selnor said: ookaze said: selnor said: It's either just me or everyone has missed the point. He doesnt say console gaming will die. He is saying if there is another generation it needs to change. And I agree. I disagree with him. Now why do you agree with him? This I don't understand. What's the problem exactly? Strangely enough, I thought the PC gaming market was the one shrinking compared to the console gaming market. It's not just what he says but also whats happening in the tech world. His statement is entirely true about Intel and AMD. When they release those chips in 2009, PC gaming will have in power terms double the potential of PS3 and 360. Also in 2010 they are looking to release HD movies on kiosks in shops which you download to a flash or SD card(Or whatever the one Toshiba is working on.) Now most people have proven that they dont mind not having a disc with music(as downloads outsells shop cd's now). This will be the same for films. I also believe Toshiba is working on TV's where you put those cards strait in and watch the HD download without the need for external player. I certainly thinkthis is why MS hasnt botherd with a BLU RAY player and am certain that nex gen games with microsoft wont be on disc. To much is changing. Downloads are cheaper to produce and cheaper forthe consumer. And with not needing to have the internet at home makes this an easier shift than a new medium. I said all along I wouldnt get HDDVD or BLU RAY because there were changes close.

 This makes no sense.  PCs have always been more powerful than consoles because they are upgraded more often instead of every 5-6 years.  Also, downloads of music are not the same as downloads of movies.  People can carry thousands of songs on an iPod but you cant carry dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands of movies on a laptop or flash card.  And I would like to see where people buy more music online than in a store because you can't count pirated music as there is no definative way to count it.  Lots of p2p services, lots of different torrents from different websites etc.  Also, Microsoft not wanting games on discs?  How many terabytes of hard drive space will be needed then in the xbox720?  Developers are already filling up the 50gb discs the PS3 has, there is no reason why they wouldn't make games even larger if you give them unlimited space that people are just going to download everything.  And what happens when something like last fall comes about again, when it seemed like all the good games of the year landed in the space of 2 months.  Eveyone is going to download all those games and wait forever to play all those games because their are spliting their limited bandwidth between 5, 6, 7 games?  Also, if there is a game you don't like, you can't resell a game that you downloaded, which is big business.  If people don't have that option they would be less willing to take a chance on a game.  So developers would be making more money per game sold but they would be losing sales because not everyone has 100megabit broadband internet and there is no way to sell off a game if you don't like it or even let a friend borrow it.  That is a bit of a rant I know but people, especially the hardcore, will buy lots of games over the life cycle of a system and to store all those game onto a hard drive and download when that fast enough broadband isn't cheaply available even in big cities, let alone the rest of the world where basic broadband is barely available if at all makes no sense to me.  Microsoft would might as well hand the next generation over to Nintendo or Sony on a silver platter.  Not to mention they lose money on each system sold now and to have a boost in power and a huge hard drive and they are going to have to add in wifi into their next system (Nintendo has wifi and is making a profit on the console, no reason why Microsoft shouldn't have had wifi built in).

I didn't say they wouldn't be good, I said they wouldn't be big. With a couple exceptions, none of those are going to do Smash Brothers/Wii Fit/GeoW2/MGS4/GT5:P/etc. numbers. In a discussion about market share, I think that's much more relevant than ratings.


I think you're probably right. I made the mistake (as the analysts also tend to do) of focusing too much on the retail channel and ignoring the other means of income.

If the industry isn't shrinking, I still think it's getting more specialized. What I mean by that is that the PC market is getting extremely focused on a subset of gamers who enjoy MMORPGs, FPSs, Strategy, and Sim games (and to a lesser extent, adventure games and "offline MMORPGs"). Virtually the entire remaining wide world of gaming is nearly exclusive to the consoles (more importantly, the console style of playing), which is why it's ridiculous to imagine a world without them -- especially in just one generation.


If that's what he's saying, he's still wrong. We might reach photorealism next gen in a limited sense, but that's just going to be the beginning. When we can render an entire living, breathing city photorealistically, in a way that allows realistic interaction with every part of it, and when we can move seamlessly from outer space to a near-microscopic level with a universal physics engine working on the whole thing, then differences in graphics will start to become less important. Until then, we're going to keep demanding better hardware, probably in the same 4-7 year console cycles we've been seeing already.


