Easily, if the industry is losing even more billions than it's making. Try reading through the financial reports of the major software publishers. Sony is losing (a lot of) money. Microsoft is losing money (Halo launch quarter excepted). Take-Two is losing money. THQ is losing money. Sega is losing money. Konami is losing money. Midway and Atari are losing so much money, they're probably going out of business. EA will post their first net loss in almost a decade this year (prediction, but I'm telling you, it's going to happen).

Who's actually making money? Nintendo, on the backs of Wii + DS. Activision, mostly due to Guitar Hero sales. That's about it right now; some other companies are breaking even, without turning big profits. Development costs for games are simply too high, and the complexity of these games are preventing enough new gamers from coming in to make up for the rising expenses. These games aren't even bad - many of them are quite good - but the overall economics of the market are very shaky. There are tons of recent examples from this year; I can list everything from Stranglehold to Heavenly Sword as proof.

When 80% of an industry's major companies are posting losses, the industry is in crisis mode. Don't get caught up in the hype over how revenue continues to soar higher every year. The net income (profit) for the gaming industry is in terrible shape right now. The market isn't going to crash, but (as shams and Kruze said), it will contract in the next few years. We'll see some big names going under, for sure. The only way that the industry has survived as long as it has in a pretty stagnant environment has been through market expansion (especially into Europe) and ridiculous deficit spending from big pocket corporations like Microsoft and Sony. Neither can last forever.

Breakdown of thread:

- Person posts article which makes an insightful analysis of gaming which tips its hat to the Wii.

- Sony and Xbox gamers lash back feeling testosterone gaming has been threatened.

- Fruitless bickering ensues

 Nice post. I read the entirety of it and the anecdotal stuff was a good read. Thanks.

Oh I did, I just felt like summing everything up in an over slimplistic and content lacking response. I'm too tired from playing SMG to make a real reply.

People would have thought the same thing back in the day when Atarii crashed.  It could have happened.

That was a brilliant article.

Here's my summary:

Nintendo didn't move forward. They didn't need to. They moved sideways, and now Sony and Microsoft are killing each other while looking over their shoulders at the Wii with huge question marks over their heads wondering where all the money went.



I remember a game that was huge back in the day. In fact, the whole planet played this game. It was Pac-Man. It had ZERO buttons. Anybody could play it, and everybody did. Wii Sports is the new Pac-Man. You just... swing. It's fun. Do people who hate Wii Sports because it lacks depth hate Pac-Man for the same reason? If so, they have no soul.

Non-games are the new non-non-games, but regular games aren't going anywhere. Don't worry folks. The market's just expanding like never before, and there will be room for everybody.

He said "joystick"! Uh uh! 

 ^ LOL

it boils down to the market catering only to the hardcore gamer was going to die----face it look at the games and the press they were receiving---we gamers were starting to go the way of punks and bad kids for playing games---We were not attracting enough new blood to keep the family going

Enter the Wii---now gamming is becoming the mainstream not the hardcore---because of this people don’t feel as threatened ---mainly the "hardcore*"gamers still do--

Games are starting to become a family idea--its no longer hey i was able to rotate my joystick while pressing X, ^, O,O and i jumped on that prostitutes head -it’s now hey i waved my arm and i hit a tennis ball

Which do you think is going to attract more non-gamers?

*anyone else think of Harold and Kumar when they here hardcore--you know those mountain dew guys that are all screams and slim jims---yep that’s god hardcore example--epically when they listen to 80's soft rock mix tapes in their "extreme" hardcore off roader--complete with hang gliders