The Winning Next-Gen Console Is The Most Diverse?

simoniker writes "Gamasutra's latest 'Analyze This' column has game industry analysts commenting on the rise of casual games, asking whether simpler games that take less time to play may be vital to game industry growth. David Cole of DFC Intelligence disagrees that any one genre or game type is vital, suggesting: 'A key for the industry is being able to diversify.... For the N64 and GameCube, Nintendo focused primarily on its big franchises and didn't have the same level of diversity. The platform that did was the Sony PS2. Which platform could work as a karaoke machine, allowed you to put yourself in the game, had all kinds of trivia products? The reason the PSOne and PS2 sold [so well] was diversity.' Is this the key to working out who wins in next-gen?"

Comments

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[PhrostyMcByte]

duh? Isn't it common knowledge that machines with many choices that appeal to a broader audience will come out on top?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[mikeisme77]

Part of Nintendo's strategy with the Wii (pronounced 'we' as opposed to 'Y') is diversifying the game library. They have admitted that the last generation or two they have lacked diversity and they are trying to increase the diversity of titles through both new internal projects and by actively courting 3rd parties (something they failed to do with the last two generations). I'm not going to do the stereotypical pointing to the DS--that's a handheld and almost entirely a different market and one Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated (pointing to the success of the DS only points to Nintendo's continued dominance of the handheld market--although I will say its the first handheld I've actually ever enjoyed...) I will, however, point to the fact that EA (even though I hate them) and other publishers are pledging more titles to the Wii then they have in the past and some publishers are delaying/waiting to support the PS3.

Nintendo seems to be forming themselves an excellent position in terms of diversity. Sony still has the support but the first signs of wavering of publishers can be seen--so if sales are less than expected than you better believe Sony will lose a decent amount of their diversity. Microsoft still hasn't learned how to either buy a large Japanese developer (like Capcom or Konami) or successfully court them and as such will never have the same amount of diversity--although that's not to say the console/games on the 360 won't still be pretty good, they'll just lack some of the diversity (see the almost total lack of Eastern RPGs on the original XBox; although they are making an effort to fix this for the 360). Regardless, this looks like a generation where there may not actually be one dominant player and the market may actually be fairly well spread out among the Big Three (which should be a good thing for gamers--competition leads to fewer exclusive titles so you can play the game on the system of your choice and should also, hopefully, lead to further innovation and price wars).

The reason PS1 and PS2 sold so well is...

[ZakuSage]

Because they had the best third-party support. End. Of. Story.

Mostly backwards.

[JMZero]

The consoles that are most successful GET the most diverse offerings - because if you're going to develop a gimmick/niche product and can't afford to launch it for all platforms then you release it for the one that's got the widest base.

Do you think the GBA was successful because of all the add-on thingees? Or do you think there's 4000 screen protectors because there's 40 million GBAs?

That doesn't mean a first party can't help console sales by creating add-ons (like the eye-toy or some goofy game), but the causation is generally the other way around.

Re:Mostly backwards.

[marshallbanana6]

Yes, backwards. But that doesn't mean it's out of the hardware manufacturer's hands.

Companies like Nintendo might have been overconfident when they just decided to do their own thing with the N64 and decided that when everyone else saw how cool it was, they'd all build lots of content for it. It's these kinda decisions that don't take into consideration the feelings of major game developers (Squaresoft, EA to a lesser degree) that slowly encourage less support for a console. If Nintendo had said "we need lots of third party support, including a wide base of casual games, and we can't do this all on our own" and had therefore listened to what developers wanted, they might have been able to build more support for their console. They forgot that this wide library of games they enjoyed on SNES doesn't just happen on its own.

If companies like Squaresoft and Namco had released titles like FF7 and Tekken 3 for the N64, it would have been a much different picture. But Nintendo just decided they'd be fine without them.

It seems like everyone has learned this lesson now, and is doing all the necessary kissing up to developers. A lot of the success of this generation could simply depend on launch responses, which is where Nintendo could really gain an edge (if people don't decide Wii sucks) with their lower price. Once an edge is gained, by whoever gains it, it is quite likely things will just take off from that point and they could have the "#1" spot for a whole 5 years. Who knows though, gamers are fickle.

Exclusive Games

[the_crowing]

If you look at the games that are creating the most buzz for the Nintendo Wii right now, they are all games that make creative use of the new innovative controller (the Wiimote and Nunchuku combination). All or at least most of these games are going to be exclusive to the Nintendo Wii due to the unique control scheme and, from what I've heard, this time around Nintendo has a lot more third party support than with the GC. So it sounds like the Nintendo Wii is going to have a ton of exclusive, innovative titles with a completely new style of gameplay as well as much of the third party support that the Sony and Microsoft have. And lets not forget about the virtual console... I never thought they could bounce back, but I think Nintendo is going to take this one. (The console war, that is)

Which led to diversity in games

[SuperKendall]

Because they had the best third-party support. End. Of. Story.

If all those third party developers had been focusing on only one genre or two however, it wouldn't matter how many there were.

Which comes back to the true key being diversity of games on a platform, even if the diversity comes from one maker.

Consoles need a comerade

[spyrochaete]

I was just about to post "Nobody will buy a console to play Bejewelled" but then I remembered Tetris and the Game Boy. But will this work for TV consoles?

Re:Consoles need a comerade

[Hitto]

You could also have remembered the DS and Zookeeper, since that game is an utter rip-off. Only it has a multiplayer mode, maybe the most fun out of the damn game I ever had.

