Rumor--Suikoden VI for Wii

[Bodhesatva]

I would agree that the genre may disappear over years and years and decades, Helios, but as I said, I think it's mostly that the number of people who would be interested in this particular style of entertainment has been maximized, and that the lack of growth is largely a consequence of this.

 

 

But it's really only an example, and I want to point the way to a larger trend; there are really only a certain number of us nerds (I hope you don't mind me including you? I'm certainly one!) who like star wars and big melodramatic stories about saving the world from demons and sorcerers, just as there are only so many people who want to play Madden or who want to play NBA 2k8 or who love cars so freaking much that they'd pay 400 dollars for a PS3, 100 dollars for a realistic racing wheel with pedals, and 60 dollars for a game just so they can worship the beauty of cars. Eventually, the number of people interested in these various hobbies maximizes, and I think for many of these segments (including all the ones I've just mentioned) the size of the market has gotten about as big as it's ever going to get. It will increase with population growth (5-7% a decade), but beyond that, I doubt we'll see much more.

Which means that for every one of these genres, there is a certain amount of revenue that they're capable of achieving on a yearly basis, and they can't realistically push well beyond it. Frankly, it's a bit like toilet paper --  the market's demand for the product has been saturated, and the toilet paper industry's revenue streams presumably don't do much more than increase with inflation and population growth. 

And as such, there will come a time for ALL of these genres (not necessarily now, but probably within the next decade for most) where the flatlining demand no longer justifies the balooning costs. There will be a point for many of these stagnant genres where developers will have to say: "No more. We cannot afford to make these games any more complex or graphically impressive, because the cost is to high."