Here's a part from the interview where he seems to be making that claim. But it's nonsense. Graphics are absolutely still a differentiating feature: they're just not the most important differentiating feature (and they never have been, as anyone who's looked at gaming history knows). If graphics weren't important, the 360 and PS3 would both be dismal failures. Those consoles are their graphics. And a huge portion of the PC market is driven by the same thing (would Crysis have garnered the slightest attention if it were mediocre looking?).


I don't like the equating of online community with digital distribution in this argument, because they're not at all synonymous. But putting that aside, what he said wasn't that retailers were going to lose privileges, it was that they were going to stop selling consoles because they're taking a loss on them (which will no longer be subsidized by game sales). This is just wrong. Granted, they don't make much profit on them, and probably not enough to justify the shelf space in the absence of game sales.

But, even if he were right about everything going digital-distribution in the next gen (which he's not -- more on that soon), and even if he were right about retailers losing money on consoles, this still doesn't work. Console makers wouldn't sit there dumb and blind while their products were taken off every shelf in the world. All they would have to do is rework the markup slightly to make it worth the retailers' bother. It's a matter of a simple tweak to the pricing formula.

Now, about digital distribution. There's no way in hell it's going to become the exclusive, dominant, or even particularly significant means of console game distribution within the next 10 years. I think we can safely say that next gen's games are going to be at least as big as this gen's, and probably larger. But if they sit at just 50gb a piece, 10 years from now there's still going to be only the tiniest minority of people in the richest parts of the world who can comfortably download something that size. 90% of people couldn't even dream of it. A disk-based medium is going to be with us for a long time yet.

Is there a source on this? Anyway, all else being equal, a closed platform like a console will still be much more effective at combating piracy than a PC.

Because his assertion that consoles are just DRM wagons is a ridiculous oversimplification. Consoles also bring a plug-and-play simplicity to gaming that PCs never will. They offer standardized technology -- both for developers, whose job it makes easier, and for players, who know they can run what they're buying. The input methods are also standardized so that no clumsy add-ons are needed to play every game on the system. They're a form of living room entertainment, whereas most people's computers are stuck in an office somewhere. Partly as a result of this, they're a much more social form of gaming than a PC, and they make genres of games work that just don't on PC. The list goes on.

 Now, in 20+ years or so I can imagine a merger of PC and game console (and refrigerator, and toilet) that could start to fulfill what he imagines happening in the next 5 years. But you must at least agree that his idea of this being the last generation of consoles is absurd. Suddenly, with no transitional period, with no indication at all that things are heading in this direction except for one partisan madman's prophesy, suddenly consoles are done? The console makers aren't even going to try another go at it?

first is their 2 controllers for the orb plus i am not siting in front of a pc all day to play games hey if i stay on the computer ALL day i get a headacke

Here's proof that PC gaming, not console gaming, is dying: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9wH5ZvdzHVo&feature=related