TV consoles will sell if or when they manage to get the next Dance Dance Revolution. That game appealed heavily to girls or workout nuts in addition to gamers (not to mention it really works, I lost weight thanks to videogames, whohoo!)

Ever wonder why sony released a buzzer with some quiz game? Yeah, it's kitshy, but it's the kind of bland game that will appeal to the unwashed masses of people who don't care about ripping the wings off of a siren and killing zeus, or shooting hookers, or anything that looks anymore videogame-y than what they're already used to. To them, videogames = mario is cute and grand theft auto is a game for criminals and perverts. So you gotta sell them jeopardy and pictionary and other "oh, this doesn't look too complicated" stuff to even interest them. The hardest part will be making them buy it. Or making videogames harmless enough to use as gifts from a gamer to a non-gamer, perhaps? I know I once bought a DDR mat for a non-gamer cousin of mine who wanted to try it out.

By making the controls more accessible and the controller less frightening, AND flexible as all hell, Nintendo just might manage to get my mom to play Wii Tennis with me. That is, if it doesn't suck, but I trust them on this one.

Diversity = 3rd party

[Astarica]

And every console war has been decided by the 3rd party games. If you assume that every Nintendo game bought translates to a system sold, and assuming tastes in Nintendo games are pretty similar (e.g. Mario and Zelda captures essentially the same group, so that 1 Mario and 1 Zelda game translates to 1 Nintendo system sold, not 2), then you get the number of Nintendo systems sold due to Nintendo games isn't anywhere close to the number of PS1 or PS2s. For that matter, it also isn't close to the number of NES, SNES, or GB/GBAs sold. If winning means 'getting the biggest marketshare', then winning obviously has to come from being diverse because even the biggest software powerhouses don't come close to explaining the hardware sales even if they're so powerful that every game sold led to a hardware purchase. It has long been said that FF7 was supposed to be the turning point of PS1 in Japan, but FF7, for all its glory, only sold ~3 million in Japan, which means no more than 3 million people bought a PS1 due to FF7 in Japan (assuming no one bought a PS1 due to FF7 but did not purchase the game, which would indeed be odd) which isn't close to the number of PS1s sold in Japan.

Now there's no doubt FF7 provided the push PS1 needed, but in the grand scheme of things, no one company accounts for any significant part of a successful system's fanbase.

DS for the win!

[tepples]

Extra video outs is another. How hard can it be to support that, obviously at some cost of detail or refresh rate?

DS. But people buy consoles because they have one large TV, not three small monitors.

No-treshold wireless networking is another thing. I want to be able to place four consoles in a room and have them instantly build a network.

DS. And so will Wii.

Finally, I want voice input.

DS. But if Brain Age can't recognize "blue" for all speakers, what makes you think the consoles will?

Effect Meet Cause

[ObligatoryUserName]

Game diversity tends to be a side effect of a large install base rather than the cause of it.

The Dreamcast had a good set of quality games in a large number of genres, including games that were experimental at the time like Seaman and Samba De Amigo. (Presaging games like Nintendogs and Guitar Hero.) We all remember how the Dreamcast died, in a cloud of PS2 hype.

The PS2 now has the largest diversity of games for the simple reason that there is a large market for them. Of the last gen it's supposed to be the most difficult to program for and it's the least powerful, but those considerations are minor when you have such a huge install base.

I think the game industry is tripping over itself trying to understand casual games. The state of the industry has been relativly stagnant for so long that we struggle to put names to games that don't fit within our genre headings. Because they don't appeal to a self described "Hardcore" audience we've reflexivly named them "Casual".

It's similar to the rise of Alternative music in the 90's. It didn't sound like 80's rock or metal so we had to come up with a new name for it. Then we slowly realized that musical culture was changing and this wasn't just a new genre - the publics notion of the sound of rock was changing. The idea of Alternative became less and less useful as everything was given that label. I think the same thing is happening in games, and the implications make me optimistic about the future.

Why do you need a next-gen console to do this?

[antifoidulus]

Am I the only one that predicts that the PS2 may very well come out the winner again? PS3 will fail because well, it's way too friggin' expensive considering the fact that it offers what Microsoft and Nintendo do(Xbox live and the motion sensors respectively), only they don't do it as well, and they add in a blue-ray player that nobody wants. Microsoft is doing some interesting things, but I see nothing to suggest they will be as dominant as Sony once was, but I don't see them crashing either. The Wii could very well take the cake, but only time will tell(Nintendo is the #5 holding in my Fidelity Pacific Basin mutual fund, so I do have a vested interest in it but..).
However, the PS2 already has a large install base, and provided Sony keeps on manufacturing them, are only getting cheaper. Plus, save for the hardest of the hardcore, the PS2 is more than capable, and I don't really forsee any of the next-gen consoles knocking it off it's throne as king console till at least the end of '07, but that is just me talking.

Re:Maybe, maybe not

[DeeDob]

"You have Microsoft with what amounts to the XBox 2.0. It does everything the XBox does and better, but doesn't add much else on top of it."

This is a somewhat uninformed comment.

The software improved by a lot:
- MarketPlace
- Achievements
- Live Arcade
- USB storage device connectivity
- Picture and movie playback
- iPod connectivity
- Games auto-updates (i.e. patches. I much prefer a corrected game to a bugged one that can't be fixed)

The marketplace and Live Arcade are among the biggest financial success of the gaming industry for the last 10 years. That's GOT to count for something. The achievements are very addicting and for tons of people add replay value to their game (must-get-that-last-achievement syndrome as i call it).