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Current Console Transition Far Worse Than Previous
A report released yesterday indicates that this console transition is far worse than previous hardware iterations. From the Gamasutra article: "This console transition, he said, is 'far worse' than that seen from the years 1999 through 2001. Additionally, Lowell points fingers at the increased popularity of online games, a general lack of creativity in game development, and 'no Halo or Grand Theft Auto-type blowout titles launched in 2005,' echoing the sentiments of many other analysts." Next Generation has an analysis of what makes this transition so bad. (this last piece is satire)
It has been said probably a thousand times around why the transition isn't going well, and lack of a must-have title is just part of it. Over the years i've owned probably half a dozen consoles, From the NES to a PS2 and a bunch of stuff in the middle. In that time i've played dozens if not hundreds of games. And while Marios, Final Fantasies, and all the rest of the bunch are fun, how many times can i buy something with the same basic formula doing the same basic things. Its been 20 years, give me something new already, because i'm not paying $400 for a new XBox360 to play the same tired genres. I've shot enough people and jumped over enough stuff, that i want something new, and the developers are refusing to give it to me. So i won't give them my money. End of story. There is a reason the video game industry took a dive once before. Too much crap that no one wanted. Looks like some people never learn.
For Nintendo.
I see a lot of interest in the DS and DS Lite. I see record sales in Japan (SOLD OUT- something that almost never happens) and increasing sales in the USA and Europe.
It's a handheld? So what?
When a market is really changing, the old models don't work so well any more. Sony and Microsoft are utterly convinced that convergence will happen in your living room. That's because they sell things that go in a living room- Televisions, Stereos, Home Computer OSes, etc. Sony's fantasy is that you will pay them an enormous sum of money and subscription fees to install very complicated equipment so you can spend a lot of time at home. Microsoft thinks you are willing to spend $400+ on a console to play the $5 Geometry Wars (perfectly playable on Game Boy) or Paperboy.
Apple and Nintendo both understand that convergence is happening IN YOUR POCKET.
iPod, Cellphone Television, Handheld consoles. What do these all have in common?
A home theater experience is very nice, but a device that shows movies, plays music and games, and allows phone calls is totally convergent, and cheap by comparison, which allows a much larger market. Simpler games also allow market expansion by appealing to nontraditional gamers (Women and Seniors, mostly).
Sony has delays on PS3 because they are feverishly working to make it the all-in-one living room box. Does anyone actually WANT an all-in-one? Also notice that the PSP section of your local store has 2x the movies as games. PSP is a very expensive portable DVD player that plays some games.
I would love to know what the U.S. XBox360 sales would look like if they could actually produce some of the things. "Sold Out" is meaningless when you can only allocate a dozen units per store. For months at a time. It's March, where the hell are the things already?
In Japan, where XBox360 stock is plentiful, games are important, and home theater convergence is desired to to lack of space, no one is buying them. But there are lines around the block for the DS.
If your model of transition is upgrading consumers from FooBox 2 to FooBox 3 (with slightly better graphics and a modem at double the price), the transition has been a failure.
If your model of transition is selling more units to more customers no matter what new product you offer (from FooBox to PortaFoo), this is one of the best transitions ever...for Nintendo.
Business people turn everything into shit. We've got people who don't understand a thing about what they're selling making all the decisions. They're not engineers or designer who rose through the ranks, having intimate knowledge of what the company does. They're a bunch of suits with MBA degrees hired specifically to run the company. They're driven by one thing and its not producing a quality product, nor is it changing the market, nor is it innovation; they're driven by money.
And if they don't show healthy growth within the next few months the stock market reacts negatively. All these jerks want money in their pockets right now, instead of looking at the long-term health of a company.
Certainly the reality is a lot more complicated than that, but I think this is one of the core problems. It's why we see garbage coming from the game industry, and this problem is reflected in other industries.
Can't we just admit that there's been a severe lack of imagination in video game design recently?
No. Because there hasn't been. If you go digging through shareware, through PopCap or MiniClip, on sourceforge, et cetera, you'll find quite a bit of novelty. The problem is disasterously risk-averse publishers built on a long-term untenable business model. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with design. A game costs $6-10 million to bring to market at the low end on TV-bound consoles. People don't take risks on DynoBright, Tower of Goo or Pontifex to the tune of $6-10 million. Instead, they release James Bond 27: No Franchise Lives Forever, because it's gonna profit whether or not it's actually a good game.
Bad for games? Yes. Good for business? Yes.
All those people who say things like "businesses are absurd" or "businesses are ignorant" are honestly pretty damned self involved. If people really could just have a great new idea and bring it to market, this business model would be in the process of collapsing right now. I can think of exactly one game which was bootstrapped that way recently: Roller Coaster Tycoon. Chris is the only guy I know who pulled it off lately, and I'm in the industry. Before that, it was Black and White, except Peter was working on money he had left over from previous successful games like Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Magic Carpet and so on, plus industry contacts and whatever.
You think it's a lack of creativity? Great, bring me the next big game. Hell, if it's good, I'll even write it for you and get it published for you, and give you a cut.
Until that day comes, and until you've been through the process of trying to convince a publisher that such and such an idea is a great idea that would sell, then you're really not qualified to comment on what the problem actually is.
StoneCypher is Full of BS