| RolStoppable said: Switch is threatening the future of stationary home consoles, just like smart devices have replaced desktop PCs in the average person's life. The notable difference is that Switch can provide the functionality of stationary home consoles, so the threat is even bigger in this market. The trajectory of PS and Xbox is reduction in game variety and quantity due to rising development costs. The biggest third party publishers will continue to push that direction and since both Sony and Microsoft need their games, they will stay on the current trajectory. PS and Xbox are trying to bolster their game variety with indie titles, but virtually all of those games are going to run on Switch too. Ultimately, PS and Xbox are likely to be reduced to AAA third party software and stagnating or declining hardware sales which puts the whole AAA thing at risk. Nintendo is well-positioned for the future in both home and portable use. It's just that at the moment nobody wants to consider it because the Wii U and 3DS didn't do particularly well. |
Basically I agree with your analysis. Especially the growing cost of AAA and therefore the stronger focus on a few blockbuster-titles reducing variety as a result. But, this doesn't necessarily put Nintendo or Switch in a superior position. There are two points, which could modify the trajectory and will be very determining for the future of the gaming landscape:
A) The gamestudios might find ways to migitate costs. Currently costs explode because more 3D-content has to be generated in higher detail. Which puts a lot of effort into 3D-modelling and textures. The main cost as in most businesses is the human labor. But there might be possibilities to reduce these costs. 3D-models could be generated more procedural for instance. There is a lot of work for creating these procedural algorithms, but it can work out. Think for instance your game needs a forest. You could have people modelling and placing the trees, or you build one algorithms to create a lot of in detail differently looking trees. You have only to work manually on places of importance. This could reduce cost and save the AAA-model.
B) There is a certain possibility that the market shape in favor of big publishers. Classical gamers want a lot of diversity and many different games. But by now we already have gamers that play one game on and on. Call of Duty, FIFA, Minecraft, Skyrim are examples. Multiplayer helps but isn't basically necessary. In this case these big games can bring in the money and the lack of diversity doesn't matter.
I think this topic is very interesting, I think the gaming landscape will change, but there is a lot of uncertainty how. It wold be interesting to have an own thread or even multiple threads (for different sub-topics) to explore these possibilities.
