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The Consoles Are Dying, Says Developer
hypnosec writes "While you might have often heard that PC gaming is dying — detractors have been claiming this for over a decade — one developer has a different take: that consoles are the ones on the way out. In a 26-minute presentation at GDC — available now as a slideshow with a voice-over — Ben Cousins, who heads mobile/tablet game maker ngmoco, uses statistics of electronic and gaming purchases, along with market shares of developers and publishers from just a few years ago, to come to some surprising conclusions. The old guard, including the three big console manufacturers — Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft — are losing out when compared with the new generation of gaming platform developers: Facebook, Apple and Google. With the new companies, the size of the audience is vastly increased because of their focus on tablets, mobile and browser-based gaming."
Quoting the summary: "The old guard ...are losing out when compared with the new generation of gaming platform developers".
This clearly doesn't mean that the consoles are dying, it simply means that the smarthphones and tables have a installed base much greater than the traditional consoles and they managed to get a bigger audience. Mobile games are also simpler and cheaper than traditional "hardcore" console/PC games.
At the end it's a similar story to that of the Wii: Someone found a way to reach a much bigger audience than that of traditional games and they made a ton of money in the process.
Facebook: wins thanks to the social aspect. It's always more fun to win a game from real-life friend, than from a computer. Even playing against strangers is more interesting - that's why I enjoy playing card games on Yahoo, you know there are real humans on the other side of the "table". That alone makes the game much more interesting, even though there are no fancy graphics etc. involved.
Google/Apple's mobile offerings: this are both networked (social) games a-la Facebook, and simple games to kill time while waiting for a bus or on the train heading back home. Games that you can pick up and put down any second, that don't have a huge learning curve, and that don't require much if any investment in time/money.
Wii/Xbox/etc: need you to consciously dedicate time to. Can't be picked up and put down so easily as mobile games. Miss the social aspect in many games. Newer consoles can connect to the network for multi-player, or have a few controls on a single machine - solving that somewhat, but they still have a lack of critical mass. Not just everyone has a Wii like almost everyone has Facebook. And a games console may be good at games, but that's also pretty much all it's good at.
PC games: PC's more common than consoles like a Wii, and are all networked these days. Can do quite well in the networked/social spheres, think Second Life and related games. Yet require the time dedication due to fixed location, time to boot up (not in seconds), etc.
The hardware doesn't matter, the hardware itself is just a tool, and most people couldn't care less about the actual hardware as long as it runs the games they want it to run.
If your share is the market is decreasing but the overall market size is increasing at a rate faster than your share decreases, then you're not dying, you're flourishing.
This is just like saying movies are going out because tons of people are watching YouTube videos. Just. Plain. Wrong.
Sure, there is money to be made in those new markets. The very best iOS/Android/Facebook games make dozens of millions in profit. Great. But the best console games will make that in a single day. Yes, they have the numbers: there are hundreds of thousands of apps in the iTunes Store. Awesome. But 98% sell 0 copies (I'm not talking a few thousands, I'm talking about zero, nil, nada). What about ROI? A competitive mobile game can be done for $100.000 (yes, and that is the absolute minimum to be competitive, this is not 2009 anymore) and would need about $250.000 in marketing expenses (it is that, or hitting a jackpot). One such game can expect to get 20.000 downloads a day (it MUST be free, of course) and a conversion rate of about 0.5% to 2% if it is good. Good luck getting that money back, not to mention making any profit.
The new markets are bad business. They are headline material if you are one of the few lucky ones who hit a jackpot, but remember: the jackpots are jackpots. Those lone developers or startups are the lucky ones, and while there is always someone who will get the lottery price for sure, if you get all your money and invest in lottery, you're an idiot. There is only one good thing about them: no entry barrier. The console videogame market stagnates because it is controlled by a few players who are adverse to innovation and mostly rehash the same product over and over. Facebook or mobile allow anyone to enter and go wild. Just like the computer game market of the 80's, that means loads of crap and some rare gems that couldn't be possible otherwise.
