Support NeoGAF

[MrNyarlathotep]

Sounds like wii gamers with sour grapes. Um, bros... The people buying RE 4 weren't the primary ones buying Just Dance. If that's what the gaming industry has to cater to to "save" itself, I'll be chilling on PC.

I've heard middle aged women in the supermarket discussing Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright.

Why?

Because they bought a DS for brain training, they looked at games similar to that experience and found themselves buying what are generally accepted as "real" games and enjoying them.

You can look down on people who enjoy Just Dance all you want, but there is ZERO chance of that market transitioning into better quality software if that market is driven away; people who enjoyed Just Dance could easily have found themselves transitoning to a Rock Band or even a Rez.

 

[Seance]

Points 1 2 and 4 are just lol. As for 3, eh, that's just the nature of the beast. Companies struggle to balance revenue with their costs in any industry.


The WiiU can fail completely and the console space will be fine. There are plenty of kids on the HD twins.

The ultra-casuals on the Wii were always going to be fickle as all hell. You can't keep octogenarians and soccer mums gaming without some fresh and exciting gimmick.

PS4 and X1 sales are great, even better than PS360 were at released. The Wii situation was an outlier due t the emergence of the ultra-casual audience. It will unlikely ever happen again and is not something that can be chased after effectively.

 

[noobasuar]

Did those 160 million people that bought PS3's and 360's suddenly lose interest? I don't understand the concern.

I think so. Not all of them obviously but enough for publishers to be worried about how well their games are about to sell.

 

[Taurus]

Console industry is fine. I've said why plenty of times before, but yes, it's gonna be alright.

I understand there are legitimate concerns from unbiased people and I respect those concerns, but I also get the feeling a lot of that "doom and gloom" comes from butthurt Microsoft and Nintendo fanboys.

Have you noticed that there is a Sony handheld console on the market that is like a massive flop?

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

The fact of the matter is that NOBODY know how many people who bought the Wii (and before that, the PS2) are these hypothetical "ultra casuals" and "soccer moms".

There are gaffers who owned a Wii. There are gaffers who owned and enjoyed Wii Fit.

The Wii had a decent attach rate, and that meant people were buying games for it.

The more homogenous the output of a console is, the more niche the target audience becomes. There are entire genres that are now no longer considered viable on consoles, and any audience that enjoyed them are now gone. This is a bad thing for a healthy ecosystem.

 

[Taurus]

Did those 160 million people that bought PS3's and 360's suddenly lose interest? I don't understand the concern.

Are you serious? Do you actually think there are 160 million single people that bought these consoles?

What about core gamers that buy all or at least several different consoles? As in one consumer who owns both consoles you mentioned. Also, there are reportedly shitloads of consoles that suffered from YLOD or RROD after warranty was over. These people just went and bought a new console. As in consumers buying several pieces of the same console. Anecdotal evidence: I have bought 3 X360s; 20Gb version, 60Gb version and finally Slim version.

 

[Faustek]

a parent would buy something random, unknown for their kid or spouse.

Yeah sorry but Parents today are effing selfish or can't afford a secondary console.

"I'll buy this M rated game so I can play with my kid when he grows up...in 10 years!!"

So no I don't think it's in trouble at all. The kids will just skip the "Nintendo step" into gaming, their loss I know :/ But hopefully they'll get a 3DS(Sorry my lovely Vita but you don't really have the "kids" games) while they see their parents play on the "big boy" console.

Spoiler

I do think we're in for a rough ride with all those neglected kids growing up though.

Blame it on stress, "equality"

Spoiler

Seriously stop being stupid, both working doesn't mean the kid need to loose out on their upbringing or bonding time. So don't you fucking dare use that excuse or I'll let my old boss speak with you. He likes to kick people in the happy place, literally

or whatever but from my perspective many of the parents today are just more selfish bastards not wanting to buy a "kids" console because they as well want to play games.

