music Disk playback. Especially when you see clever stuff like the 3DS music player having game-related visualizers and such. Just wasted potential.

Calling some of the functionality of modern game consoles "gimmicks", just seem too limiting. I'd love a system that has a hardcore focus of games like a Neo Geo (all 2D, all the time!), but with modern network, UI, game-related social features, and maybe even it's own exclusive uses for some of the "additional gimmicks".

Like lets say it's Bluray drive or streaming service was used to play exclusive movies based on their stable of games, or the internet features were used to create their own inter-connected web world (I guess Miiverse, basically)?

If it excelled at it's own thing in such a way; where it actually took the advancements of modern consoles, and ran with them, yet provided 2D graphics that were much beyond what any of the other consoles could (due to limited Ram, and more time spend on Poly-crunching, rather than Sprite-Crunching), then I could see it becoming a worthwhile thing.

But if it shunned modern innovations and functionality, just to appeal to the "gaming core", then it'd deserve to be forgotten pretty swiftly, and probably would be.

As a person who purchased things like the Power Glove, or Dance Pads for his PS1, I'm happy to see unique control methods becoming more standard. Peripherals like this actually see support to their fullest extent, rather than dying off before ever seeing some attempt at real use and development.
 

Dabanton

Member
I'm going to say no.

And this splitting of games into 'casual' and 'gimmicks' is very,very boneheaded. As for other stuff like multimedia features I would dare a company in this day and age to try and not have that stuff in. They'd be fucked when people who are looking for value, games and services have a side by side glance at the machine and it's competitors.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
At this point, it could only be successful in a niche. It could maybe stay profitable within that niche, but it would never become, say, a market leader. The last consoles that banked 100% on pure hardcore gaming were the Dreamcast and the Gamecube. The market has just changed too much.

The reason dedicated handhelds are in trouble is because the mass audience doesn't want to carry around another machine just to play games. They'd rather play games on the machine they already carry around with them to do everything else. I think that eventually that mentality is gonna hit the living room when Apple releases a TV or set top box of some kind that brings iOS to the living room.

At that point people are gonna start to want just one device to do everything instead of having a whole separate box under their TV for playing games. Microsoft at least believes this and wants to get there first. Personally I don't mind.

At the end of the day, game consoles are built to play software on your TV. Arguably, they are the very best machines for doing this. They're much more powerful than set top boxes and Smart TVs, they have more refined user interfaces, and their manufacturers have almost 30 years of experience making them while all the other companies are starting from square one.

My PS3 is probably the best video-playing device I own, and I use it for playing video games at least as much as I play games on it. It's my only Blu-Ray player, it contains the best Netflix app I own, and I watch a fair bit of downloaded movies on it. Hell, I bought it when 300 came out on Blu-Ray because the console didn't have any killer apps yet. The first PS3 "killer app" I bought for it was probably Planet Earth on Blu-Ray. I've also occasionally used it to display family photos on the big screen. I only wish more video apps would come to PSN. None of that takes away from the system's ability to play games. That said, I do plan to eventually hook a computer up to my TV, which will probably make me stop using my PS3 and Xbox for any non-gaming functions.

The reason Apple and Android suck at this is simply because of the control interface (and price ceiling on the games probably). Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't have that problem. If it's Microsoft devoting 3GB of RAM for the OS, isn't that out of like 8GB or something? If that's true, and the next PlayStation is packing 4GB with just 512MB devoted to the OS, then I can tell you right now that 4GB of memory is PLENTY for playing video games. It may not be the max, but it's still a huge jump from what's available to current gen consoles.

You do know that's exactly what Valve claims Steambox will be and is joining the console competition next gen right? Yeah it'll be successful. No doubt about it.

True, but you'll be able to install Windows and therefore any software you want on that thing.
 
You know what I would really like to remain with consoles though? When you can just pop in the disc and play. No logging in to fucking servers, or authentications, or set ups or all that bullshit. Just boot the system, put the disc in, and BAM. Play.
 

Haunted

Member
Sounds pretty niche.

One console goes for ultimate power for 400bucks
The other multi media, do everything and gaming on the side for 400 bucks

which one would you buy?
GAF is that niche, you'll get skewed results here.


My answer would be neither, because I already have a PC... that can do both.
 
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