There is something very wrong with the console market. Publishers with absolute power cater only to the mass public and ignore niche or progressive sales, while developers get zero money from the jackpots and can't raise or grow if it is not dancing to the whim of the same publishers. But don't forget it, the new masters are much worse. The App Store is not some place you go to get rich, it is the place you go to die.
This article is biased because of the type of work that Ben does: "Ben Cousins, who heads mobile/tablet game maker ngmoco"
Game makers like ngmoco need to realize that they are not competing with consoles or PC's because they are designing for mobile devices. They compete with other mobile device game makers and that's that.
Sure Facebook/Zynga make truckloads of cash, think about their business model: Play x game, limit the amount of time player can play, offer method to BUY more time for a couple of dollars... Player gets sucked in and spends the money to get 10 minutes of extra play time.. Hundreds of people pay a couple of dollars to get that extra 10 minutes, and guess what? You have an extremely profitable business. Add to that the money they make off advertising to over 100mil people that play their games, and factor in the fact that the staff comprises less than 300 people, most of whom are phone jockeys or developers. You get the idea. The company has low operating overhead and high cash inflow. A recipe for a ridiculously huge cash cow which is exactly what is shown in these reports Ben used to exemplify and emphasize his story.
Fact of the matter is that PC's and consoles make huge profits too. Maybe not as much as Zynga or others, maybe not even as much as mobile developers. But, they have their fans. People don't just *switch* from being one type of gamer, to another. They usually are a combination. Me personally? I'm mainly a PC gamer, but I have an Xbox that I play on occasion, and I also do the facebook games sometimes, and also have some mobile games. Some people strictly play mobile games because of their affordability compared to console and PC games. Just depends on the level of immersion someone wants.
just like when it became cheap to do printing. Now the market for print covers everything from comics, to lifestyle magazines, to Booker Prize winners. Sometimes I want to sit down with a novel, sometimes I want to see what Batman's up to this month, sometimes I'll flick through an issue of Motor Boats and Yachting because that's the only mag in the dentist's waiting room.
The concept of a single, clearly- and rigidly-defined platform will always be attractive to developers. Raw horsepower will always make a difference to any game more complex than Tetris. Control systems will always be a beast to implement on something that has a touchscreen and a single button, unless the control system is implemented first, then the game built around that. It is not possible to replicate the 11 buttons, twin joysticks and a d-pad of an X-box controller on an iPhone.
I think it's good that the market is fragmenting. It won't stop the big studios making AAA-titles. It will help the indie developer with the next great idea get her game made in Flash, or on Android, or running directly in the browser. It might help stem the unearthly tide of shovelware that infests the pre-owned racks at GAME. And although, to an extent, I decry the loss of geek cred that comes with the fact that now everybody and their dog plays some sort of video games, the fact that every woman I've met lately plays Farmville does make it a useful ice-breaker...
Why does this make sense to you? If tablet computers increase the size of the gaming ecosystem, that doesn't mean that consoles are going to go away. There is still enormous demand for fancy 3D games like first person shooters and sports games.
I think this article goes too far. I think it only shows that tablets will pick up the less hardware intensive games, for the cases of where HD graphics or ergonomic controllers aren't important. When they do, PCs and consoles will have that market.
Can you imagine someone playing Gears of War 3 on a tablet? No? There is probably a reason for that.
What are you on about? The outdated tech in your console comes nowhere near the level of technology in my PC.
The advantage of consoles has never been processing power. The advantage is developing for a single platform with a known configuration. PC game developers (like myself) have to worry about a wide range of video hardware. Console game developers can fine tune for their platform.
Nowadays you have to upgrade a PC every 4 years or so.
Most PC titles are being made for consoles and PC at the same time and consoles are the lowest common denominator. So titles don't really get any more demanding in terms of hardware until the next generation of consoles come out.
