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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Console Market not contracting, becoming more focused

Lawlight on 01 August 2016
Cloudman said:
Lawlight said:

Gaming as we're familiar with it will always be a hobby for a specific crowd. Look at what happened with the Wii when Nintendo tried to open it to everyone. 

Oh boy... Gaming was a hobby for a specific group back in the early days before the 6th gen, but nowadays that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Wii was one of those things that really paved the way for expanding that gap. We had people of all ages playing games, including people who never played games. It got people together to just have a good time. That was the point of the Wii, and yeah, that did pretty dang well. Heck, the DS did the same thing with having games like brain age, animal crossing and Nintendogs. It got people from all ages enjoying games. People young and old are still playing Animal Crossing.

 

I think you're wrong there. The Wii was a short-lived sucess and as soon as it died the Wii owners went away. The casual gamers went to play on their phones maybe but they did not go on to buy a PS4 or Xbox or buy games like Uncharted or Doom.



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Soundwave on 01 August 2016
zorg1000 said:
setsunatenshi said:
Not that it's shrinking exactly in software sales, which is all that matters to the publishers at the end of the day.

As Aquamarine pointed out in recent NPD threads, its something like 75% of all 3rd party software sales come from Activision, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Warner Bros & Bethesda.

That's 6 companies that make up 3/4 of the software market which leaves dozens, if not hundreds of companies to fight over the remaining 1/4.

We are seeing the console market become a few massive publishers while the rest fight for scraps. The same goes for genres where shooters/sports/action make up the bulk of software sales and we are also seeing a smaller number of releases with a handful of massive games taking a majority of sales.

I don't think that's really going to change. The game business will become like the movie business where there's 6-7 big movie studios that release every thing basically. 



KBG29 on 02 August 2016

Not sure where the idea that the console market is shrinking is coming from. PS4 and Xbox One are going to sell more consoles in 5 years, than the PS3 and 360 did in their first 8 years on the market.

In fact the PS4 is very likly going to be the first console to surpass 200 Million units sold, and the XBO has a huge oppertunity to become the first 2nd place console to pass the 100 Million mark.

PS4 and XBO are on their way to replacing the PC in most homes, as they are cheaper, and more optimized for home computing. The addition of more and more apps via the UWA's on XBO, and the Sony's push to make PS4 the home of VR well beyond gaming is going to push these systems to levels we have never seen from consoles.

In addtion to expanding the capability of the devices, both Sony and Microsoft are expanding the market by offering entry level devices for the mass market, and premium devices to support the tech crowd. Neo and Scorpio will be a huge boon for both ecosystems.

The market shows no signs of consoles becoming less relevent, nor does it show a sign of gaining more focus. If anything the market is in its most rapid expansion since we saw the PS1 and PS2 expand it in consecutive generations, and the focus, while still on games, is also on creating extreamly optimized and open ecosystems to turn the home computing market into something much more like the smartphone market, and move away from the wild west PC landscape.



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Louie on 02 August 2016
thismeintiel said:
Louie said:

Same here. I can't see gen 8 outselling gen 6 at this point. The PS4 is selling good but not crazy like the Wii did and I doubt it'll be around as long as the PS2. If I had to guess I'd say: 100m PS4, 50m Xbox One and less than 15m Wii U. That's 165m units. As you said, gen 6 was around 200m units total. 

It's good the PS4 isn't selling like the Wii, especially for the reason the Wii was selling.  Why would Sony want to emulate a console that crashed and burned at the end of the gen, having to crawl its way past 100M?  They don't. Not when they can emulate their own console, the PS2, which showed great longevity and sold ~160M consoles.  And like I said, the PS4 is still outpacing it, even without a full $100 pricecut since launch.  And we still have yet to get a PS4 Slim, let alone the Neo.  PS4 is going to around for awhile.

Well, that "crash an burned" part I just won't comment on because our opinions on what that means seem to differ. As for the other part of your post: I'd like that scenario to happen, I just don't think it's likely at this point. Maybe the future will prove me wrong. If Sony can position the PS4 as a long-lasting console that sells close to the PS2 I'll be happy because, frankly, I don't care which console manufacturer sees big sales as long as the console market itself stays healthy. 



Rogerioandrade on 02 August 2016

Yes, the console model of business evolved, that´s true.

But it´s also undeniably true that the number of clients / customers declined immensely with the departure of the casuals to tablets and smartphones and the fading of the motion controls trend.

Let´s not forget that PS3 and Xbox360 had bad sales on their first and second years in the market (dominated by the Wii) and they just picked up sales in their 3rd year. They took a long time to achieve their peak in sales and we still don´t know when the current devices will peak. XboxOne is already showing signs of saturation in some markets while still completely ignored in the Japanese market.

