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."

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Next question.

Re:No

[UnknowingFool]

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,

This statement seems to imply that the console losses from the Entertainment Division somehow led to the sudden loss as a company for MS. Except for a few quarters, the division has historically been a money loser for MS. MS has had cumulative losses of $8 billion from the division since the Xbox was started.

Re:No

[Omestes]

Just to be clear: you are saying that I should be able to shell out $300 and get a decent gaming computer that will "easily last several years" ??

I hate this fallacy. Lets reverse this, to try to illustrate the absuridity: "So I can just shell out $300 for a console that supports 5x the resolution as my TV, is capable of running any software I can throw at it, has an input device with more than 6 buttons, and that can support a near infinite range of 3rd party add-ons? A console is a one time investment that has only one purpose (sometime with other functionality tacked on in a half-assed manner), a PC is an investment that does much much more than just playing video games. You already have a PC, right? How much did that PC cost you? For $300 tacked onto the price of the PC you already bought, you could have a rig that would put your current consoles running on outdated tech to shame.

Something wrong with the sales model?

[Bartles]

Perhaps if they charged less than $60 for a tier one new release, sales would go up.

Re:Something wrong with the sales model?

[yayotters]

I'm sure Valve's pricing experiments can attest to this.

Ridiculous analysis

[gzsfrk]

What an ignorant story. We're in the middle of the worst recession/near depression that has ever occurred since videogames came to be, and it's somehow an ominous sign that the companies behind videogames experienced losses either during the whole year (Sony), a single quarter (MS), or simply had lower sales than the previous year PRIOR to the recession? How about looking at it from the perspective that it's amazing that the videogames sector has done as well as it has over the course of the past year, despite a tremendously inhospitable economic climate?

MSFT didn't post a loss.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is inaccurate. Microsoft didn't post a loss, it posted its first REVENUE DROP since it became public in 1986. They still made a pretty good profit in that quarter.

Re:Not for me

[Red Flayer]

I find it hilarious that people spend hundreds of dollars on a Wii and then even more money on games and controllers and other shit, only to do stuff they could, you know, do in real life.

What, like gripe in a real-live conversation instead of posting some stupid shit on slashdot?

Pot meet kettle...