cwbys21 said: selnor said: ookaze said: selnor said: It's either just me or everyone has missed the point. He doesnt say console gaming will die. He is saying if there is another generation it needs to change. And I agree. I disagree with him. Now why do you agree with him? This I don't understand. What's the problem exactly? Strangely enough, I thought the PC gaming market was the one shrinking compared to the console gaming market. It's not just what he says but also whats happening in the tech world. His statement is entirely true about Intel and AMD. When they release those chips in 2009, PC gaming will have in power terms double the potential of PS3 and 360. Also in 2010 they are looking to release HD movies on kiosks in shops which you download to a flash or SD card(Or whatever the one Toshiba is working on.) Now most people have proven that they dont mind not having a disc with music(as downloads outsells shop cd's now). This will be the same for films. I also believe Toshiba is working on TV's where you put those cards strait in and watch the HD download without the need for external player. I certainly thinkthis is why MS hasnt botherd with a BLU RAY player and am certain that nex gen games with microsoft wont be on disc. To much is changing. Downloads are cheaper to produce and cheaper forthe consumer. And with not needing to have the internet at home makes this an easier shift than a new medium. I said all along I wouldnt get HDDVD or BLU RAY because there were changes close.   This makes no sense. PCs have always been more powerful than consoles because they are upgraded more often instead of every 5-6 years. Also, downloads of music are not the same as downloads of movies. People can carry thousands of songs on an iPod but you cant carry dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands of movies on a laptop or flash card. And I would like to see where people buy more music online than in a store because you can't count pirated music as there is no definative way to count it. Lots of p2p services, lots of different torrents from different websites etc. Also, Microsoft not wanting games on discs? How many terabytes of hard drive space will be needed then in the xbox720? Developers are already filling up the 50gb discs the PS3 has, there is no reason why they wouldn't make games even larger if you give them unlimited space that people are just going to download everything. And what happens when something like last fall comes about again, when it seemed like all the good games of the year landed in the space of 2 months. Eveyone is going to download all those games and wait forever to play all those games because their are spliting their limited bandwidth between 5, 6, 7 games? Also, if there is a game you don't like, you can't resell a game that you downloaded, which is big business. If people don't have that option they would be less willing to take a chance on a game. So developers would be making more money per game sold but they would be losing sales because not everyone has 100megabit broadband internet and there is no way to sell off a game if you don't like it or even let a friend borrow it. That is a bit of a rant I know but people, especially the hardcore, will buy lots of games over the life cycle of a system and to store all those game onto a hard drive and download when that fast enough broadband isn't cheaply available even in big cities, let alone the rest of the world where basic broadband is barely available if at all makes no sense to me. Microsoft would might as well hand the next generation over to Nintendo or Sony on a silver platter. Not to mention they lose money on each system sold now and to have a boost in power and a huge hard drive and they are going to have to add in wifi into their next system (Nintendo has wifi and is making a profit on the console, no reason why Microsoft shouldn't have had wifi built in).

You dont put them on a hard drive, it goes on a flash or SD. (I cant remember what it is Toshiba are making). Then that inserts to Xbox and you play. Also I dont know anyone of my friends that buys films anymore. They all pay 14.99 a month and can download as many HD films as they want. (Or SD). Beacause you pay to download, even if you have 2 mb download speed these sites give you full bandwidth(unlike P2P torrents). I'll find some articles(which isnt hard, as it's currently regarded the near future). Also as I mentioned the idea is for Kiosks, so people dont even need the net. 

 

cleveland124 said: Plaupius said:Of course, that's somewhat of an oversimplification, as the retailers obviously care about the causality of sales, so it might be that having consoles helps them sell other, more profitable products, in which case they won't be so hasty to drop consoles. That was what I was trying to get at. I buy 90% of my things online. If it wasn't for games, I'd probably buy no pleasure purchases at the store as my wife does the grocery shopping and I only buy clothes when I absolutely need them. However, here is my question, that I pretty much asked in another thread. Let's assume away all problems of digital distribution. Assume bandwidth is unlimited, assume people don't care if they don't actually own a physical copy, assume Microsoft and Sony release IP machines next generation with massive hard drives. Then let's say Nintendo basically makes a Wii HD. You can even assume that Microsoft and Sony's machines are cheap. The question I have is, would Nintendo's console fail? It certainly wouldn't put up Wii 1 numbers but is it possible for it to do worse than the gamecube? In my mind I think there will always be a console market. And if there is one stores will have games for them. Will they have decreasing space for them? Probably. But when I look at most retailers (Wal-mart included) I see tons of wasted space. If they were really that concerned over what at most stores is a few cases 3 feet wide by 5 foot long then they need to do a complete store overhaul.

You, then, are already there where the majority of consumers are projected to be at some point in the not so distant future. And that is going to be the biggest revolution in distribution/retail channels of the modern age. The whole concept of the brick-and-mortar store has to be rethought as the new generation of consumers brings about new kind of buying behaviour.

