By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Mummelmann on 20 April 2023
Edit Thread
Pemalite said:
Mummelmann said:

It was a shit take, traditional home consoles were never under severe threat by mobile/browser/social gaming. On the other hand; dedicated handhelds are all but dead and gone. Look at the collapse in sales between the DS/PSP era and the 3DS/PS Vita era, that's where the real hurt arrived.

But, yeah, "console gaming is dead" is even more hilarious in retrospect. I have a lot of experience with dead markets and platforms, seeing as how PC gaming has been dying since the early 2000s.

I think the Switch has proven that the mobile sector is very much alive and kicking. - The Switch is very much a dedicated handheld that has a charging dock with HDMI output over USB-C. - I would argue that Nintendo has abandoned the home console market, but it also doesn't matter.

The issues plaguing the 3DS/Vita era are/were many...

Higher prices, 3DS had a poor name so people may have thought it was a variant in the DS line (Just like WiiU was perceived as an accessory), in Vita's case there wasn't much in the way of support or even advertising in my opinion.


But yeah. None of the markets are dying, but the industry is certainly consolidating currently as Nintendo and Sony have abandoned their handheld/fixed home console dual device model and publishers/developers get bought up.

Absolutely, there were issues plaguing that lineup of handhelds. I think one of the biggest mistakes with Vita was doubling down on non-gaming features, it led to more direct competition and comparison to smart devices, and drove up manufacturing cost to boot. Sometimes, Sony has a hard time leaving their media side out of their gaming endeavors. Which is perhaps no wonder, since it has also helped them a great deal in the past. As I've written (way too much) about in the past, in some of the insanely long discussion threads, I think the number one mistake has been misreading the market completely.

As for the inudstry as a whole today, it's doing really well across most segments. The majority growth in the past 2-3 years has come off of increased revenue per capita, and not mainly expansion of demographics per se. It'll be exciting to see how they calulate figures when cloud/streaming comes in more heavily as it technically removes the entire concept of attach rate. I imagine something akin to the Nielsen readings for streaming services, but these give only about half the picture at best. I remember how hard it was simply to track digital sales for console games in the beginning.