But they are so cheap, you could buy another one easily. Whats a 360 cost now? NZ$300 for an arcade console?
Yes, I could imagine playing Gears of War 3, or any other similar, graphically-intensive game, on a tablet. However, I wouldn't expect to physically interact the tablet whilst doing so.
To elaborate on the first part, as smart phones and tablets become more complex and powerful, they will begin to encroach and eventually overlap with the processing and graphical capabilities of consoles. (The PowerVR G6200/G6400, let alone NVIDIA's Tegra offerings and the state-of-the-art devices in the research literature, are a testament to this, from a GPU standpoint. From a CPU one, the quad-core ARMv7 Cortex-A15 handily beats out the triple-core IBM Xenon in the Xbox 360 and the Cell processor in the PS3, in terms of MIPS.) As this happens, there will only be a handful of relatively minor reasons, most of which concern how to handle older, potentially out-dated devices, as to why we could not expect to see quality games ported over to these mobile platforms, let alone have studios change focus and solely push their titles for them.
Now, as for actually playing the games, it's easy to imagine a few scenarios for how this could be done for a variety of titles. One that would work well, in general, would be to interface the tablet or phone with a TV, either through an HDMI connection or perhaps wirelessly through something like the Apple TV, and rely on one or more Bluetooth controllers for input. In this instance, the device is functioning like a console; however, once you're done playing, you can just grab it, take it with you, and revert back to using it for a multitude of other purposes.
These arguments can be summed up as:
"Books are dying, magazines are more convenient and require less mental effort therefore magazines will replace books"
The real issue, M$, Sony and Nintendo, spent millions on public relations campaigns to promote the idea PC games were dying and web games were boring, they lied, they didn't care, they just wanted to sell more consoles and licence more games and accessories.
They did this via typical methods, using junk journalists to write fluff pieces, PR trolls flooding forums and other subtle things like buying up prime shop floor space to display their games and ensure PC games were hidden at the back.
Corporations they lie, not sometimes but nearly all the time about everything they can get away with up to and including when the penalty for lying is less than the profits generated. Modern corporations are so full of B$, that well, there are no true words to describe but they spend a load with PR firms and mass media to promote lying as acceptable and normal business practice.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In my mind this is a company that has made its business out of "borrowing" ideas from the likes of Nintendo and making cheap knock-offs to sell on facebook or mobiles.
If consoles go away where is this guy going to get his inspiration for his games? If I was in the business of making cheap throw away games with minimal profits and no real appreciation from customers I'd be busy trying to convince people my way was the future too.
Mod parent up.
This is EXACTLY what is happening, its like going back to SNES style gaming but on mobiles and portables, I'd rather buy a $60 game and enjoy the awesome 3D graphics and in-depth storyline and campaign, and besides, Xbox LIVE is a better social experience than anything Farcebook could deliver on.
I agree with most of your points, except for the presumption that you're playing a "real-life friend". Other than a dozen people, I've never met any of my Facebook friends in real life.
Furthermore, none of the "social games" I tried on Facebook during my first year were "social" at all. There was absolutely NO interaction with other players, team tactics, or any of the other aspects of a good round of an FPS with a headset.
When I see my friends playing against their buddies on their XBox or PS3, they're using headphones. They're coaching each other. They're cursing each other. They're talking to each other. It's a FAR more "social" game environment than Facebook has ever been or could ever dream to be.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Well if you are gonna go by just raw usage data then i'm sure they would tell you that office and accounting programs are being replaced by this incredible new technology called "the fart app' since its number of users i'm sure makes Quicken, Quickbooks, and all the office suites look like penny ante apps.
But of course that just highlights what's wrong with using this kind of data, the "games' they describe are simply what is called 'time wasters" that someone can use at the average office without installing anything and thus getting fired. The boss at the last shop i worked at loved to fire up freecell on any machine brought in and see how many hours had been spent in it, some machines had literally thousands of hours in it. did that mean these people were prepping for some freecell tournament? that they just REALLY loved that card game? nope it meant the IT dept had blocked the web based time wasters but the MSFT standard games were accessible so that is what they used to waste time.
