Jaffe: Xbox 720, PS4 Will Mark The Last Console Cycle

[ssj12]

kitler53 said:

ssj12 said:

kitler53 said:

Mr Khan said:

Given how drastically PSPGo failed, how could Sony seriously be considering going back to that, even 8 years or so from now?

1. pspGo failed 2 years in the past while this article is talking 10ish years in the future.

2. Exhibt A: music sales.  physical sales of music dropped below 50% in 2009 in favor of digital.

3. Don't even bother with the file size argument, netflix streaming, itunes apps, xbla, psn, wiiware, OnLive all point to means of digital distribution already availible and the services are only going to get better.

4. We are already well on our way into digital distribution.  EA just critizied NPD citing 1/5 of their revenue is going to be digital this year.

so in conclusion, physical sales are obviously not going to go away over night just like CDs didn't go away over night but the market trend is clear ... we are moving to a digital distribution in all forms of media; video games included.

1. the PSPgo was more testing the waters of the market. The PSN shows that market exists, its just not big enough for full digital handheld consoles yet.

2 - 4. read my posts above. physical music will never actually die. Even vinyl records still have a fairly strong niche market that has constant resergances due to people's mentalities on digital file size.

to part 1-- i do agree it was a test but the execution was terrible.  i personally was very excited when it was first announced but the fact that not every title went digital, some that did go digital arrived late, and a large uncertainty of which games would or would not be released digitally severly turned me off.  I'm most likely going to get an NGP and if I do I won't buy a single game physically if I don't have to.

to part 2 -- i don't think that the vinyl niche market has anything to do with digital file size but yes, i do believe there will always be a market for that sort of thing.  you can still get film camera too but lets face the facts -- the size of that market is no longer significant compared to the digital camera market.

2. I think it does. Its all about audio quality. And unfortunately no one seems to think that file size has everything to do with quality. Vinyl records are still alive mostly due to the known fact that they provide amazing audio quality versus standard audio codecs digital music and CDs use. There are advanced audio that can equal vinyl's sound, but everyone complains about file size and download speed even in today's day and age. No one seems to want to move past their 7MBs MP3 and go to a hi-fi lossless audio file that can be 100MBs or more that would make any song sound as if you are sitting in the recording studio with the artists/bands.