About your question, am I right to assume that the Wii HD would not be able to download games, or that it at least would not be the main mode of distributing them? Because, at the heart of things is this: the whole traditional mode of distribution is undergoing a revolution as we speak. In the "good ole days" you had a three tiered (or, in some cases 3.5) distribution chain: manufacturer -> distributor -> (rep) -> dealer/retail. What is happening now is that retail is bypassing the distributors and going straight to manufacturer, thus eliminating one step from the overall margin structure. This means they can sell at a lower price than those dealers who buy from distributors, and this is why so many of the small speciality stores are bleeding to death now. The big thing in digital distribution is not the distribution media itself, it is the fact that manufacturers bypass the distribution chain altogether and get direct access to the end customers. This, in turn, means they can sell at a lower price AND get better margins, and, let's face it, consumer markets are highly price sensitive. The lower price of digital distribution is what will drive its adoption.

Now, back to your question: I do not think that the mode of distribution of games is what will make or break a console. The price of the games does play a role, but how big a role, that I can not say. Wii games are cheaper than PS3/X360 games, but it's damn near impossible to know how much it affects the sales. Now, if you assume that PS4/X720 and Wii HD are otherwise close to equal in performance, with the Wii HD lacking digital distribution, that would mean it is at a disadvantage due to higher priced games. But in reality there are so many factors that come into play that it is impossible to say what would happen. But to answer your question: sure, Wii HD could do worse than GC, anything is possible.

He's saying that: "Soon there will be a time when a PC is so strong, that it doesn't need an improvement." Well Moore's law will still be here for 20 years or so. By that time there will be servers that stream your game. Everyone has a very fast internet connection. I assume consumers will be ready to adopt this. Consoles are death, console gaming won't be death. The PC could move to the living room. TFT screen will be installed with a networkcard to do your work/homework/internet use or play a game.

selnor said: ... You dont put them on a hard drive, it goes on a flash or SD. (I cant remember what it is Toshiba are making). Then that inserts to Xbox and you play. Also I dont know anyone of my friends that buys films anymore. They all pay 14.99 a month and can download as many HD films as they want. (Or SD). Beacause you pay to download, even if you have 2 mb download speed these sites give you full bandwidth(unlike P2P torrents). I'll find some articles(which isnt hard, as it's currently regarded the near future). Also as I mentioned the idea is for Kiosks, so people dont even need the net.

So instead of someone buying a disc, they buy a bunch of flash cards. They would have to be a hell of a lot bigger than we have right now and be cheaper than a disc (which I have a very hard time believing at the moment, even blu ray discs). I don't see how people would sell off games they don't want anymore either. also someone would have to pay for a kiosk to store all these games on that people will be buying through and have it hooked up to a good internet connection to download new games or pay people to go around loading new games onto them. And where will these kiosks be, a Walmart? They will want a cut of the sales if they are going to have it there and that kind of defies the point of digital distribution.

For the bolded part, people you know is not a big sample size. Hell I can counter that with the people I know used to download a bunch of movies and anime, but gave up to just buy it on disc. A part of that is now we are no longer poor, jobless highschoolers.

 

edit:  I'm not trying to be (to) confrontational, but the whole digital distribution thing just doesn't add up to me.  Either people download it straight to their house, but most can't have or want to pay for  high enough speed internet and the digital distribution through kiosks have to be located somewhere and wherever it is going to be located is going to want a portion of the cut and then what is the point of dd, except to maybe save $3 on packaging.

Speaking for myself, I like having the case, manual, etc. That's why I'm a sucker for collector's editions: more and better extras.

On topic: a lot of those "safe" DD methods seem to involve mandatory online verification. Sucks to be you if you want to play without Internet, I guess. And the only alternative (since there is no physical medium, only data that can be easily copied) is to lock it to the hardware it was downloaded to ala the 360, which has obvious problems.

The reason DD works great for MMO games is that there isn't any POINT to playing without Internet, so it doesn't inconvenience customers when the game requires it. And the tech-fiends don't care, because they can't stand going 15 minutes without an Internet connection anyway, so they have no reason to care either. But DD will only continue to marginalize PC gaming from all the other genres and audiences.

As for myself, I feel very cautious about giving away that much control over my rights to play a game I bought.

Console gaming is on the rise, but so is PC gaming, and there's room for both for a few reasons, the most prevalent of which might be the different audiences.