This thread is very weird and almost makes no sense. The videogame industry is out of decline because Nintendo decided NOT to give us better graphics but a different control scheme? So since they have given us the Nunchuk and Wiimote, they have single-handedly saved the gaming industry (Which was a billion dollar industry pre-Wii, and still is a billion dollar industry). So Sony didn't revitalize the game industry when they decided to go the CD route while Ninty was set on given us cartridges for the rest of our lives. Had Sony not gone the CD route, we would never have gotten to experience games like FFVII or Chrono Cross on the PS1, and maybe today we'd still be playing off cartridges. I fail to see how keeping us behind on technology is helping the game industry. We all know that the Wii has sold millions and millions of units, but I fail to see how a joystick (or lack thereof) saved a billion dollar industry. I think it was small games like maybe the halo series, final fantasy, etc. that saved this industry. Last I checked, Halo 3 had the biggest one day opening in entertainment history (300 million +). The Wii didn't do that in one day.

 You're looking at revenue and mistaking it for profit, revenue is growing but so are costs, and as a result profits are falling, Nintendo is the only one that has a consitently profitable gaming division, grotwth in the industry is being powered by the Wii and the DS not the graphically powered systems, not only are people who never played games coming on board, but those who were or were beginning to become bored with games are coming back.

Those games you mention were big selleres, but the costs of making those games were rising faster than the growth in those games sales, and some of those games were even losing sales, the fact is if not for the Wii and DS gaming was headed for a cliff thanks to high production costs and gamer drift.

Tyagi is right DJmeister

Sony and MS are hemoraging money profusely. They've turned gaming into a money pit gamble.

Sony stands a decent chance of going under in gaming this generation or dropping out of console gaming altogether. The Ps3 is beyond ever turning a profit at any point in its projected life span, once Blu-Ray is established as a dominant format or fails as a format, Sony will have no real need for the PS3 which is costing them dearly and the PSP which has done nothing but spin their wheels in the mud. The Ps3 and the gaming industry has already forced Sony to take so many steps back from expanding their empire, if they don't realize soon enough that the gaming industry isn't worth it, their stock holders will.

Microsoft's only investment in the gaming industry is ousting Sony and halting their ambitions of expansion into Microsoft's territory. With Sony out of the picture Microsoft would have nothing to gain by investing in another generation of money losing console gaming. It would make sense for Microsoft just to take all the infrastructure they've built with the Xbox lineage and just transfer it to PC gaming, an ideal medium for digital format gaming and an ideal means of enforcing Window exclusivity. This way they cut out the bothersome and costly middleman of the gaming console, consolidating their markets and increasing their profit margins exponentially.

Even if neither of these scenarios would occur it would be unlikely we'd see anything other than Western market flourish, the Japanese market would probably be forced into a huge drop with the PS3 as the only choice in gaming. Don't get me wrong there would still be business, there would still be games, but the industry would be in a steep decline.

I know all you 360 and PS3 lovers don't want to hear that Sony and MS are not the greatest candidates for gaming's future, but you need to wake up and realize that better graphics aren't everything, don't translate into profits for the company, don't garantee a future for gaming, or promise a gaming experience that will last beyond the next title with better graphics. Graphics are something left in the dust with every generation, innovation however stays. With Graphics, you're investing in an aspect of gaming with an expiration date not a future.

For these graphics you so cherish, you've sacrificed Backwards Compatibility, hardware quality and reliability, development standards (patches and more patches), game length and genre diversity. How much more of gaming do you plan on giving up in the future for the sake of a console that has the best graphics and most "mature" games?

The Wii is not the answer to everything, it is not the godsend of gaming, but right now its is arguably the best hope for gaming's future and is considered by many the only console moving in a positive direction for gaming.

I can't understand why people fail to realize a smaller market isn't better for anyone other than themselves.

Up until the wii, the only way to get new gamers was to get somebody to have a baby and raise it playing videogames. A twenty five year old male who never had
any interest in videogames isn't going to pick up a PS3 and uncharted because of a commercial, and even if he did, he would play it for half an hour get frustrated and stop.

We grew up playing videogames, and because of that I think we fail to understand how complex of an operation it is. With 2 joysticks, 4 shoulder buttons, and 4 face buttons, each one assigned to a specific operation. For anyone who has never played a musical instrument, Try picking up a guitar with it's six strings and making it do what you want. After a while you could probably play a little diddy if somebody showed you how, but actually being comfortable with it would take alot of time and practice. To make a character run, jump, shoot, throw grenades, dodge, snap necks, roll, sneak, hide, switch through a plethora of weapons, ect ect with the utmost precision with split second timing is completely natural to us. Have you ever watched your hands when playing an intense and complex game? My sister commented on my brother and I playing Marvel Vs Capcom 2 with our fingers flying to attack, switch characters, block, so forth, and said it looked like we were playing a strange looking piano. But we've grown up doing that. If you didn't grow up doing that, it's very awkward, and hard to do, and with little pay off (if it's not entertaining you, what are you getting out of it?).

