The Age Of Console Gaming Is At An End?

[Crow47]

I found this in the most recent issue (July) of PC Gamer magazine. I think it's a bit far fetched, myself. I just wanted to see what everybody else thinks.

 

The article "Console's Last Stand", by Logan Decker:

"It's incredible. It's unthinkable. But they're starting to say it, and people are starting to listen. And what they're saying is that the era of the console is coming to an end.

 

Sandy Duncan-the former Microsoft VP who unleashed the Xbox on the Europeans, not the actress who peddled Wheat Thins in the '80s as the next best thing to an eating disorder-told the website That VideoGame Blog that 'consoles will [die] out in the next five to 10 years. The business model is very risky and the costs associated with creating new hardware are incredibly high.'

 

Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent, and the man behind the WildTangent Orb (see 'New Game In Town' in the June 2008 issue), laid out his own argument to me last month. 'I think that we're looking at the last generation of consoles, because Sony and Microsoft are never going to make back the money they sank on PS3 and Xbox 360, and I doubt they'll have the will at the end of this generation's consoles to do it to themselves again. And the market will have changed so much that I'm not sure that there will really be a market reason that can justify doing it again. They just can't afford to burn another eight billion bucks.'

 

So Microsoft and Sony are hemorrhaging cash in a campaign intended mostly to keep the other guy from dominating the living room (and thus being able to collect licensing fees on everything that's watched and played there). Yet, despite all of this, consumer research firm Parks Associates humilliated both companies and Nintendo to boot with a study that shows that the average 'console gamer' spends more time playing PC games than console games-18.5 hours versus 13.5 hours a month!

 

I'm not certain if the era of the console is coming to an end, but with broadband connections flourishing and the PC as the only gaming platform widespread in the United States, Europe, and Asia, I suspect the era of PC gaming is just beginning."

[hardnrg]

the current generation of consoles all seem in a very strong position, each having their own strengths... console gaming is popular among a wider age range than ever before... I don't see how this is possibly worse than in the past...

[Fireonice]

i thought it was the other way around? I see were pc gamers play more but arnt there less pc gamers than console gamers? With pc gaming you need to be some what computer inclinded, unless your rich, or you will quickly find yourself with games that cant be played beucause it need a driver update that you dont know how to install ect.

 

I dont see concole gaming dieing off any time soon. Infact i see more people moving to concoles, unless they really make concole gaming less of a personal expreience with lots of freedom. The whole reason why concole gaming is so popular is beucase you can just go out buy the concole and some exssorys and a game and your off. No worry's about drivers or incapatable hardware or any bull . like that.

 

As a long time concole and pc gamer i do enjoy some concepts of the pc better but as time goes on it seems like concole gaming is slowly becomeing more and more like pc gaming. With pc gaming you have alot of complications with drivers and not to mention all the times you have to upgrade if you want to stay in the "game". Not saying you cant game on a pc with a budget im just saying with all that money you spend upgrading your pc every what 2 years, you could have a whole libarary of games.

 

Then theres the problem of piracy. PC gaming's biggest downfall is piracy. Company's cant make the same money on a game they made for a pc than if they made the game for a certain concole only beucase you cant easly pirate concole games or people arnt willing to lose there warrenty.

 

I dont see nither going anywere anytime soon. But i do see computer gaming becoming more and more of a nitch market.

 

mind my spelling im not using firefox

[itsernst]

That was why EA sports stop making most of the NBA Live, MLB, etc. games for computer. They said that it was because everyone would just buy it on Xbox or PS3.

 

This cannot be true...

