Slashdot Mirror
Is Console Gaming Dying?
mr_sifter writes "PC gamers love to obsess over whether PC gaming is dying, but bit-tech thinks it's time to look at the other side and examine if console gaming is really as secure as publishers would have us believe. All three console manufacturers suffered from the recession — this year, Sony announced its first net loss in 14 years; a stunning ¥989.9bn, which includes record losses of ¥58.5bn in its gaming sector. Microsoft also announced its first loss since it went public in 1986 in the second quarter of this financial year, with a $31 million US loss coming straight from the Entertainment and Devices division, which is responsible for the Xbox 360. Not even Nintendo has escaped the financial plague either, with sales of the Wii dropping by 67 percent in the US, 60 percent in Japan and 47 percent in the rest of the world. In addition to reduced profitability, casual games and the rise of the iPhone further suggest the current model is not invulnerable."
WTF are these people reading?? console gaming IS ANYWHERE FROM dying. pc gaming? now thats more relevant.
also, um anyone heard of this crazy thing called the world recession???
so modern warfare 2's largest launch in the history of media/movies/music means nothing?? yea, who pays these people? 12yr old gamers on 2ch would do a better analysis than these people (sure there may be a few flame wars started).
just my .02
Not even Nintendo has escaped the financial plague either, with sales of the Wii dropping by 67 percent in the US, 60 percent in Japan and 47 percent in the rest of the world. In addition to reduced profitability, casual games and the rise of the iPhone further suggest the current model is not invulnerable."
The Wii drop is due mainly to demand finally being supplied. For all of 2008 it was still hard to get. This year marked the first year that the Wii was able to fulfill it's backlog of demand since the thing was launched.
And here comes the iPhone mention, right on queue.
The iPhone is a drop in the bucket compared to the DS.
Nintendo is still massively profitable.
They make TONS of money on hardware alone, AND they make buttloads on software. MS and Sony LOSE money on hardware, and don't develop, let alone publish, nearly as many successful games themselves as Nintendo does.
Nintendo's missed earnings projections have far more to do with the falling dollar (as much of their holdings are in US currency) than they have to do with falling sales.
Articles like this are usually filled to the brim with ignorance, so it shouldn't surprise me that they got it wrong yet again, but I still feel the need to point out the obvious. Nintendo OWNS the "casual" market, Nintendo OWNS the portable market, and Nintendo fucking won this round BECAUSE they realized that the current model was broken before anyone else did.
I simply don't see how it can take people more than three fucking years to see it.
"Console gaming dying"? That's fucking absurd. It's PC gaming that's on its death knoll (unfortunately), and the only ones complaining about console gaming sales are hardware loss-eaters and mega publishers like EA who haven't been able to transition away from the "uber development cost, hope to break even model".
This console generation is a fucking travesty.
MS launched a defective product at a loss, had such a shitty supply situation that they had a SECOND launch a couple months later, and STILL can't produce a 360 that won't fry itself to death.
Sony launched the PS3 at a mind-numbing $599, with a shitty controller and an extreme lack of games.
Nintendo launched the Wii at an affordable price, but took 2 fucking years to meet demand because they underestimated themselves and refused to up capacity, fearing demand would drop off quickly.
MS and Sony have a shitton of different SKUs out there. Nintendo has people with motion + and without motion +, people with the balance board and people without it. With the microphone and without it.
MS charges you to play online. Every console whores out paid downloadable content.
I could go on, but it doesn't matter. Despite all the shit we've seen in the past 4 years, people keep paying for it. I fear hardware manufacturers will be much more service-oriented next generation in an attempt to recoup money lost on hardware sales. I fear games, and my overall experience as a gamer, will suffer greatly as a result.
Console gaming isn't going anywhere, and all players involved are fully capable of ponying up the dough to play in the next round. If Sony or MS fuck up as badly as they did this go around, THEN they may be out of the running.
But as of now, it's full steam ahead - the question is who's going to jump the gun and talk about new hardware first? Sony and MS seem to want this year to be about their motion controllers. Nintendo has a few key titles this year and is typically the last one to the party in terms of hardware.