After reading another thread on how many systems will be released this year, on shelves, and looking at the state of the industry today, a lot of the same circumstances are beginning to fall into line with the previous North American Crash of 1983.
System releases
This fall we will have, all on the market, the Wii, The Wii U, The 360, possibly 360mini/whatever its called the next Xbox and its different skus, the PS3, the PS4 with its different skus, the Oyua, the 3DS 3DSXL, and the Vita. Not to mention all the games that will certainly be cross generation, each with their own different sku for each individual system.
Publisher losses/closures
We’ve seen just about every publisher, from Nintendo to EA post losses, some major, some so bad they went bankrupt, others having to lay off hundreds of employees. We see these major publishers still laying off workers like just today, Square Enix.
Major blockbusters underperforming
No one expected Call of Duty to underperform, but it did, Mario Bros U underperformed drastically, Halo 4 underperformed, Tomb Raider underperformed, TOR bombed hard, as did numerous other games billed as “block busters”
Major competition from Tablet/mobile gaming/resurgence of PC gaming
Even if it is not the “Savior” it’s proclaimed to be, it is leading A LOT of developers down it’s path to failure, thus taking away talent and money from the major systems. And these games even underperform most of the time as well. And PC gaming is seeing a major resurgence as well thanks to dropping prices of enthusiasts cards being able to easily outperform a console.
Compare this with the crash of 1983: (*Taken from Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
In 1983 there were 13 systems sitting on shelves, ALL with games, which were sub par
The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, the Magnavox Odyssey2, the Mattel Intellivision (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the Intellivision II), the Sears Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the Tandyvision (an Intellivision clone for Radio Shack) and the Vectrex.
At that time, there was also a growing PC market which had began to push in on the consoles territory of gaming, plus a huge influx of substandard games and then add to that a weak economy much like it is now and the market looks eerily similar to 1983.
I think if not for the Wii/DS phenomenon the crash would have happened a lot sooner, and since there is no “Wii/DS” like sales monster on the horizon, the situation looks bleak.
So looking at all the information and the similarities my personal conclusion is that these next two years will see a major contraction of the home console market and force more studios to close down and cost more jobs, thus costing us more creativity and risk taking. So if you feel the same way what can be done, if anything to stop it, to soften the blow or slow it down? Or do you think it’s just a coincidence and everything will be fine, if so why?
edit: I meant Gears of War: Judgement not Halo 4. My apologies.
System releases
This fall we will have, all on the market, the Wii, The Wii U, The 360, possibly 360mini/whatever its called the next Xbox and its different skus, the PS3, the PS4 with its different skus, the Oyua, the 3DS 3DSXL, and the Vita. Not to mention all the games that will certainly be cross generation, each with their own different sku for each individual system.
Publisher losses/closures
We’ve seen just about every publisher, from Nintendo to EA post losses, some major, some so bad they went bankrupt, others having to lay off hundreds of employees. We see these major publishers still laying off workers like just today, Square Enix.
Major blockbusters underperforming
No one expected Call of Duty to underperform, but it did, Mario Bros U underperformed drastically, Halo 4 underperformed, Tomb Raider underperformed, TOR bombed hard, as did numerous other games billed as “block busters”
Major competition from Tablet/mobile gaming/resurgence of PC gaming
Even if it is not the “Savior” it’s proclaimed to be, it is leading A LOT of developers down it’s path to failure, thus taking away talent and money from the major systems. And these games even underperform most of the time as well. And PC gaming is seeing a major resurgence as well thanks to dropping prices of enthusiasts cards being able to easily outperform a console.
Compare this with the crash of 1983: (*Taken from Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983
In 1983 there were 13 systems sitting on shelves, ALL with games, which were sub par
The Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, the Magnavox Odyssey2, the Mattel Intellivision (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the Intellivision II), the Sears Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the Tandyvision (an Intellivision clone for Radio Shack) and the Vectrex.
At that time, there was also a growing PC market which had began to push in on the consoles territory of gaming, plus a huge influx of substandard games and then add to that a weak economy much like it is now and the market looks eerily similar to 1983.
I think if not for the Wii/DS phenomenon the crash would have happened a lot sooner, and since there is no “Wii/DS” like sales monster on the horizon, the situation looks bleak.
So looking at all the information and the similarities my personal conclusion is that these next two years will see a major contraction of the home console market and force more studios to close down and cost more jobs, thus costing us more creativity and risk taking. So if you feel the same way what can be done, if anything to stop it, to soften the blow or slow it down? Or do you think it’s just a coincidence and everything will be fine, if so why?
edit: I meant Gears of War: Judgement not Halo 4. My apologies.