[Fogel]

I don't see it. If it didn't come from PC Gamer Mag I'd think the person who wrote hasn't gamed a day in his life. Knowing that I'm thinking the guy is trying to make his last stand for PC Gaming. What are the two juggernauts of PC Gaming? If i had to guess I'd say MMOs and FPS. MMOs are dwindling in popularity. FPS games aren't really coming out with anything new to spark that same interest of old. I'd hazard to guess the last FPS that truly sucked the majority in was probably Counter Strike. Games like CoD4 may be fun in all but no where near the popularity of CS. Both genres are beginning to get to the point of being played out - weak pun but still appropriate. Japan is already switching away from both PC and Console gaming and going straight to handheld so they can carry their games with them to parties. The Nintendo DS is the single most popular gaming system currently. I don't own one so i can't vouch for it, but its sales #s are quite impressive.

 

The only game I am TRULY in anticipation for on the PC is Star Craft II. The rest is fluff till than.

 

I have an XBox 360 and I won't say its a failure as it has quite a few fun games, but in this game the numbers don't lie and it is getting its arse stomped by The Nintendo Wii. Combine the sales of both the PS3 and the XBox 360 and the Nintendo Wii is still almost selling twice as much as the competition. And console gaming sales are dwarfing PC gaming sales. And the gaming industry is pretty much the only industry right now that would have you believe there is no recession going on right now.

 

As Fireonice said, PC Gaming is getting too complicated for most gamers. Even on PC Enthusiast sites like this one not all the users can run the latest games. Games like Crysis punctuate how games are progressing faster than current hardware allows. Sure Crysis is pretty much its own beast but it still alludes to the current trend... games are requiring better hardware much faster than most people want to upgrade.

 

The Nintendo Wii is proving that appealing to the masses is currently the way to go. It debuted in winter 2006 and it's STILL a hard find in stores. They can't stock the things fast enough. That is some serious momentum. What momentum does the PC currently have?

[red930]

I find it funny to hear Sony and Microsoft say it's too expensive and too risky to come up with the next generation of hardware....yet Nintendo is doing it and not even focusing on the graphics...and all of us bitched about the ugly graphics then picked up the Wiimote and shut our stupid cake-holes...me included.

 

Innovation is not better graphics. Better graphics come with natural evolution of computer technology. This is a no-brainer yet still companies and people claim that if a game doesn't look like Crysis, it sucks.

 

Innovation is doing something new and different.

 

Microsoft did it the best and evolved it the most when it came to online console multiplayer services (Xbox Live).

 

Nintendo did it with the motion-sensing controls and Virtual Console (360 Arcade is ok, but there isn't a wealth of titles we are screaming for like Dr. Mario, F-Zero, all the Zelda's etc like we do on the old Nintendo/Sega systems).

 

Sony did it...back in PS2 days (they got it right and now there are more than one hundred million PS2's floating around and PS2 games still end up tops in sales sometimes).

 

It isn't about forcing people to buy into your stupidity (MS and their HD-DVD crap among others). It's about making games that appeal to the largest potential customer base (ie: women/moms as well as men/dads/kids).

 

There's a reason why Bejeweled and Luxor sell 10x as many copies as Crysis. Crysis only appeals to the sweatiest, nerdiest, most penis-envied little boys (whether you are 34 years old or 14) that are willing to spend $1000 to play the game as the developers (who developed it on $5k workstations) intended it to be played.

 

Luxor and Bejeweled will work on even my 9 year old IBM T20 (Pentium3 700Mhz!) laptop...and they appeal to a lot broader range of person than Sweaty-Crysis.

 

World of Warcraft doesn't have 10,000,000 or so subscribers because it looks and plays like Crysis, FEAR, Battlefield3, Doom6, Unreal Tournament 13. WoW is that insanely popular because it innovates in special ways....it runs on something as low as a DirectX 7 card...a crappy old processor and 256MB or so of RAM...and it is a VERY deep game, especially for playing WITH (or against in a lot of cases I guess) people...friends...

 

WoW doesn't need a BFG 23550XXTLXGTX 3500Mhz/66000Mhz video card to play and look decent. It doesn't need 33GB of RAM and a octo-core cpu.

