May 2013 NPD Thread!

[binary solo]

RolStoppable said:

binary solo said:

Smartphones + Tablets.

I've been saying for several months that gen 8 of home consoles is going to be smaller than gen 7. That's because the Wii blue ocean swan across to smartphone and tablet land leaving us more or less with gen 6 numbers + new markets (as in countries, not demographics) since gen 6.

I'd love to be proved wrong. Hopefully you can post me a great big I told you so in 5 years time when PS4/Xbone/Wii U have cracked the half way point to  Mehdi's fabled 1 billion mark.

Have you ever asked yourself why someone would leave motion controls and local multiplayer behind for smartphones or tablets? If someone told you that gamers are abandoning, say, Killzone for Angry Birds, you would probably say that that is a load of hogwash, because it isn't a substitute that makes sense.

Admittedly, you haven't spelled out this leap of logic, but I see it being used a lot. There just isn't much of a desire to understand things, because it's more convenient to simplify everything to "casuals are fickle and unpredictable". Funnily enough, I've often seen this being followed by "they won't be coming back to Nintendo".

So aside from a worse worldwide economy than in the mid-2000s, what's going to be the other main reason why generation 8 will see a contraction? It's the fact that the video game industry greatly lacks in variety and isn't even interested in attracting more customers. Instead it's about fighting over existing customers and squeezing more money out of them.

It's not about games, it's about utility and budgets. Shall I get a tablet, which has X,Y,Z uses that are useful in my life, oh and it plays fun casual games, which are fun? Or shall I get a console which plays games and does some other stuff which is less useful in my life and can all be done on devices I already own or on a tablet? Or shall I get both? Hmmm can't afford both, I like motion gaming and social gaming but I already have a Wii, so tablet it is.

If I was part of that blue ocean (and I fancied a tablet) then that would very much be my line of thinking. I would almost certaily buy a tablet over a console if I could only buy one, especially if I already had a Wii. Those blue ocean folks are not invested in having the latest and greatest console, and they're less influenced by shinier visuals, better AI, and cool particle effects. There's actually not a lot of perceived value in dropping $350 for a WiiU. No more than there is perceived value in having a $500 KinectBox which is basically a universal remote contol device with some apps.