How the Videogame Industry Shot Itself In the Joystick--and Why the Wii Has Stopped the Bleeding

[LordTheNightKnight]

Onimusha12 said:

Tyagi is right DJmeister

Sony and MS are hemoraging money profusely. They've turned gaming into a money pit gamble.

Microsoft may have stopped losing money here. We just have to wait until their next quartly report.

Sony stands a decent chance of going under in gaming this generation or dropping out of console gaming altogether. The Ps3 is beyond ever turning a profit at any point in its projected life span,

Not true. The PS3 is losing money now, but Sony had said they will stop price cuts until volume brings the cost down. If they keep that promise, it's likely SCE could become profitable within a year. They do have to keep it, but that's still a chance, not beyond it.

once Blu-Ray is established as a dominant format or fails as a format, Sony will have no real need for the PS3 which is costing them dearly and the PSP which has done nothing but spin their wheels in the mud.

The PSP hasn't been tearing up the charts, but recent sales put it just under half as well as the DS. Plus the PSP isn't sold at a loss (if it was at first, it's not now), so the PSP is profitable.

The Ps3 and the gaming industry has already forced Sony to take so many steps back from expanding their empire, if they don't realize soon enough that the gaming industry isn't worth it, their stock holders will.

Do you mean the gaming industry in itself, or just Sony's strategy with the PS3?

Microsoft's only investment in the gaming industry is ousting Sony and halting their ambitions of expansion into Microsoft's territory.

Actually, that's mainly been what analysts say is the reason. Microsoft may have an interest in Sony not expanding too far, but going into gaming has helped Microsoft expand by itself.

With Sony out of the picture Microsoft would have nothing to gain by investing in another generation of money losing console gaming.

But what if competing with Sony was making Microsoft throw money around in the first place? They would spend more conservatively then.

It would make sense for Microsoft just to take all the infrastructure they've built with the Xbox lineage and just transfer it to PC gaming, an ideal medium for digital format gaming and an ideal means of enforcing Window exclusivity. This way they cut out the bothersome and costly middleman of the gaming console, consolidating their markets and increasing their profit margins exponentially.

The PC market hasn't been growing that well. So your advice isn't sound.

Even if neither of these scenarios would occur it would be unlikely we'd see anything other than Western market flourish, the Japanese market would probably be forced into a huge drop with the PS3 as the only choice in gaming. Don't get me wrong there would still be business, there would still be games, but the industry would be in a steep decline.

I know all you 360 and PS3 lovers don't want to hear that Sony and MS are not the greatest candidates for gaming's future, but you need to wake up and realize that better graphics aren't everything, don't translate into profits for the company, don't garantee a future for gaming, or promise a gaming experience that will last beyond the next title with better graphics. Graphics are something left in the dust with every generation, innovation however stays. With Graphics, you're investing in an aspect of gaming with an expiration date not a future.

This is the first true part of your comments.

For these graphics you so cherish, you've sacrificed Backwards Compatibility, hardware quality and reliability, development standards (patches and more patches), game length and genre diversity. How much more of gaming do you plan on giving up in the future for the sake of a console that has the best graphics and most "mature" games?

The Wii is not the answer to everything, it is not the godsend of gaming, but right now its is arguably the best hope for gaming's future and is considered by many the only console moving in a positive direction for gaming.