 

 

 

I don't necessarily agree with Fogel that the 360 is getting stomped by the Wii. Wii outsells it, but the price has a lot to do with it. If the 360 with the hdd was $249, you'd hardly keep them on the shelves as well. Look at the Gamecube...everyone considered it full of leprosy and wouldn't go near the damn think except those japanime dorks who like Goyuko or Dragonsnail G or whatever that crap is...until Nintendo called it in at $99...then it instantly took over the top in sales again.

 

The two systems are aimed at entirely different audiences as well. The 360 wants MEN to KILL EACH OTHER REAL GOOD with BLOOD and KNIVES and smack-talk over voice chat. They know there are 25,000,000+ man-gamers out there who like video games and like the kinds of hardcore stuff that the 360 can handle, and will definitely make use of the kick-arse Live online component.

 

The Wii wants moms, dads, soft little kids, japanime dorks, granny, Mr Roper, The Rock, and just about everyone on the planet to play it for it's innovation and LOCAL Multiplayer (ie dorks in your living room sweating with you while trying to punch each other with the wiimote/nunchuck).

 

The problem really lies within us, the consumer. We DEMAND killer games that are so detailed and sharp you can see a booger hanging out of an enemy's nose from across the abandoned train yard before you snipe him and watch a chunk of blood and brain splat against the bullet-riddled concrete wall behind him. When we don't get what we DEMAND, we go apeshit on game developer forums screaming how much they hate us customers, how we will NEVER BUY YOUR #$#@$@#! PIECE OF @#%@#$ PRODUCTS AGAIN YOU #$@#!$@#!$ MOTHER #@$@#$!@'s!!!!

 

Why does The Sims do so well? Chicks play it. Why does WoW do so well? Chicks play it. Why do casual games like Luxor, Bejeweled, Tetris, etc do so well? Chicks play it.

 

hint...chicks play games...chicks buy games...chicks don't pirate games much either (so stfu game companies, stop using that bs as an excuse for draconian copy protection attached to your overpriced junk that needs 124 patches before it runs without BSOD'ing...on XP (Vista is nothing but a BSOD-In-A-Box)). Chick money is just as spendy and worth just as much as dude money. Chicks don't dig Crysis nor the sweaty yum-yum heads (yes, that would be you) that touch themselves in dirty ways just waiting for the game to be released. Chicks dig games that are FUN and they like to play TOGETHER...not against. Get your girl to play some Counter-Strike, and get on the opposite team and spawn camp her for 10 straight minutes. Wow, that's so much fun for her. No wonder she hates you and your stupid computer.

 

The money is there. A game like Sins of a Solar Empire has led the sales charts for about 3 months now...not even counting sales at Wal-Mart (usually the largest source of sales for a video game), and not counting Stardock's own digital distribution service (ie: their own "Steam"). And it has...GASP...no %#@$#@ copy protection. And GASP...it runs on a total piece of %#$#@ machine.

 

Example?

 

Sure!

 

Pentium4 3Ghz Prescott

2x512MB DDR400

GeForce4 MX 400 64MB AGP

onboard sound

DFI 865PE

17" CRT monitor

160GB IDE hdd

 

plays like a champ...there's some little glitch in that it won't show textures when zoomed in after a certain point, but all the markers/icons are still visible. It holds up great even in one of our DIY-Street 6-man vs 6-AI 4+ hour battles.

 

OMG HOW CAN THIS BE??? IT MUST BE A SECRET XRLGT-1235000000 5GB VIDEO RAM + 323BBBHZ MEGASUPERCORE CPU!

 

Nope. I stopped drinking that Kool-Aid a long time ago. Too bad game developers are still drinking it, and worse, they keep handing it out free to YOU, the consumers.

 

Funny thing...Tim Sweeney did an interview . and moaning about the state of PC gaming and blamed it all on Intel integrated graphics, and how they want to force Intel to finally include a decent gpu to play their $50 technical wet dream games. Instead of trying to make FUN games with great GAMEPLAY that play on just about any machine.