I'm hoping it's just a economic situation but in my social circuit no one really has that sort of problem instead they are just selfish bastards....I need new friends

 

[SneakyStephan]

The casual market wasn't needed before and still isn't needed , good fucking riddance let them go to mobile or w/e until they get bored of that too and move on to the next fad like locusts to the next crop

AAA model (hopefully) might be running itself into the ground but I don't see how that is relevant, the market for vidyagames isn't going anywhere a better supplier will take the place of EA/activision/ubisoft etc


wii u failed because the hardware was poor value, had no games and the name is confusing and stupid so people didn't even know it was a thing


Look how much bullshit people are willing to put up with (paywalls, dlc, IAPS, next gen premium etc) and still somehow these things keep selling ...

 

[Nafai1123]

I think so. Not all of them obviously but enough for publishers to be worried about how well their games are about to sell.

Where's the evidence though? The big AAA games still sell a ton of copies. The new consoles are selling at a record pace. Sure, I think there is some fatigue with some of the worn out franchises, but that's because they've made a fuckton of them in the past 8 years. With a new generation they need something fresh to capture the audience again. There are already several new IP's announced that have that capacity. I think it's way too early to jump to the conclusion that this generation is going to drop off a cliff.

Are you serious? Do you actually think there are 160 million single people that bought these consoles?

What about core gamers that buy all or at least several different consoles? As in one consumer who owns both consoles you mentioned. Also, there are reportedly shitloads of consoles that suffered from YLOD or RROD after warranty was over. These people just went and bought a new console. As in consumers buying several pieces of the same console. Anecdotal evidence: I have bought 3 X360s; 20Gb version, 60Gb version and finally Slim version.

What's your point? Are people going to stop doing that this generation? Do you think the prices of the new consoles are going to drop slower than the last gen? I don't even see how that would be possible considering neither is below $200 after 8 damn years.

 

[many places]

High initial sales =/= long-term health. In fact, we've seen lately that sales are becoming more front-loaded everywhere, and then prices drop like a rock.



Success becoming more concentrated among fewer titles is actually evidence of decline, not health. Or did you not notice that today not reaching GTA/COD success means your studio gets closed?



Hype among whom, exactly?



Absolutely the worst metric for measuring real success. Or do you not remember Sony in 2006?

Naughty Dog hype is everywhere in the gaming industry. TLOU won several game of the year awards. Uncharted 4, TLOU 2, and possibly a Crash reboot are all on console gamer's minds these days. How is the general publics (the people who make or the break the industry in regards to sales) attitude a terrible metric? If it was a terrible metric then why is twitter, facebook, etc. so massively involved in gathering public opinion on games, game companies, etc. If public opinion did not matter then why was Microsoft shit on for so long this summer?

I agree that devs going after the CoD money are ridiculous and need to stray far away from that and let CoD do its own thing. I just do not see how these series selling well is in any way bad.

 

[Byakuya769]

I've heard middle aged women in the supermarket discussing Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright.

Why?

Because they bought a DS for brain training, they looked at games similar to that experience and found themselves buying what are generally accepted as "real" games and enjoying them.

You can look down on people who enjoy Just Dance all you want, but there is ZERO chance of that market transitioning into better quality software if that market is driven away; people who enjoyed Just Dance could easily have found themselves transitoning to a Rock Band or even a Rez.

How were those people driven away? Because they couldn't play Resident Evil 5!?! Didn't SMG2 have lower sales than the first with a larger install base? If those gamers were so ready and willing to move on to other experiences, the 360 was very cheap by the end of the generation and seeing strong US sales because of a camera aimed right at casuals. Why is it so hard to accept that the casuals who are perfectly fine playing free games on their cell phones today just have different tastes that weren't going to be captured by what has traditionally attracted the core market? Sometimes the market just isn't there. Hell, Nintendo expressly focused on them and has shit to show for it because core gamers were the ones who actually rush to buy consoles early and they weren't satisfied with the offerings.

 

[Eusis]

Big budget games are in trouble, and I'm not sure lower budget games can successfully draw people in.

If we could have the budgets and numbers needed for success of the 8-bit, 16-bit, even 32-bit eras yet still had the number of people PLAYING today it'd be an absolute golden age, but budgets ballooned faster than people took up playing those kinds of games, and a lot of those people will not be tolerant to scaling back. Nevermind that part of scaling back involves less marketting usually so that means less awareness anyway, but that specifically is kind of a catch 22 anyway.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

I'm noticing a few trends. Well known game developers like David Jaffe, Cliffy B, and Peter Molyneux decided to make smaller games. There seems to be this transition of game creators who don't want to work for big publishers any longer. They are either tired of the AAA platform or they want to be more creative and found themselves stuck doing the same thing all because of publishers placing their money on safe bets. Indie games are becoming the hot new commodity.

Another thing I noticed was the immense pressure for these big games to sell well. Tomb Raider numbers were good but Square said not good enough. It just goes to show how unsustainable the market is for expensive games. Same thing happened for movie studios.

Since the beginning of last generation we've also seen the huge rise in mobile gaming and cheap titles. Angry Birds really opened up the floodgates and put immense pressure on companies like Nintendo who want to make sure the value stays high. It is just so competitive out there now. People balk now when a game for $60 doesn't have multiplayer or it only lasts 12 hours.

A game like Minecraft has also changed gaming. So there is still plenty of opportunities out there but a lot of these big publishers are too slow to react to change or don't want to. Kickstarter programs have also shown there is still a desire out there from the community that the publishers don't seem to listen to.

What will console sales be in 2 years? That's the real question.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

How were those people driven away? Because they couldn't play Resident Evil 5!?!

Resident Evil is itself now a part of a niche genre that is now unviable on consoles, by Capcoms own words.

So what happens to people who enjoy games like Resident Evil when they cannot buy games like Resident Evil anymore?
Do they not matter because they get reclassified as "uber casuals" or "soccer moms" or whatever?

 

[Poimandres]

I think console gaming is going to be fine. It might not be in its current form, and I agree that something has to change with AAA games and absurd budgets, but there will always be enough of a demand for videogames to sustain the market. For the foreseeable future anyway.

 

[Jack_AG]

1) Fault of the manufacturer, not "consoles", in general.
2) They still eat up casual console franchises. Nothing has changed.
3) Solely the fault of the asinine publishers/devs who ride so much on a name or franchise. Stupid decisions doom games, not "consoles".
4) We are 3 months in and you compare it to 2 years? I'll still bite: one IS selling out almost everywhere. The other? Not so much.

You are reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaly reaching here, man.

 

[Ultimatepancake]

The wii u was simply not a good idea. Makes sense that it's not selling well. Casual gamers barely buy games anyways do that doesn't matter. Last point makes no sense and you shouldn't have made it.
3rd point however, is very valid, and it's very unhealthy for publishers and devs. Luckily, even if all the big publishers die we'll still have indies.

 

[jblank83]

We're in the middle of one of the biggest economic shifts in modern history. The middle class is being decimated and finances suck.

2013 and 2014 are not barometers to gauge the health of the console game industry.

If anything, the resilience of the industry in the face of this adversity is remarkable. People have an insatiable hunger for games. Every single system last generation sold over 80 million units, every single system. And they did this in the face of the "rise of mobile".

Come back in 10 years and look at all the message board pundits and doomsayers and laugh, because gaming isn't going anywhere.

 

[Faustek]

Resident Evil is itself now a part of a niche genre that is now unviable on consoles, by Capcoms own words.

So what happens to people who enjoy games like Resident Evil when they cannot buy games like Resident Evil anymore?
Do they not matter because they get reclassified as "uber casuals" or "soccer moms" or whatever?

Which Resident Evil? To me RE hasn't been RE in many of it's different iterations. If you're just after the tension/being scared of the old games there are plenty of those still out there. And a few big ones being made. Btw We got one for free just recently on PS+ for Ps4.

