| Mummelmann said:
That's why I call them fringe and not casual customers, these are the inbetween customers that buy more games than casuals but less than hardcore, the ones who buy simpler fare from time to time to get a break from bigger games and perhaps have fun with friends. The ones who got hooked on wordfeud and similar, competitive games like Quiz Battle on mobile devices, all the while still buying every odd console or PC game as well, and the same that made up the chunk of the user base for games like Buzz, Singstar and Rock Band. Of course, the majority of Quiz Battle and wordfeud gamers don't care much for regular games. Look at Nintendo's Brain Training games for another good example of how these customers have changed habbits.
Fringe customers are neither here nor there but there are better, not to mention a whole lot cheaper, alternatives now on mobile devices and perceived value rules the day. It's not like Rock Band is cheap with all the instruments anyway. This is also why Wii Fit U was a horrible idea despite the success of the first two games; there are now better and miles cheaper alternatives on mobile devices. This is probably the biggest indicator we have right now of what these customers are doing, while Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus had well over 20% attach rate; Wii Fit U has slightly more than 5% at this point, this figure will shrink as the lifetime sales of the console increase (likely ending up around 2.5-3% when all is said and done).
Developers are still dealing with how they go about catering to a splintered market and these changes are still fairly recent. Expect a lot of games to fall on their asses before things change much.
I could be wrong, who knows? I guess the sales of Rock Band 4 will tell at any rate.
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I'm not saying that you're wrong but simply that the waters haven't been tested thus far on PS4/X1 (like they have for Wii U and its casual/non gamer audience). We have evidence that the blue ocean demographic or casual gamers have put down their wii motes but not that the fringe gamers are no longer active. I always presumed they're partially what allows FIfa, Assassins Creed and COD to sell rediculous amounts each year, they're the type that might pick whatever the next hype thing is without knowing too much about it (Destiny, maybe Star Wars BF3 this year) . All we know of the PS4/X1 is that their hardware sales are really healthy and software sales even more so. Thats bodes well for the range of audience they're capturing, now everything arriving this year is next gen exclusive and prices are about to fall again the chances are even higher that these fringe consumers will be here in large enough numbers by years end.