In the end these "games" are having little to no money spent on them by the users, who rarely have any loyalty to the games at all and will walk away at the drop of a hat for the next time waster that catches their eye. Just because a shitload of people run something doesn't mean they WANT to run that thing, it may simply mean that is all they can get past the IT dept at work. My GF has hundreds of hours in those FB games but that doesn't mean she gives a crap about them or would spend a single cent for the whole lot, it just means she has a lot of down time in between busy periods at work so she uses them to kill time, that's all. In the end they are for her no more worth caring about than solitaire, its just something to do that's all. if youtube wasn't blocked at her work she'd probably be watching videos instead.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is just one kind of experience. Mine is more like this... I get home and jump on xbox. I invite all my buddies to the chat channel that holds up to 8 people. We all dick around gaming on our own while chatting it up and generally having a good time "hanging out" or we all hope into a multiplayer game and kick some ass. I have both a ps3 and an xbox, and I exclusively use the xbox due to the chat room feature. Its the most social system I use on a regular basis, and nothing on facebook ever gets me close to what I achieve on the xbox.
There's no response but "Duh."
Market share is a percentage. You can increase market share by either stealing customers from the competitor or increasing the total number of customers. The former affects the volume the competitor deals the latter does not.
Let's say the gaming market consists of 25 people. Right now 10 people play mobile (40%), 9 play consoles (36%), and 6 play PC (25%). Given the ease of access and low investment cost for mobile games the gaming market has increased to 40 people. 21 play mobile (52.5%), 12 play consoles (30%), and 7 play PC (17.5%) Mobile gaming's market share has increase while console and PC's have decreased yet all three gained new customers.
The real point though is that mobile gaming isn't competing with PCs or consoles. It presents a vastly different gamescape than the other two options and has been bringing in customers that weren't previously console or PC gamers.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
People that didn't play games before, are playing games like Farmville now. So there's more gamers, I doubt there's less console/pc gamers.
High DPI isn't a huge deal for games.
Reading, web browsing, content creation... sure. But not for games.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I think you're unusual. Most people use facebook to keep up with real life friends and family, old friends from school who now live far away, people they met on holidays or courses. People that you want to keep in touch with, sometimes daily, sometime just from time to time.
I think you both are guilty of extrapolating your own experience and thinking it applies to the world at large.
I communicate with my friends through one-to-one communications (e-mail, IM, phone, snail mail), not one-to-many like social networking sites. I don't even have a Facebook account anymore, and reserve one-to-many communications for when people are pseudo-anonymous.
And I am sure there are many others like me out there.
I am likewise sure that there are people like you, and people like the GP, and yet other varieties. People differ - there is no "one size fits all", and trying to shoehorn others in to what works great for you is doing them a disservice.
You are incredibly inaccurate in your assumption that the new processor and screen resolution will give the Ipad 3rd gen a competing chance against dedicated gaming consoles. Even our current generation, which is now over 6 years old, still blows away the graphics from the 3rd gen ipad. The fact is the ARM architecture, while gaining an impressive following and getting more powerful with each iteration, simply doesn't have the power to actually compete. These are low power devices with limited batteries and you are trying to say they stand up to or even beat the console. The consoles of course are very high wattage devices designed to use every bit of juice they want to run circles around your little ipad with its 3 core 3.2ghz xenon processor and dedicated graphics card at 500mhz. The only thing the ipad has over the current console generation is memory. The xbox tops out at 512mb at 700mhz. This is probably the single most limiting factor of the current console generation, but not limiting enough for the puny ipad to have a chance. Full disclosure, I prepordered the ipad 3. I love the little device, but there is just no justifiable leg to stand on to say it has anywhere close to the graphic capability of a dedicated home console.