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Life After the Videogame Crash
Clark Hall writes "Is it 1983 all over again? E3 is over and millions of gamers are realizing they can't afford a PS3, or an HDTV. Is it time for a steep and painful correction in the gaming market? Pointlesswasteoftime has been tracking what is looking like a Hindenburg voyage for console gaming, with HDTV playing the role of Hydrogen." From the article: "There's going to be a lot of money lost the next few years, a lot of articles written, a lot of panic, a lot of changes. And when gaming comes back, it will hopefully be different and innovative and based on something other than eye candy and the shock value of blood and guts and hookers. Hopefully it will allow for creativity from the players, and room for small, independent game makers to create content. Hopefully it will be something every working person can afford. "
Seriously, you can buy an HDTV for about $500 now if you look around, it will be $300 by Christmas 2007 or shortly thereafter, and you can even get a 1080p version right now for $500 (check out the NY Times electronic reviews a couple of weeks back, and in the Wall Street Journal two weekends ago in the Saturday issue).
And you can buy a Nintendo Wii by about Presidents Day 2007 for a reasonable price at Costco - maybe even by Christmas 2006.
The world isn't over. Your old TV works fine with a cable box, you don't need a 64 inch screen HDTV, you can settle for a 32 inch or 40 inch one.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I read this article earlier today, and the author just writes off the Wii completly. What he's not grokking, is that the Japanese game market already crashed a few years back. Microsoft and Sony were able to use the ever growing US market to write that off as an anomoly, but Nintendo took it to heart and came out with the DS and now the Wii in response.
So, yes, it's reasonable to say that Sony and Microsoft (and all their 3rd party developers) are in for a harsh awakening, but Nintendo is already on the other side of the crash and things are looking better than ever.
I think most people have the opposite opinion. I gave up on upgrading my PC to play the newest games, and I think many other people also prefer not to have to try and keep up.
With a console, you know that when you buy, you can play all the games for it.
And do you need an HDTV to play these new systems? I don't think any of them require it.