Handheld gaming also is selling much less than before and we can´t ignore how much they still represent in this market financially.

The market is definetely smaller, but it´s not the end of consoles as we know it, at least not in this generation.



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Cloudman on 02 August 2016
Lawlight said:
Cloudman said:

Oh boy... Gaming was a hobby for a specific group back in the early days before the 6th gen, but nowadays that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Wii was one of those things that really paved the way for expanding that gap. We had people of all ages playing games, including people who never played games. It got people together to just have a good time. That was the point of the Wii, and yeah, that did pretty dang well. Heck, the DS did the same thing with having games like brain age, animal crossing and Nintendogs. It got people from all ages enjoying games. People young and old are still playing Animal Crossing.

 

I think you're wrong there. The Wii was a short-lived sucess and as soon as it died the Wii owners went away. The casual gamers went to play on their phones maybe but they did not go on to buy a PS4 or Xbox or buy games like Uncharted or Doom.

Well, the Wii U may be struggling after the Wii, but there is no denying the success the Wii had.



 

              

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Paperboy_J on 02 August 2016
twintail said:
Cloudman said:

Oh boy... Gaming was a hobby for a specific group back in the early days before the 6th gen, but nowadays that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Wii was one of those things that really paved the way for expanding that gap. We had people of all ages playing games, including people who never played games. It got people together to just have a good time. That was the point of the Wii, and yeah, that did pretty dang well. Heck, the DS did the same thing with having games like brain age, animal crossing and Nintendogs. It got people from all ages enjoying games. People young and old are still playing Animal Crossing.

Honestly if there is one console that pushed the boundaries of who a console could appeal to it, it would be the PS1. Sure, the Wii expanded upon this but before the PS1 gaming was pretty much exclusive to youth and as a niche hobby. Then the PS1, and all it's marketting was aimed at saying that anyone could play games (mostly teen, young adult culture at the time). And here we are. The PS2 pushed this even further with various software aimed at casual gamers and did gain traction at the time.

 

 

 

You're saying the PS1 brought in new gamers like the Wii did?  People who had never been interested in videogames before?  Sorry but I gotta disagree with that.  The people who bought the PS1 were those same kids who grew up on the NES, SNES and Genesis, only older.  The PS1 didn't expand the market, it merely stole Nintendo's and Sega's fans (not saying that's bad or anything, but that's what happened).

Wii on the other hand brought in grannies, soccer moms, everyone.  DS had women gaming for the first time ever.  Those systems just took things to a whole other level.



potato_hamster on 02 August 2016
Veknoid_Outcast said:
pokoko said:

New business models are not inherently terrible and there have been a lot of improvements in gaming over the years.

DLC, in my opinion, has been a net positive.  I've enjoyed some pieces immensely.  Outside Capcom and a few others, DLC now is almost always original content that would not exist at all under the previous model.  DRM has been around since the NES, as Nintendo always had measures to combat bootleggers.  SNES games used to check hardware before playing.  Gaming as a service has, so far, been simply a concurrent approach and options are never bad.

I'm not even going to complain much about subscriptions for multi-player, considering that gaming is now cheaper than ever, even though games themselves generally have far more content than previously.

I'd also argue that brand loyalty is no worse than the Sega vs. Nintendo days, or when Playstation first entered the market.

I've been gaming for a long time and I feel pretty good about where things are at relative to the past.

Based on our conversations, we're never going to see eye to eye on this. You see gaming as getting better every generation. I see the last two gens as detrimental to the industry. Sure we've seen some improvements and newness doesn't automatically translate to badness.

But we've also witnessed a lot of ugly trends and developments, many of them, paradoxically, facilitated by advancements in technology. Development costs have skyrocketed with the advent of HD, and continued to escalate as publishers throw money at voice actors and mocap and other stuff better left to the Pixars and DreamWorks of the world. Online connectivity has allowed publishers to eschew local multiplayer options, push online-only games, and release unfinished games that can be patched with a day one online patch. Advertising budgets have also ballooned, as publishers rely on pre-sales and pre-order bonuses to hook consumers before they know any better. 

These expensive-to-produce games might sell for the same price as an N64 game 20 years ago, but there are extra fees hidden elsewhere: season passes, DLC, online fees, microtransactions, etc. 

Consumers like us are subsidizing this cynical, inefficient, unsustainable business, and unless publishers invest more wisely and more viably in game development the number of game enthusiasts will continue to shrink and those left over will have to pay more and more of the bill.