 

[SmoothRunningGun]

Sorry op. PS4 is kicking ass. Go sell doom and gloom elsewhere.

 

[FiggyCal]

I don't think console gaming is going anywhere yet OP.

We're only just 3 months in of the PS4 and Xbox One launch. Screaming doomed is premature.

 

[Krisprolls]

Console gaming is not in trouble but the gaming market changed. Handheld consoles are threatened by smartphones and tablets. They bring cheap short games.

Casuals left the console market they joined with the Wii. Now they're playing iOS / android games. That's what makes some people think the market is shrinking. But only handheld market is shrinking. And Wii was an anomaly bringing casual players.

But the core gamers ? They're still on consoles and they show no sign of leaving any time soon. PS4 wouldn't have broken every sales record if this market was shrinking.

They won't leave consoles for PC either since more money is made on consoles due to PC piracy, which means the best games will still be first on consoles or console exclusives.

In 2013 the best games were The Last of Us, GTA 5 and Mario. None of those were playable on PC. As long as publishers make more money on consoles (hint : they will always do), console gaming will never be in trouble.

 

[Andronicus]

Sky is falling thread of the day

 

[Metfanant]

Isn't the PS4 selling faster than the PS2?...let that sink in for a bit, and then we can talk about the death of consoles...

 

[Kai Dracon]

The potential challenges are nuanced. Pointing to GTA V sales may be slightly misleading, as it is a tentpole release in a firmly established series that still has a shitload of fans. And its sales were in part powered by a large installed userbase inherited from the previous generation - before the market both expanded and changed. I wonder what the statistics would be on GTA V buyers who had and hadn't bought an AAA game in more than a year.

There are ongoing concerns about the practices of the industry. How sustainable are the kinds of games core gamers have become comfortable with, when you're not talking about GTA V sales? 4 million copies sold can still be a "flop" and result in downsizing or studios being shuttered.

I'm not talking about doom here, but I think the jury is generally out until we see:

- Sustained new console sales past year one.

- New, core-console oriented IPs and franchises established that become successful on the next generation of consoles. Not just GTA 6, or the next Call of Duty. The problem with potential audience disinterest is that a few genre kings may still sell as they are capable of eliciting excitement from people who can't be bothered to look past those games.

- Signs that a younger generation is, in significant numbers, buying into game consoles as a primary entertainment device and not sticking with their tablets/phones and/or moving on to something other than video games entirely.

 

[DrkSage]

Gaming consoles are not doomed, it's gaming journalism and journalism in general that makes it seem that way.

 

[Kimawolf]

Wii U comes out, does abysmally bad in January 2013 and we are told this, in various variations:

"Just wait for ___, its gonna be fine, once ____ comes out it will be great, just wait, be PATIENT!"

A plea for patience

During this time, we are told that PS4 and XB1 are doomed to fail, because the Wii U did, so Wii U = PS4/XB1.

This proves to be exact opposite. And when i say "prove" i mean factually, numerically proven to be wrong by sales data of today.

The PS4 and XB1 do incredibly well, where we today, as of this writing there are nearly 10 million people who have purchased one or the other. The PS4 in particular sets sales records in US and UK.

..Yet the industry is more doomed today, when console(s) are actually selling, rather than a year ago when we had one that did worse than the Dreamcast, then it was "just wait"

Really? Nintendo fucked up, and Ken Levine and his team hook 6 years to create a 8 hour single player game in the same time frame it took Naughty Dog to create UC1-3 and the Last of Us.

Stop making excuses for Nintendo and try to stitch together some sort of narrative that is being proven to be wrong. They do not need your or anyones excuses, they will bounce back next gen.

See this is the problem with having any discussion not talking about how insane PS 4 is doing. This particular type of poster immediately begins going on a defensive if he/she feels his choice or hobby is "attacked". So they begin to marginalize, to use memes and well repeated phrases and then throw up the fanboy card. It only serves to bring down conversation to "lol salty" and gif wars.

