Console Market not contracting, becoming more focused

[barneystinson69]

Intrinsic said:

Zoombael said:

Is there something missing? The correlation at least is.

Those "mid gen refreshes" are purely an adaption to the changing environment of the market. It's no coincidence that MS and Sony have very similar hardware solutions, chosen with the intent to shorten the cycle. We don't have a cell chip in the PS4, because it would be a waste of time and recources, outright uneconomical. The rapid advances throughout the whole spectrum of entertainment technologies require them to adjust.

Well, obviously that plays a role in all this, but what you are pointing out isbmore of a conveninence or natural step than a beneficial decision. This isnt the first time we are seeing revised skus in the industry, thisis the first time that we are seeing revised hardware that is significantly more powerful but yet in the same generation.

Make no mistake, this isn't because AMD has better chips now and about the constantly evolving tech scape, this is because they do not want to let go of their existing install bases... ever. If the new hardware doesn't replace the old one, and games can still be played across SKUs, what reason does anyone have to leave one console and their entire existing library and jump to another console? Why do you think MS is all of a sudden such a big fan of online cross play between Xbox and PS4 even tho they were fully against it in the past? 

barneystinson69 said:
Really? The console market has strunk a lot, even compared to the 6th ten. During the 6th gen, we saw around 200 million console sales. This generation will probably barely scrape past what the PS2 did. Both Nintendo and Sony's consoles will do worse than their 6th geh counterparts, and the Xbox one will probably barely pull in half of what the 360 did. While the 7th gen was overinflated, the loss is still dramatic. It's like pulling out one of the three console manufacturers from the business altogether. And I expect the 9th gen to be even worse, with an almost total collapse from the handheld market, and likely some additional losses from all three console makers. The mobile market is taking over the casual side of the market, and many core gamers are either moving to the pc or pulling out altogether; and the bad business practices of game publishers like Ubisoft and Activision isn't helping. I hope for the best, but I just can't expect an improvement in the market.

I don't know, both the PS4 and the XB1 have sold better than any PlayStation or Xbox console ever made respectively in the two and a half years they have been on the market. While still at a price point average higher than every previous generation with exception to the 7th gen. In all honesty, there is simply more pointing in the direction that these consoles are doing very well and will at least do as well as or better than the 6th gen than there are supplying what you have written here in your post. 

And I don't think you are really following what I'm saying. Total collapse of the handheld market? And so what? what does that matter if the total revenue made from the gaming industry is up overall. What that tells you is that what used to be the handheld market just moved to somewhere else (aka mobile). It's like saying the movie industry is doomed because no one wants to buy DVDs anymore and instead stream from Netflix but then ignore than the movie industry is making more money than ever before. 

If the handheld market is "collapsing", and more and more people seem to be playing on mobile phones and tablets...... then maybe, just maybe... it's time for Nintendo to start releasing their games on Android and iOS. Maybe just maybe, what that means is that a tablet or smartphone is an all round better mobile gaming platform than a dedicated mobile gaming platform. Or at least as far as people are concerned. 

The market is simply geared towards early adoption. Look at how cheap the PS4 and XB1 is relative to their lifecycle, it wasn't something normal during the 7th gen. We see huge bundles desperately trying to get people to buy, and we already have seen the successors to both consoles, the PS4Neo and the Xbox Scorpio. Both consoles will have far less of a lifespan, thus lower sales. And the handheld market is part of the console market too, and during the 7th gen we saw the DS NEARLY surpass the PS2, and even the PSP did a respectibile 80 million. Both the 3DS and PSV combined won't be able to surprass just what the latter did during the 7th gen (pretty bad, considering it was a new entry to the market). I'd understand the loss of some casuals here, but we've seen a huge chunck of the market simply torn apart in a relatively short amount of time.