On The Verge of A Gaming Crash? Without Nintendo....

[Lord N]

Squilliam said:

Lord N said:

Ummm......hell yeah. The video game industry would certainly be on the verge of a crash if not for Nintendo.

There were about 170 million consoles sold last generation. The PS3 and 360 will sell 90-100 million between the two of them. That's a 42% drop off, which is a damn shame.

The PS3 and 360 userbases consist almost entirely of core and hardcore gamers. Smaller developers and publishers would be capitulating left and right as they wouldn't have the cash to make the big-budget titles that would be necessary to appeal to this small demographic. The only titles you'd see would be from traditional genres and/or sequels to already popular tried-and-true franchises. Non-traditional titles would be too much of a risk as they wouldn't appeal to the PS3 and 360 userbase. For reference, notice how the only non-traditional game to sell well and not be on the DS or Wii is Little Big Planet.

While I like the DS and am not too fond of the Wii, I have to admit that the video game industry would be in a lot of trouble right now if not for Nintendo. The Japanese market would be in a real shite state of affairs. For the love of god, the best selling console this generation would be the PSP.

Bold 1: The truth in the statement is absent without good cause. Thats like saying if Toyota wasn't in the market, the car industry would shrink 20%. In reality the take up of those more lifestyle gamers would be slower, but its unlikely that there would be fewer than the previous generation. Just because many people believe that a Wii is a better console than an Xbox 360 doesn't mean that they would be absent from the market.

Bold 2: That statement would only be true if the PS2 didn't exist. If the PS3 was the PS2's 2nd coming then we would not be having this conversation. The truth here, failed to provide a permission slip explaining its absence from school.

 

So let me get this straight......

Not only do you truly believe that the PS3 and 360 would combine for 170 million+ sales, you also believe that all of these people, including the non gamers, who are buying the Wii like crazy would spend $400-$600 dollars on a PS3 or 360 if they were the only options, and after that, you still believe that non-traditional games would sell well on the PS3 and 360 despite the fact that only one has managed to do so thus far(Little Big Planet)?

You must have access to some damn fine drugs.