I suppose there is no room for discussion that isn't just "omg next gen rocks!!! 5 million!!"? Anyone else with a different viewpoint is "making excuses"? Poor argument.

Fact is there are 3 major console makers. One is completely in the shitter and the other two fight it out for the ps2 generation... Again. Despite GTA selling a billion copies game sales were Dow. Think on the that a moment. Then realize pokemon also released as was COD and ACIV and other big names.

Now you are obviously included in that gen so it is fine for you but it only serves to perpetuate the stereotype of gamers being insular with their heads in the sand ignoring everything around them because "its not what I think!"

I am a fan of Nintendo games but make no mistake PC is my only "narrative" I would push. So please accept there are people who really are not pushing some "narrative" to make excuses. Some of us just like to see the forest as a whole not one healthy tree in it.

 

[Quadraphonic]

Sky is falling thread of the day

My console of choice is doing badly, therefore I must say they all are, so that I can feel I didn't purchase the wrong one, but that everyone is abandoning my hobby.

 

[Byakuya769]

Resident Evil is itself now a part of a niche genre that is now unviable on consoles, by Capcoms own words.

So what happens to people who enjoy games like Resident Evil when they cannot buy games like Resident Evil anymore?
Do they not matter because they get reclassified as "uber casuals" or "soccer moms" or whatever?

And making these vaunted games that the grandmas in the corner store like changes that how? If those games made Capcom money, making cash on those to fund "niche genres that [are now] unviable on consoles" is bad business. So guess what? Grandma would get her games and RE fans are still SOL because the games still wouldn't be viable and on top of that, Capcom wouldn't even need or want to take the risk because they have another revenue stream.

 

[Quasar]

Nope. AAA with bloated sales expectations (see Lara Croft and Bioshock Infinite) might be in trouble. Thats all though. Maybe this will get some folks to be more thoughful about projects and project management.

Other companies seem to manage making high quality looking and playing games without 100s of millions in dev budgets or 5-6 year dev cycles.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Every generational transition this comes up. Just because the market crashed with Atari, people like to think it'll happen again. People have been predicting this since the PS1. The market is healthy enough to last a few more gens. If nothing else, the market will just go full mobile. PEACE.

 

[NoPiece]

We don't, really. Even if we do, it's not a healthy market to tap into at this point. Don't lose what you already have. Creating an all-in-one entertainment machine is enough in drawing enough attention to casuals like how the PS4 and X1 are doing.

You and I may not need a growing market, but the big publishers, that are public companies, need a growing market to grow revenue to keep the investors happy. If they can't grow by selling AAA console titles, they'll look elsewhere, mobile, China. We are already seeing it happen. In the extreme, like we see publishers shut down developers like Irrational, they might shut down console development. Consoles won't die, but may end up more niche, with less choice, fewer publishers, fewer games, smaller games.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Market is fine. Failure is something that needs to happen it makes others and those that fail wiser from the experience (if the fall does not destroy them).

Wii U is a symptom of Nintendo buying into their own bullshit matter of fact all the things that seem wrong are a symptom of a studio, publisher consumer buying into their own bullshit. Gaming while trendy is not mainstream yet, this is no transformers where people here say the movie is shit forgetting the wacky nuttiness is universal somebody on the other side of the planet can watch it and enjoy it too. It's time for people in the making of games to know how large their market is, it's not as big as they think it is. I think we are seeing what mmo players finally realized.

Yes it's sad Nintendo is doing wrong but it's not unwarranted they ran to casuals forgetting that unless you convert casuals they are very fickle and will move on. I think te wii do so well for 2 reasons, their competition fucked up in the start and the market slowed allowing their cheap novel idea to flourish, but that was a one time deal, if you get something like that you build on it .

