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greenmedic88 on 04 May 2009
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Kasz216 said:
greenmedic88 said:
Actually with consoles like the PS3, expect the audience to continue to broaden as it sells more units at cheaper price points, much like the PS2 did.

As much as I hate to say it, when reduced budget games become more common place (development costs drop), and the hardware prices become more mass market friendly, is when real market expansion takes place for any console that's managed to stay competitively in the game.

I don't want to use the Xbox as a model for the future of the 360 as the 360 has already succeeded where the Xbox failed in terms of library and hardware sales, but MS is clearly trying to expand markets as well from both a broader market appeal from both a software variety angle (broad appeal/"casual" games) and mass market friendly hardware prices.

There's no reason to believe either console will remain with the core and "semi-core" demographics. Barring any early exits/replacements, the trend will only move in the opposite direction towards broader market appeal.

Why should we expect it to broaden as it gets cheaper?  Why shouldn't we expect it to end up like the gamecube, dreamcast, Neo-Geo etc?

It's doing better then those systems... but the PS3 has a lot more in common with the losers of generations then it does the winners.

Because the games will still be there in addition to an increasing number of budget games as the cost to develop continues to drop, as the cost of the hardware itself continues to open up to mass market prices.

What I absolutely do not see happening despite the success of the Wii, is leading edge games being developed for the Wii rather than for the PC/360/PS3.

The PS3 and 360 have already passed the point of being the Neo Geo (extremely pricey hardware, and extremely pricey games making it strictly a small niche product) and the Dreamcast (abandoned by Sega after two years) and the GC (kept alive almost entirely by strong Nintendo 1st party games).

If you really think SCE will just bow out of the hardware business a year ago (Dreamcast) or even a year from now, or that they'll end up replacing it by year four (Xbox), you're entitled to your opinion by all means; crazier predictions have been made on here.