 

IMAGINE, if you will, a game developer that say...spent $10,000,000 on developing a game that would run on just about any machine by chopping out the necessity of needing an ATI XP1000000GTX gpu on a 48-core cpu...instead of spending the majority of budget on graphics technology, they did what good game developers used to do, and develop stories, fun, and gameplay that is appealing to single players, multiplayers, co-op players, and even player-haters. Instead of working for the last 6 months on your game trying to max out graphics and at teh same time make your graphical monster work on crappy lame low-end machines that are still using yesterday's technology (yeah, bastards, like those crappy 7800GTX's and Athlon64 3500+'s that we spent hundreds of dollars on, and now even my crappy X1900XT 512MB...I mean, it must be a piece of %#@$@# since it can barely play Crysis right?), how wonderful would it be to spend all that energy and time to enhance the game, make it deeper, etc?

 

Yeah yeah, take another bong hit dude...companies like ATI and Nvidia don't want such a thing to EVER happen on a large scale...who would need a Bazooka10,000GTXLR video card for $699 then? Not us...and as they already know, not WOMEN. Nor those poker morons who spend their entire day playing online poker instead of answering #@$@#%ing 911 calls (jackass!).

 

*sigh*

 

Whatever Angry. Shut your gob-hole.

Edited May 20, 2008 by Angry_Games

[ReelFiles]

Nice one dude, I hear ya.

[Bubbaxm2]

The problem really lies within us, the consumer. We DEMAND killer games that are so detailed and sharp you can see a booger hanging out of an enemy's nose from across the abandoned train yard before you snipe him and watch a chunk of blood and brain splat against the bullet-riddled concrete wall behind him. When we don't get what we DEMAND, we go apeshit on game developer forums screaming how much they hate us customers, how we will NEVER BUY YOUR #$#@$@#! PIECE OF @#%@#$ PRODUCTS AGAIN YOU #$@#!$@#!$ MOTHER #@$@#$!@'s!!!!

 

Other than that, very well said.(at least for me) I will take a game that looks like crap(by todays standards) and plays wells over any of the stylish new crap that looks good but has no story or point!

[UkJenT]

Interesting, but it won't happen. It's way easier for the regular Joe to deal with a console as opposed to a PC. A console is just a console. It already has the required specs and there really is no need to upgrade. All games are designed to the specifications of the console as opposed to PC games, which require better hardware. For example, the average hardcore gamer may upgrade their PC once a year due to a more demanding PC game, but a console doesn't need to be upgrade. For us hardcore gamers, playing those resource-demanding games usually comes at a great price. I don't think you'll be seeing millions and million of people upgrading their PC for the next in-demand game ever. If so, dang, I guess we will grow tremendously here at OCC.

 

I like the ending where it states that PC gamers (18.5 hrs) spend more time playing than console gamers (13.5). That's nice to see, but how the number of people who consider themselves PC gamers or console gamers. I'm sure there are way more console gamers than pc gamers.

 

FInally, hasn't this point been made thousands and thousands of times before? I mean, come on, PC vs Console and blah blah blah. But, in the end, isn't a console just a PC with a specific task?

[Jachyra007]

Where can I get a XRLGT-1235000000 5GB VIDEO RAM + 323BBBHZ MEGASUPERCORE CPU to play Crysis?

 

Guess I'll just have to settle for these components...

[kingdingeling]

Until they make GTA IV for computer, the life of consoles ain't over!

[CanadaGUY]

nice rant Angry_Games.

 

It's pretty true, if you want big sales you have to make a game that fits into a large amount of laps. If your making a game like crysis, and you always want to be next-gen. Then be prepared to wait while your audiences computers catch up to your game.

 

I think what the article was mainly saying is that console gaming is getting to expensive for the companies producing the consoles (if they keep on the same track of design), and the companies aren't making that money they throw down the pit back from game sales. Not sure how true that can be, though.