The wii's controller when used right by developers, destroys the barrier between those who manipulate twenty buttons with utmost deftness, and the person who has to look down every time to see which button is the X button. Swinging a racket is as easy swinging a racket, shooting a target is as easy as pointing at it and squeezing a trigger button, throwing a punch is as easy as swinging your fist. Call it broken, call it shallow, but call it accessible while you're at it.

Regardless of what the wii's controller is or is not, one thing is undeniable. It's capturing a market that no other console has ever touched. No middle aged soccer mom would see a b3lieve commercial and go get a PS3. No retirement villa is going to have 360s with Halo 3. But they are buying wii, and carnival games, and raving rabbids, and what have you. That is generating profit, which is hard to come by when development costs have tripled but the hardcore market has stayed the same. The wii is great for the industry. People misunderstand what being a billion dollar industry means. It doesn't mean it's incredibly successful and invincible, it means it's getting large. It can still contract, implode or just flat out collapse in a brief period of time.

No new market would be created, only born. Some of them born into it would stick with it, others wouldn't. While we are all 60 years old and playing Grand Theft Auto Iraq Stories 3 downloadable expansion packs, the industry would stagnate further and further as there are only the hardcore who played their NESs and the occasional kid who was born into playing the PS3 he got for christmas. But that will generate profit only for a small handful of genre king developers while the rest go bankrupt.

For those that say it endangers the hardcore market, how many developers have said that they are profiting on the wii and spending that money on the 360 and PS3? We had alot of topics about it a few months ago. How is galaxy less remarkable because of the wii's broad appeal? The gems will always be around, because there will always be artists amongst the business men. Just like with the movie industry. Sure alot of crap gets made, but that doesn't stop brilliant things from getting made does it?

I really don't understand how people can look at the current business model and think that it will continue to be successful and grow and prosper. Something has to change or it will stagnate, contract (possibly contract swiftly and brutally), and then possibly worst case scenario collapse.

Nintendo gets it, even if myriads of fanboys don't. Seriously, read the malstrom articles.

Most people here are making good points however...

The real point that people keep talking about is that one of the biggest reasons costs are high because things like graphics are costly.

People here are assuming that graphics will continue to be so costly which strikes me as odd. As tools grow and improve, the overhead in making better graphics will decrease. Perhaps topnotch graphics are not cost-effective on a wide scale this generation, but in the future that may very well change.

There is a finite limit to graphical improvements - the human eye.  Even 1080p is hitting that barrier now...

 Companies like Sony and MS only understand how to add in more power when they make a system, as the tech continues to advance, you may not get massive leaps in graphics, but costs inherent in programming the games would continue to rise gen after gen as games got larger and systems got harder to program for

I'm sure price will come down to an extent, but it gets more expensive every generation (no way it took 30 mil to make a high end PSX game when it first came out), and if the audience isn't keeping up then that just means reduced profits. UNLESS of course they have a mass audience to draw money from making low budget fun games that can be used to fund larger high tech hardcore games that cost bukus of money to make, and break even or make a slight profit if they are lucky.

I respect your optimism and I'm sure you thought you had many good points, but all you've really done is provide questionable benefit of the doubt for contrary arguments. I won't accost you for having a varying opinion, but I remain umimpressed by the arguments you've provided.

Right now, innovation is turned toward things the player can visibly see.  This type of innovation is going to hit a wall in the near future.

After realizing that, innovation in this area will turn to how many effects can be overlayed much akin to what Halo 3 did.

After realizing that, innovation in this area will turn toward things the player cannot visibly see.  AI, large quantities of objects outside the player's view point..etc.  Imagine a game the size of Oblivion or Metroid Prime 3 with no loading screens and where every single level and area in the game is already primed and ready.

After this, games will hit their limit.  They will have the power to do everything the game designer wishes and do so both beautifully and at 60 fps (or whatever fps the designer chooses). 


These innovations depend both on time and cost-effectiveness.  Hardware moves forward and increases in power regardless of other factors however.  Programming costs will do as they have almost every generation.  Start high and slowly go down in cost as developers become more familiar with the system and its API.  Graphics and the like will go down in cost as the tools for creating such become more advanced.