But don't you see that you come off as a gigantic hypocrite by essentially berating consumers for condoning these practices by supporting those practices with their money, when you do the same yourself. You have a PS4, and from what I can see from your signature, have many games for it, and have played many games for it. You probably have a PS + subscription as well based on your ownership of games that were free on PS+ recently. You also own games like The Last Of Us, and Heavy Rain, which have tons of mocap and voice acting. You're supporting the very thing your railing against. So what does that make you?

What gives you the right to criticize the industry and those that support it when you support it so heavily yourself, and consume the very things you claim developers should not be making?



Veknoid_Outcast on 02 August 2016
potato_hamster said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Based on our conversations, we're never going to see eye to eye on this. You see gaming as getting better every generation. I see the last two gens as detrimental to the industry. Sure we've seen some improvements and newness doesn't automatically translate to badness.

But we've also witnessed a lot of ugly trends and developments, many of them, paradoxically, facilitated by advancements in technology. Development costs have skyrocketed with the advent of HD, and continued to escalate as publishers throw money at voice actors and mocap and other stuff better left to the Pixars and DreamWorks of the world. Online connectivity has allowed publishers to eschew local multiplayer options, push online-only games, and release unfinished games that can be patched with a day one online patch. Advertising budgets have also ballooned, as publishers rely on pre-sales and pre-order bonuses to hook consumers before they know any better. 

These expensive-to-produce games might sell for the same price as an N64 game 20 years ago, but there are extra fees hidden elsewhere: season passes, DLC, online fees, microtransactions, etc. 

Consumers like us are subsidizing this cynical, inefficient, unsustainable business, and unless publishers invest more wisely and more viably in game development the number of game enthusiasts will continue to shrink and those left over will have to pay more and more of the bill.

But don't you see that you come off as a gigantic hypocrite by essentially berating consumers for condoning these practices by supporting those practices with their money, when you do the same yourself. You have a PS4, and from what I can see from your signature, have many games for it, and have played many games for it. You probably have a PS + subscription as well based on your ownership of games that were free on PS+ recently. You also own games like The Last Of Us, and Heavy Rain, which have tons of mocap and voice acting. You're supporting the very thing your railing against. So what does that make you?

What gives you the right to criticize the industry and those that support it when you support it so heavily yourself, and consume the very things you claim developers should not be making?

Dude, calm down. Why loose your venom on me? You do realize I'm a writer for the site right? I play these games for a living. I need to know what's going on in the industry so I can write with authority.

Anyway, I never said these things should not be made. There's a place for cinematic action games because there's an audience out there for them. I would never deprive fans of games by Quantic Dream or Naughty Dog. I just think there are a lot of negative trends that make the industry less engaging and less sustaining. Producing more expensive games with less margin for error makes publishers less likely to take risks and more likely to find supplementary sources of income. That's just the reality of the situation. That's what I'm railing against.



potato_hamster on 02 August 2016
Veknoid_Outcast said:
potato_hamster said:

But don't you see that you come off as a gigantic hypocrite by essentially berating consumers for condoning these practices by supporting those practices with their money, when you do the same yourself. You have a PS4, and from what I can see from your signature, have many games for it, and have played many games for it. You probably have a PS + subscription as well based on your ownership of games that were free on PS+ recently. You also own games like The Last Of Us, and Heavy Rain, which have tons of mocap and voice acting. You're supporting the very thing your railing against. So what does that make you?

What gives you the right to criticize the industry and those that support it when you support it so heavily yourself, and consume the very things you claim developers should not be making?

Dude, calm down. Why loose your venom on me? You do realize I'm a writer for the site right? I play these games for a living. I need to know what's going on in the industry so I can write with authority.

Anyway, I never said these things should not be made. There's a place for cinematic action games because there's an audience out there for them. I would never deprive fans of games by Quantic Dream or Naughty Dog. I just think there are a lot of negative trends that make the industry less engaging and less sustaining. Producing more expensive games with less margin for error makes publishers less likely to take risks and more likely to find supplementary sources of income. That's just the reality of the situation. That's what I'm railing against.

And I'm a console game developer making the games you apparently don't want to see made the way they are. It's really irrelevant that you're a writer for the site, or why you play the games you do, the fact of the matter is that you're a part of it. You're a part of the very problem you're railing against. If you don't like how the industry has grown, then why do you continue to support that growth? If you have to play these games and write about them as part of your job, and you don't support the creation of these games, then get another job. Quit writing about video games you don't want to play and an industry that you don't like. Don't offer it up as an excuse for your hypocrisy.

But here's the drag of it. It's easy to be a critic and say "this is broken", but anyone who is bold enough to criticize should also be offering insight as to how to fix it. So how would you fix the game industry? How would you mold it to fit what you feel it should be, and how does that solution put as least as much money in developers pockets as they have now?