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Forums - Sony Discussion - Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida calls console gaming niche

 

What you think of Yoshida calling console gaming niche?

Surprised 16 39.02%
 
not surprised 12 29.27%
 
neutral 13 31.71%
 
Total:41

In today's enetrtainment climate just about everything is niche except Game of Thrones and Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even Smart Phones and their infrastructure are just comprised of tiny niches. That could just mean that he sees a larger pie to eat and isn't satisfied with the current ecosystem of customers. That's called greed or good business strategy depending on who you talk to.



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Xbox and Playstation have become computers with controllers that are locked to exclusive stores. I'd like to see them become more niche, so we can either get all developers on the same platform (PC), or else get some truly innovative consoles like the Nintendo Switch.



I would say consoles are mainstream and streaming will be niche for another generation or two. They just want to go streaming because it has potential to reach more customers in future without relying on dedicated machines. I expect streaming to be shoddy for awhile. I might give streaming a try in 2030 if I'm still alive.  Eventually it will be like what Netflix did to blu ray and overtake.  That will be awhile though.



The amount of people not playing games vastly outnumber those who do. Of those who do, the number playing games on something other than a console is in the billions.

In the larger picture, console gaming is definitely a niche.



If console gaming is niche, what would be this service if it ends up having an even smaller audience than the audience playing on consoles?



Nintendo is selling their IPs to Microsoft and this is true because:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=221391&page=1

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Absolute nonsense, its bigger than ever. microsoft is not competitive but is not doing too bad, nintendo has made a sucessful comeback and sony have had a very impressive generation with it's exclusives selling far more than in the past. hardware and sofware sales this gen are anything but niche.



I don't know. Niche is a bit too much. Console gaming is not like smartphones or laptops. It's not as mainstream as those. On the other hand, console gaming is a big as it always were, in my opinion, and it's not a tiny market. Games are making money as much as film blockbusters.

Everybody knows GTA and Pokemon. Of course GTA is also a PC game and could survive without consoles, yes, but still.

Perhaps he's comparing consoles to the game market overall. It's like playing The Last of Us is niche compared to Candy Crush. But still, I wouldn't call it niche.

Perhaps, my understanding of niche is wrong.



God bless You.

My Total Sales prediction for PS4 by the end of 2021: 110m+

When PS4 will hit 100m consoles sold: Before Christmas 2019

There were three ravens sat on a tree / They were as blacke as they might be / The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?


lets say it ends up like:
90m Switch's
130m PS4's
55m XboxOne's

Thats a "niche" of 275m users... and Im assumeing theres still a few extra out there still playing on 360/PS3's ect.
Potentially 300m in total? anyways that feels like alot for a niche.



pokoko said:
The amount of people not playing games vastly outnumber those who do. Of those who do, the number playing games on something other than a console is in the billions.

In the larger picture, console gaming is definitely a niche.

You could mount an argument for just about anything  being niche, if you hold it up against the world's population, like Rol stated consoles make up 25% of gaming and in terms of per person spending that would most likely be higher again, i can see where Yoshida's coming from he's looking for potential growth and that's fine but using niche to describe console gaming is the wrong use of the word, it makes it seem like it is a marginal business and if so where does it leave Sony and the other sectors of the business would he call them niche since that niche games division was a strong factor in their turn around.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot

One thing that confuses me is Yoshida talking about improving latency by moving servers closer to the customers meant other customers where then impacted negatively, my answer would instead of shuffling around the existing deck chairs, invest in more chairs to fill up those spots.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot