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SvennoJ on 12 September 2022
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Qwark said:
SvennoJ said:

The console games market is stagnating, not growing. The growth is in the mobile sector. The console pie isn't growing much anymore.

Companies diversified their means of income because they wanted to avoid increasing the base price. Those margins from DLC, MTX and digital are fading now as well. If you hadn't noticed, game companies are getting bought up left and right. That's not because they are making record profits...



The growth in console video game sales is gone. There was an uptick from the pandemic, but that didn't last and now inflation has gone from 3% a year to 10% in some places. Look at an inflation calculator and $60 in 2005 is $90 in 2022. MTX, DLC and better margins on digital don't cover that.

Console will follow the same path as handheld and arcade and will be barely visible in 2035. The question is though what will pc do. Because if games remain 60 euro, it will become non profitable for many AAA Devs sooner or later. Not every company can release relatively cheap games to make and sell millions of them.

True, A lot of PC games are 'subsidized' by console games. Without the better margins on console game sales, even if all console gamers continue gaming on PC, there will be less revenue and thus smaller budgets. Yet maybe PC can continue growing. Otherwise games will become dependent on streaming and more and more F2P. That will definitely impact how and what games are made.

But it's also possible consoles stick around. It's still the easiest way to play bigger games in good hassle free quality. The 'hangout with your friends online' setting isn't the same on mobile. The next generation is playing on console. My oldest kid is hanging out with his friends in Rust and other games on console. My youngest is more into PC, playing Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite on Switch.

Handheld market was taken over by mobile, yet will streaming similarly take over console gaming? And actually the handheld market is still alive in the Switch. Part of that console revenue in that graph is from the Switch which is more handheld than console. Plus now we have Steamdeck as well.