Update: Jade Raymond joins Google as Vice President | Rumor: Google's gaming console details leaked, possible controller design revealed via patent

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Mnementh said:

shikamaru317 said:

(1) According to rumors, that is Google's plan, they plan to gun for Microsoft's spot. That is also reportedly why Microsoft's Satya Nadella gave the Xbox division a much bigger budget last year, which they have used to purchase multiple 1st party studios, Microsoft knows that Google is gunning for Xbox and they plan to fight them off. Google doesn't plan to give up without a fight though it seems, there are rumors of them buying 1st party studios as well, and now we have this rumor that they plan to moneyhat some 3rd party exclusives from older, dormant IP's, including several dormant Sega IP's. 

(2) I suspect that the rumored Microsoft-Nintendo partnership is because of the rumors of Google entering the market as well, Microsoft and Nintendo know they are stronger together if Google guns for either of them.

(3) It is also worth noting that MS and Google aren't just fighting a console battle this gen, they are also playing the long game, with both of them introducing their streaming services, Microsoft's xCloud and Google's Project Stream. They are both laying the groundwork for future gaming generations after traditional consoles die, as internet infrastructure improves more and more people are going to be moving toward streaming, and both MS and Google want to make sure that they will be the market leader when it comes to game streaming services. Amazon is reportedly working on a game streaming service as well, they intend to battle it out with MS and Google in that market as well. Google designing a console is more about pulling people into their gaming ecosystem and towards their streaming service than it is about actually competing against the other consoles.

(1) Oh, so there is blood in the water. That's good for gamers. If the competition has the knifes out, they tend to compete strongly for consumers wallets.

(2) I personally would love Nintendo and MS to work more closely together. Still I don't see it from the current rumours. Only that they not walking over each others toes.

(3) This could mean Google intends to stay longer (and so is MS) and they are willing to take losses. Again, good thing for us consumers, as we probably get more games out of this.

The_Liquid_Laser said:
A lot of buzz this year about new consoles. Obviously Microsoft and Sony are preparing for something soon. Now Google is throwing their hat in.

The thing about console gaming is that it seems to have only supported 3 home consoles at a time:
Gen 3: Nintendo, Sega, Atari
Gen 4: Nintendo, Sega, NEC
Gen 5: Nintendo, Sega, Sony
Gen 6: Nintendo, Sony, Sega/Microsoft*
Gen 7-8: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft

There is always just 3. (*In gen 6, Sega left about the time Microsoft came in.) If Google comes in, then it is likely that someone else will have to leave. Of course this could just be Google themselves. I mean Ouya technically was a thing, but never really gained traction. Google could end up being a similar footnote in gaming history. They could also kick Microsoft out of the market. There is also a chance they kick Sony out, if the stars align against Sony (i.e. they screw up PS5 like they did PS3). Nintendo is the only one 100% safe, because they are the only one selling to handheld gamers.

Looks like the home console market is going to have some serious competition this time around.

I am not agreeing. You leave out the first two gens, which were a pretty convoluted mess. You conviniently forget the 3DO, the Apple Pippin, the PC-FX, the NeoGeo or the Atari Jaguar. Well, N64, PS1, Saturn, Pippin, Jaguar, PC-FX and 3do in one generation would pretty much shatter your theory. But you could argue that less consoles were relevant. But this also means the Atari 7800 in third gen or the PCEngine (TurboGrafx) and Supergrafx in fourth gen wouldn't make the cut. The reality is more, that the market sustains only few relevant consoles, but others always try. Sometimes it works, like for MS and Sony. I would even argue Sony grew the market (with opening up the european market and expanding in more countries in the world) so that in the long run it could sustain three consoles. Maybe somethign similar happens. With China and India possibly becoming strong markets maybe a fourth competitor is sustainable.

 

My point is that the market has always sustained at most 3 relevant consoles.  (And yes NEC did have a relevant console.  The SNES was released because the PC-Engine was selling well in Japan.)  After that there is just not enough profit to go around.

Now you may have a point in that if enough new territories open up, then there may be enough customers to go around.  But in practice it tends not to happen this way.  In practice one console ends up being dominant worldwide.  The PS2 was successful everywhere, so was the Wii and so is the PS4.  That leaves the other two competitors fighting over the scraps.  I don't think there are enough scraps to sustain another competitor entering the market.