Games Industry Off Its Game

A Washington Post article explores the problems facing the games industry in this year of console generation turnover and lackluster PC game sales. From the article: "There are other potential problems. The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets -- and it is not clear how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game. And the cost of the new gaming systems continues to rise. Perhaps no question haunts the industry more at the moment than the mystery of when Sony's PlayStation 3 will come out and how much it will cost."

Comments

Summing it up

[utawoutau]

I think that a quote from the end of the article sums it up nicely.

Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, deemed the industry's troubles to be "cyclical and entirely predictable." What's important is that gaming is growing in popularity, and consumers will continue spending as the industry works out its kinks, he said.

"The early adopters all know what's going on," he said. "They all expect the PlayStation 3 this year. That always tends to slow down purchases for the current platform, no matter how good the current games are. They're sitting on their dollars more than they will be a year or two from now."

Ass Backwards

[G_Biloba]

This statement has it all wrong: "The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets -- and it is not clear how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game." HD TV owners (like myself) will only buy HD capable content. So, it is about reaching the current market with the most disposible income and least amount of impulse control (like myself).

Re:Madden on the 360

[Golias]

and it is not clear how many people will buy a new television just for the latest version of the Madden football game.

From all accounts, the new Madden game sucks.

But it is just possible that one or two people might buy a new TV for some other reason, like... oh, I don't know... watching television, perhaps? Those people will probably want a console that looks good on their new set.

DOA4 is almost enough to make me want a 360 for my HD system... almost. A couple more good games, and I'll seriously consider it. Meanwhile, I'm waiting to see what Sony comes up with.

One simple reason why nobody's buying games...

[Neeex]

... they're all playing World of Warcraft.

Re:bad article

[Winterblink]

PS3's price continues to rise.

That's funny, because no price has ever been announced by Sony. I love how industry, market, and armchair analysts continue to go on about how expensive it will be, when it might not necessarily be so.

Ten Years?!?

[kbonapart]

From the article:

"Sony President Ken Kutaragi has said that he expects the device to be "expensive." While game consoles have typically enjoyed a five-year lifespan, Sony has said it is shooting for 10 years this time out."

Are they kidding? They expect it to last ten years, fine, but are they trying to say that they will keep making new games for this platform? I remember the Super Nintendo, and that system rocked, yo. Pilot Wings, F-Zero, Final Fantasy VI were all gems, and had replay value. But after a while, new games stopped appearing, and I was seeing everyone purchase N64s, and playing Goldeneye with all thier friends. And all I had to offer was Mario Kart for thier multiplayer cravings.

Then the Playstation hit the scene, and my SNES got placed on the closet shelf of Eternity. When Microsoft comes out with the Xbox 720, will Sony stick with thier three year old platform? When Nintendo offers thier newest platform that jacks directly into your cyber-brain, with Sony continue to hock Silent Hill 12?

Game Platforms are supposed to have a longer life span then computers by definition. All they are are game systems. They don't do spreadsheets, they don't balance your taxes, they don't have hard drives...

Oh, wait, they do now. Well, strike that...start over...

With Game Platforms becoming more like home computers, thier Start-To-Trash date will grow shorter and shorter. Ten years is a pipe dream. It's 2006. Let's see, ten years ago...

Yeah, I think I'm going to go boot up my old 486 and log into World of Warcraft. I'll let you know how it goes in a week when the program finally loads.

To sum up, a ten year old gaming platform would be like still playing Final Fatasy Mystic Quest, and saying how graphicly stunning it is. Not Gonna Happen.

Re:White Flag

[MBCook]

I saw a great post somewhere about how Sony was going it fight the Revolution, and it could be very intersting if it is true. It said that Sony has been working on a similar controller setup (copied after it was announced) along with the EyeToy. The plan would be to release PS2 games that used it. Because there is so much expiriance out there with the PS2 development would be cheap. They can get the price of the little slimline PS2s down to about $100 (which will undercut the Revolution price, whatever it is) and the system is already in however many million homes. They think that by doing this they could expand the life of the system 2 years or so by grabbing casual gamers, and maybe sell 50 million additional systems (I'm guessing world wide) with this plan.

Pure speculation, but very interesting.

On a side note, I saw that the Revolution development kits cost $2000 which is just a fraction of what most kits (PS2, etc) cost, especially the cost of "Next Gen" systems (PS3, XBox 360). They say this would reduce the financial risk of trying to make a game for the revolution (which makes sense). I just wish they'd open it up (somehow) so end users could program it (I'd LOVE to do that, even if it must be done in a locked-down-sandbox with an interpreted language). They could sell the best user created programs on their online service.