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Next-Gen Gamer Habits Profiled
Next Generation Magazine has a profile (done by IDG) looking at the habits for next-generation gamers. From the article: "Social gamers represent 35% of spending while casual gamers represent 28% of the gaming audience but only 13% of dollars spent. The report says devoted gamers will drive sales of new systems in 2005 and 2006 with more than half of them likely to buy a PlayStation 3 and over 45% planning to buy Xbox 360 within the first year of release for each system. "
It's just common sense that someone "devoted" to something will expend considerably more resources on it.
As a consumer, non-essential item, games and consoles are fairly reasonably priced. Of course someone that is devoted to gaming can and will spend many times what the "casual" user will spend. It's their hobby.
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There was no mention of nintendo. I wonder if this may have been left out of their research or if it to the writers isn't considered a competitor anymore. I think that in the 2 console per gamer market nintendo has a very good chance to be a lot of people's second choice.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Well 99 Nights looks damn interesting, as does what little I've heard of Too Human. I'm probably going to hold off, though being a resident of Hawaii it's tempting to get Test Drive: Unlimited just to find places I went to the night before.
Rather than prove the Xbox 360's worth, I doubt anybody can do the same for the PS3 yet.
"This is considered plagiarism."
I've noticed that most Slashdotters are anti-Microsoft, and that many are anti-Sony. I would think that quite a few of us would be buying a Revolution, considering the price, the controller and the backwards compatability with the GameCube. I'm sure that it wouldn't be difficult for our Admins to write a little something in the article, but I guess that there must be too many casual gamers on SlashDot, among us computer geeks and techies.
They don't support HD-DVD because its future is in question and increased media capacity isn't the most important thing in the world. Also, it saves them money on each 360 made (I believe they're going to make money on every Xbox 360 sold).
"This is considered plagiarism."
Really, I'd like to know about the interest in the Revolution, but I don't expect all that much until after the Tokyo Game Show (starts friday!) when Nintendo is expected to release more details. Once the Revolution is better known (games, prices (or at least a guess), etc) then the numbers will mean more.
Still, the XBox 360 has quite a buzz it seems.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The IDG Press Release has a more complete summary of what their white paper covers as well as a link on how to obtain the full thing for a mere $750.
From TFA:
The report goes on to warn. "Executives who believe that enticing casual gamers to new machines is the secret to industry profit and market-share gains, [cannot] expect widespread consumer adoption of new platforms until 2007."
I guess that is meant to be a warning for Nintendo, since their stated strategy is growing the market by appealing to women and casual gamers. It's certainly a risk, but someone has to try and find new gamers, and competing head-to-head with MS and Sony didn't work out so well for them before.
On the other hand, part of what Nintendo is doing is not so much getting brand-new gamers, as trying to draw old gamers back into the fold - the people whose last console was an NES or SNES, and will be nostalgic for SMB3, Star Fox, and Bayou Billy. As long as they price and market it right, it might work out.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
I know where I'll be putting my money. After the success of the Nintendo DS, I will definitely buy Nintendo's next gen console. It will most likely be the best value for any system. I want it to be something totally different and unique as compared to the PS3 or Xbox 360. I really think Nintendo has it all right this time around.
If by social gamers they mean "players who purchase and pay subscription fees for online games," then it's a no freaking brainer. Not everyone wants to spend a few hundred bucks over the course of a year or two to have the opportunity to have their level 50 night elf wear the newest funky armor.
If they mean "players who have friends over to play games," then it's probably due to the Madden phenomenon. Tons of folks purchase the next year's edition every season simply so they can keep their rosters up to date. Seems loony to me, but if it works, hey, go for it.
I suppose I'm a casual gamer. I own 27 PS2 games, but The only game I really play with friends is Hot Shots Gold Fore (I rarely play games at all). Match play = great drinking game.
It also drives them into a corner when it comes to storage space. Considering that the storage requirements usually grow by an order of magnitude between console generations the X360 might miss out on quite a few games because it cannot hold them on a reasonable number (exact number depends on game, multiple discs won't work for Madden or GTA, for example) of discs just like the Gamecube did this generation. Sure, 50GB might sound unimaginable for one game now but five or six years ago the same could have been said about 9 GB.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The vast majority of games still don't take up a full 9 GB. I've seen parallels drawn between console games and PC games and they make sense. You think CD's will be replaced as the distribution within the next 5 or 6 years? Much less DVD's. These games can all be ported to PC for the most part, your post only proves that Sony's hype machine works (a point I've never argued against).
DVD's don't drive MS into any corners, it's smart for MS to hold off on the higher capacity formats while they sit and wait, probably pushing HD-DVD using their influence through Vista and when the time's right (along with the prices) the HD-DVD (or possibly even Blu-Ray) drive will be made available for the Xbox 360 along with a high-profile title or two. Dare I say Halo?
"This is considered plagiarism."
Basically PS3 will have all the followups to PS2 stuff and Xbox360 will have the followups to all the xbox stuff.
So it's a safe bet to say that GT5 with real damage added. Metal Gear 4 which is going to have some type of AI partners in it. Squaresoft is probably still showing the most love to sony. As well as any GTA probably coming out on PS3 a year before being on anything else. Unfortunately I'm not sure of what unique stuff is coming out for PS3.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
Exactly. My point is that the PS3's lineup is only currently full of assumptions. Anyway, I am willing to sing many praises for one title I've seen, though the only name that comes to mind for it is the Godess of War joke since it really looks simiilar only in an ancient Japan/Star Wars Episode I environment. Oh, and Killing Day looked gorgeous.
"This is considered plagiarism."
The problem is that MS has announced they won't allow HDDVD (only?) games to not put early adopters at a disadvantage. Kinda like their "No patches via Live" (patches that only affect Live are exempted, as are content additions) policy.
Games rarely fill a DVD now but what will it be like in three years? A content rich game like HL2 takes 5 gigabytes on the harddrive (obviously only the installed size matters as consoles can't decompress the game files like that), add FMVs like those that happen on consoles in high definition and you reach the limit of the DVD. Sure, some games don't need much space but others will and the hard limit should include all of them.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
HD-DVD editions and multiple discs nagate that entire point. And HD FMV's? Pre-rendered cutscenes are reaching the end of their time since the in-game engines of most games will rival anything that could be produced in a cutscene while using less disc space. And games like Half-Life 2 are the exception that could easily just be released on two or three discs.
"This is considered plagiarism."
Fluid dynamics are one example of something that won't work outside of FMVs. And multiple disks aren't the solution to everything, especially nonlinear and streaming games cannot be cut in half easily. A game that had one HUGE city that doesn't fit on one DVD would be a problem, would you tell the player to change the DVD every time he drives over a bridge?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
No, but that's an extremely specific scenario. The point is that in general, use of the in-game engine and multiple discs are a very viable solution.
"This is considered plagiarism."