Now unlike some I won't point to GTA selling nearly 40 million as a great sign of health rather I will say Skyrim selling 20 million Tomb Raider selling 4-6 million borderlands selling over 5 million and so on a good sign of health. Also the sucess of Dark Souls and Dragon's crown with modest budgeting and smart design is a sign of health and potential.


Personally I think what has been going on with cramming the channel with games needs to slow down and be more spread out. I think Studios need to spread out their games in intervals that they get the best time to sell and in spreading out their love they can continue to make revenue. And yes the mega studios will probably need some down sizing with some quality outsourcing work done as well to keep team size down to better handle budgets. You can't give these teams massive amounts of money and expect them to use it well. From Software Naughty Dog are the exception not the rule.


I also thing the public is waking up to some of the subpar practices and a few failures will be needed to weed out some of the bad ideas. However I think publishers and developers also need to take the reins a bit more. Sometimes you have t show the community what they like.

I think this is a time for consolidation and restructuring before we can start growing again.

 

[Clockwork5]

Gta 5 sales...

Record smashing console sales...

Me, I guess...

 

[infiniteheteroskdasticity]

Its no different than its always been. Wii U apart the new consoles are all doing very well. The Wii was an aberration where it was able to capture a lot of the casuals that turned out to be just waiting for smartphones/tablets to get good enough. That audience is lost and I'm very doubtful dedicated handhelds have a future as a result.

What's left are gamers that would prefer to game on a big screen. Consoles are pretty much the only choice at a mass market friendly price point, a plug and play friendly tech level and a developer friendly fixed spec. PC's are too expensive (increasingly so thanks to bitcoin miners), complicated and lack any unified "platform". Valve's attempt at consolizing the space suffers from a degree of fragmentation that would make Google blush.

What does need to change is the current economic model underpinning game development. A lot of games spend more on marketing than the game itself. The big publishers all have enormous overheads with managers and professional paper pushers outnumbering developers. This can not continue.

 

[Darmik]

I'm not entirely convinced the PS4 can carry a generation on its own. It's not the PS2 days anymore. It would need to absolutely decimate PS3 and perhaps even Wii figures for it to be reliable. Otherwise the console market will have shrunk significantly and major publishers will look elsewhere or only take safe bets.

Is console gaming dying? Not really. The AAA market seems to be though. I don't think we'll see many AAA games this generation that aren't existing IP's, shooters or open world games. Games like Splinter Cell, Hitman, Rayman, Ghost Recon etc. all are in danger of getting the chop this generation in my eyes. Or be scaled down to low budget titles.

 

[spookyfish]

GTA 5 selling millions disagrees with you

This, plus COD and Madden sales also says the casual gamer hasn't gone anywhere.

 

[Jirotrom]

Console gaming is fine. PC gaming is still waaaayyy to offputting/expensive to loads of gamers.

joke post... 0_o. PC gaming is booming. Thank you steam

 

[Faustek]

Now you are obviously included in that gen so it is fine for you but it only serves to perpetuate the stereotype of gamers being insular with their heads in the sand ignoring everything around them because "its not what I think!"

Seems to me that this can be applied to your first as well. And as a PC gamer...holy crap do you have your head deep deep deeep down in the sand if you think it's dying. Notice a trend how many of the more "accomplished" "Indie" games are making it over to console? How everyone wants to be in that curated garden with a giant userbase and, compared to pc, a few amount of games to chose from?

Nah I wouldn't doubt it if console gaming became smaller as many more will transition to PC, especially when a $149 graphic card can run a few games better than one of the competing Next Gen machines. But at the same time more people joining PC gaming means more lazy/stressed/idiots will not be able to deal with drivers/installs/stupid fucking DRM schemes and just hop on Consoles. So nah, you should really stop ignoring everything around you and go sit in a different corner so you get a new perspective.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Seems to me that this can be applied to your first as well. And as a PC gamer...holy crap do you have your head deep deep deeep down in the sand if you think it's dying. Notice a trend how many of the more "accomplished" "Indie" games are making it over to console? How everyone wants to be in that curated garden with a giant userbase and, compared to pc, a few amount of games to chose from?

Nah I wouldn't doubt it if console gaming became smaller as many more will transition to PC, especially when a $149 graphic card can run a few games better than one of the competing Next Gen machines. But at the same time more people joining PC gaming means more lazy/stressed/idiots will not be able to deal with drivers/installs/stupid fucking DRM schemes and just hop on Consoles. So nah, you should really stop ignoring everything around you and go sit in a different corner so you get a new perspective.

PC gaming will slowly die off or transition to the Steambox. Hate to say it but leptops, tablets and phablets are going to be the primary computing devices in the future. IMO, desktops are just not where this world is heading, and that sector is going to shrink more, not expand. Just my opinion. I think Valve sees this coming as well. PEACE.

 

[muu]

Consoles are here to stay. The AAA market is cutthroat and I can see more and more studios dying, but not everyone's going to stop -- there's just too much money to be made when you got the winning product.

I do believe that consoles down the road will sport the iOS method of the same OS among hardware iterations -- cheaper hardware will still be enticing for more "casual" fans, and newer iterations will be snapped up by the "core" community. If Mantle ends up going anywhere we'll still be able to reap hardware boosts akin to coding to specific consoles, while satisfying users of all ranges and allowing for uniform sales.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Have you noticed that there is a Sony handheld console on the market that is like a massive flop?

I have. That's specifically why I said the console industry. Handhelds are something totally different.

got no interest in ever buying a console again

Both consoles are underpowered as fuck. The one seems to rely too much on an unnecessary peripheral but some of the exclusives look quite interesting. The PS4 has zero interesting looking exclusives coming to it, unless you count the medieval looking uncharted (and if you liked knack or killzone why wouldn't you?).

In the age of the kickstarter why would you want to buy a current gen console? the PC has better graphics at reasonable prices. plays PSP games, Wii Games, Gamecube games and PS2 games. Game prices are dirt cheap. Controls are flexible. It is backwards compatible and has a vastly superior selection of indie titles.

Not legally you can't. But it's a grey area; has been, will be.

Big budget games are in trouble, and I'm not sure lower budget games can successfully draw people in.

If we could have the budgets and numbers needed for success of the 8-bit, 16-bit, even 32-bit eras yet still had the number of people PLAYING today it'd be an absolute golden age, but budgets ballooned faster than people took up playing those kinds of games, and a lot of those people will not be tolerant to scaling back. Nevermind that part of scaling back involves less marketting usually so that means less awareness anyway, but that specifically is kind of a catch 22 anyway.

This is a legitimate concern. GTA 5 sold 32 million copies (that's insane), but I do honestly wonder how many of those people will even bother to play a smaller-scale indie or experimental game. It can't be that many.

The industry's sort of made this its own problem w/ game pricing and dev. costs ballooning, and the messaging that goes on (especially in the West) pushing realism and graphics beyond all else. A lot of those 32 million GTA 5 players are just one-shot people; they'll never play anything else if it isn't GTA 6. Another good portion will only play GTA clones. And another will only play AAA games (all three have some overlap) I'd like to think a bigger portion of the remainder would also venture to try smaller more experimental games, but that rarely seems the case.

 

[Saint Gregory]

All these "good riddance casuals!" posts are making me shake my head and display a profound ignorance of how the gaming industry (well any industry really) has to survive and grow.

Both the PS4 and XB1 have an opportunity to be really successful, especially with the hardcore support they've gotten out of the gate, but they have to have broader appeal than just hardcores to keep the gaming market growing. That's going to mean competitive pricing and a diversity of software that we'll hopefully start to see by E3.

 

[MR BLACKMAGIK]

Once publishers stop chasing Call of Duty success, you will see a lot less negative press(studio closures, series cancellations, mass firings, etc).

 

[Byakuya769]

All these "good riddance casuals!" posts are making me shake my head and display a profound ignorance of how the gaming industry (well any industry really) has to survive and grow.

Both the PS4 and XB1 have an opportunity to be really successful, especially with the hardcore support they've gotten out of the gate, but they have to have broader appeal than just hardcores to keep the gaming market growing. That's going to mean competitive pricing and a diversity of software that we'll hopefully start to see by E3.

Do you try to be condescending or is it a natural state?

 

[Moosehole]

The only problem with the game industry are the huge overblown budgets for certain games where 6 million sold is considered a failure. That is on the publishers and studios. Consumers are showing the demand is there. The PS4 is off to the best start in history. And the X1 is not far behind.

Publishers and studios need to understand that not every game has to be AAA, and they don't have to be Michael Bay films. Huge amounts of time and money do not need to be spent to shoehorn a half-assed multiplayer mode into games that don't need it.

If the console industry does die, it will be via suicide with terrible business practices. It won't be on the consumer.

Also, the failure of the Wii U has nothing to do with this. It's an overpriced, outdated console with terrible branding, a gimmick that doesn't get used, subpar online features, no third part support whatsoever, and a slow drip of first party titles. The Wii U's failure is it's own, and not a sign of the times.

 

[MercuryLS]

It is a gem. As long as your product has any demand momentum behind it, it's not hard to sell the first few million consoles. It's just a matter of getting them to market.

The problem with Wii U is it had very poor demand momentum going into launch. Even still, it managed to sell pretty well at launch. It was after that that it dropped to no momentum and thus the supply stopped flowing.

We still don't know what the PS4's actual demand is. I'm starting to see that constant sell-outs are no longer a given, so the demand is probably pretty average. But since PS4 is definitely not Wii U levels of bad in terms of the way Sony has driven demand, no one should be (or is) surprised that the stock is selling.

I can't speak for in-store, but the online data would suggest otherwise:

http://www.nowinstock.net/videogaming/consoles/ps4/

 

[DBT85]

Isn't the PS4 selling faster than the PS2?...let that sink in for a bit, and then we can talk about the death of consoles...

The PS4 was available in more markets earlier and had more units stockpiled for that launch.

In 12 months time if the PS4 can sell 10m units from today, it'll be on par with the PS2. It will have to sell about 15m in the 12 months after that, and even more in the 12 months after that, to keep in line though.

 

[Dead Man]

Both have sold amazingly well, and again it's a great feat to see them being able to meet the demand for once. But there is something interesting that's been happening, or rather not happening. When the Wii Launched, it was sold out for almost 2 years straight. You couldn't find one in the stores anywhere, it was selling on ebay for obscene prices, it had the World's mindshare and was constantly being talked about. It was a true draw to the average person who doesn't buy games generally, or maybe only buys one or two games a year.

No dude. Just no. You don't need to be the Wii to be doing okay. NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, none of these sold like the Wii, and yet all were massive successes.

 

[MercuryLS]

Thank you for this. There are so many people here just parroting Sony's PR that it drives me crazy. The entire industry is built on what are now broken models, and denying this doesn't help anyone.

The big AAA model is broken. That's on the publishers that put all their eggs in so few baskets where a few duds can decimate their earnings. There is a massive mobile market, a big market for smaller Indie titles on consoles and PC, yet many big publishers still focus so much of their capital on a few AAA blockbusters. It's incredibly risky and it's on them if they fail.

The only big pub I see willing to take a risk on smaller titles in addition to AAA games is Ubisoft. They released COJ: Gunslinger and FC3: Blood Dragon as well as forthcoming UbiArt titles. That's a smart strategy. Like the movie industry that has summer Blockbusters and tons of smaller, cheaper Indie movies and Rom Coms. You gotta diversify and spread the risk. Publishers will learn the hard way and if they don't they will disappear. That's not an unhealthy market, that's incredible stupidity and risky behavior from publishers.