Probably within the next 3-4 years. The fact is Japan outside of a few stalwarts has already abandoned trying to compete and moved the majority of their software to portable consoles and mobile platforms. Many Western 3rd parties that banking on the model are finding diminishing returns in all but their most profitable bread winners.

If the jump in cost to develop stays on the pre-Steam PC gaming like approach only EA, Blizzard Activision and a few others will be left standing and the business models they would likely implement would be the death toll of console gaming. Unsurprisingly, the hope for console gaming to return to its glory days of variety and abundance lies in a surge similar to what Steam has provided PC gaming with the digital markets, Indie developers and smaller budget software sold at lower then normal pricing is the only hope most traditional gamers that are now well over 25 have.

Although short of some major collapses I don't see a lot of the current major developers jumping on board such ideas anytime soon.

Its happening now. And will become more and more pronounced as the 8th gen sees massive decline across the board.

I find it amusing that every dev thinks they are capable of creating a blockbuster AAA game.


A game does not have to be like an Uncharted/Battlefield/GTA to sell well. Games like GTA can afford to be like that because they have millions upon millions of people waiting to purchase them.

Just create a good quality game within budget and with decent marketing then they should be able to get a nice profit. If japanese devs can create RPG's that sell around 100k and make a profit i dont see why others devs cant just scale back and accept that they are not rich enough to gamble everything on one huge game that people might think is crap.

What does this lead to ? Future generations of content lacking games ? The 80's again ? F2P?

This is coming from a Japanese gaming company. Not really surprising.

There's a summary out there somewhere listing all development companies that went under this past generation. I don't remember the details, but I was shocked by the sheer amount of devs that bit the dust. This gen's going to be far worse, I should think. I predict dozens upon dozens of devs going bankrupt.

Mobile is dead! DEAD!

I'm waiting for the time publishers adopt a better pricing model for retail games that aren't AAA. There have always been games I would stare at on the shelf and want, but couldn't bring myself to buy at full price when there was a game right next to it that I knew was bigger or offered more bang for my buck.

Publishers need to stop blaming their problems on us consumers and looking for ways to wring ever last dollar out of us using unsavory methods like blocking used games and online passes and look for ways to improve the business model as a whole where everyone benefits. It made no damn sense for a game like Tank! Tank! Tank! to be in the same price range as a game like Zombi U.

If you think about the major devs/publishers, whether they are Western or Japanese, would you risk a guess in predicting which one(s) won´t make it to the 9th generation?

I agree with the first paragraph for sure.  I think that if most of the second tier games were released on an industry planned price point($29 or $39) that consumers could recognize that they were still "NEW".  This would allow people to look at things a little different.  If the first iteration of a game was succesful, they could bump version 2 up to Tier 1($59).  Just some type of organized plan similar to this could help consumers.

meanwhile in not doomed town there is more and more indy developers popping out everywhere