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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."
Makes sense to me. I see many more people playing Facebook games than they play with their Wii. XBox players are about as frequently seen as Facebook gamers, in my experience.
The technology is where consoles have often been ahead of PCs, but with tablet computers becoming almost as slick as Star Trek Pads, it's harder to imagine a console being able to process a lot more than a PC or be as portable as an iPad or Android phone.
Oh You POS
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.
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.
I used to play a lot of games on my Xbox 360, but when we got Netflix a few years ago it moved from my study to the living room and now my wife monopolizes it to watch Netflix, and I'm playing my games on the PC. A console can only be used for one thing at a time, and when you keep adding more things it can do, it ends up spending less time being used to play games.
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.
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...
You can hook up a game controller to a tablet and some interesting games even support them. I can totally see quite a lot of indies who as of late have been developing AMAZING games(Bastion, Trine...) move to tablets which you can hook up to a TV via HDMI.
Just go to nVidia's Tegra Zone to see how far the bleeding edge tablets have moved on. There are videos of stuff that is easily on par with the current gen of game consoles. I'm truly amazed. It really feels like science fiction.
Also it seems like fondleslab producers are moving away from integrating 3g/4g into their tablets since everybody has a cell phone anyway which is easily tethered to a tablet. 3G/4G simply doesn't justify the extra cost anymore.
Now all I need is a good enough reason to get rid of my current XOOM which is perfectly fine. I want a Transformer Prime more than I want my next breath.
20 minutes into the future
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.
You are quite right. Statistics need to be interpreted correctly. There is still good growth for consoles also. It is just not as great as the growth of the other platforms and the gaming market is just expanding.
XBox 360 and Playstation 3 use absolutely horrifying amounts of electricity compared to devices like AppleTV
XBox 360: 121 watts to watch a DVD, up to 170 watts while gaming
New PS3: 70 watts to watch a DVD, up to 80 watts while gaming
Apple TV: maximum rated 6 watts
And then throw in the added energy required by an air conditioner to remove all that heat from your house.
Granted AppleTV has less horsepower than either game system, but their power consumption is WAY out of line, given what can be done with modern hardware.
I'd say tablets and smartphones will make dedicated mobile gaming platforms (Nintendo DS, PS Vita etc) obsolete but will have very little impact on console and PC sales where gaming is concerned. What he is talking about is casual gaming which although making shitloads of cash is not what the average console and PC gamer would class as gaming. What smartphone/tablet game companies are doing is tapping into a userbase of people who wouldn't normally play games as they wouldn't buy a device just to play games, but as they have the devicealready they then start to look at what can be done with it.
This is why most of the type of games you find on the iPhone/iPad/Android devices are aimed at killing a few minutes while standing waiting for a bus not taking up hours and hours which is what most traditional gamers want/expect from their games.
My wife is a prime example of the new breed of smartphone/tablet/browser 'gamer'. I have had a PC and various gaming consoles for the last 20 years and she has never shown the slightest bit of interest in gaming as it took up too much time and had to be done at home. Now she plays games like Angry Birds on her smartphone and Facebook.
Minecraft would be more credible.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Can you go from 100% of the pie to 10% and STILL end up with more pie? Yes, you can! Simply increase the size of the pie. Granted, for that scenario, you need to increase the pie a lot but that is what has been happening in computer gaming.
The earliest computer games were the domain of people who had access to mainframes, this was only a small subsection of the population. Arcade games made them more available but the nature of arcade games restricted it to children. Home computers (Atari, Commodore, Sinclair) changed this again but the machines were very expensive and frankly the games just weren't that accessible. You might have fond memories of text adventures, but you are a freak.
Home arcade machines where cheaper and easier but playing pong can only attract so many people for so long. The early machines showed a promising future but the present was graphics where you needed a manual to tell you what you were looking at.
But slowly, this changed, computers became smaller and cheaper while the games got better and better. And so, more and more people buy gaming hardware and play games.
Flash games haven't replaced traditional PC games, they added to the number of people playing games on a PC. Tablets haven't taken away from other platforms, they added gamers. IF there is a slowdown in either the PC or big console market then it has far more to do with those markets on their own. Gosh, do we REALLY need another 12yr old FPS with angry rapper soundtrack?
Women gamers might not be that intrested in games so obviously aimed at 12 year olds. Are there many female gamers? Google for The Sims 3 MODS... this is females not just PLAYING a game, but MODDING it with no official support, just command line tools. FEMALES! Modding!?! But where are these females catered for on the consoles? Barbie playhouse? Where is the mature rated female game? (As in subjects that attract adult females, not 12 yr old boys, as amazing as it seems, for some weird reason most women are not terribly excited by seeing polygon boobies with full jiggle animation. Probably because the spoiled women can play with a real set whenever they want. INEQUALIY! Demand fair distrubution of boobie playtime NOW!) Anyway... I didn't believe that women really played PC games until I found myself in a lotro raid of my guild and I was the only male. And that was a 12 man... 11 woman, 1 man raid.
But you shouldn't take this the wrong way, just because a lot of women game as well, does NOT mean ALL games have to be women friendly. Different games, for different markets. It ain't so hard to understand. Just because hamburger restaurants sell a lot of hamburgers doesn't mean every single restaurant in the world has to be a hamburger joint. In fact, you might find that if you did this, the revenue for restaurants would fall. Angry birds is a top selling game but if that was the only thing on offer, the market would quickly collapse. Yet, that is exactly what has been happening in the big console market. The market is completely dominated with Call of Honor Gears Halo 56. MS knew this and desperately tried to attract japanese developers so they would at least get some JRPG action on the original xbox. It failed and the original xbox was a dismal failure in Japan. It was a far bigger success in the west... with in the segment of the population the games catered for.
I don't even think tablets will kill the Vita and DS. Those handholds are doing their own killing. Look at the line-up for the Vita? What is there? The majority of games are extremely expensive versions of games you can buy for a buck on a tablet or even try for free. Yes yes, wipeout might be some kind of classic (read milked) title but its appeal is rather limited in terms of segment of the population. It also frankly ain't suited for mobile gaming where perfect control, perfect vision, long load up times etc etc are just not on.
Neither are dark games, 99% in the sun it means you don't see shit. Where are the light deep story games that don't mind if they are
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nowadays you have to upgrade a PC every 4 years or so.
Quite. I still find my Q6600 (stock clock), 4GB DDRII, and 8800GTX (before it died) ran almost any game I could think of at my monitor's native res of 1920x1200 with reasonable graphics detail. In fact, my upgrade was going to be a second 8800GTX from fleabay (I got burned by the seller; Sold me a known faulty card he claimed to have repaired, I found out afterwards. Fuck eBay for not understanding that). Ended up with a HD6950; Good card.
I wouldn't be surprised if I run this rig until the hardware dies.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3774/welcome-to-valhalla-inside-the-new-250gb-xbox-360-slim/3
In that case... there's a Minecraft Pocket Edition that runs on Android and iOS phones. :)
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.
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.
You can hook up a game controller to a tablet and some interesting games even support them. I can totally see quite a lot of indies who as of late have been developing AMAZING games(Bastion, Trine...) move to tablets which you can hook up to a TV via HDMI.
Often not all the buttons work, or the analog controls either. And well, it's a mess to hook those things up just to play something, especially if you're going to have a several-hour gaming session because then you have to add a charger into the mix, too. And what if you get a phonecall in the middle of gaming? You have to tear everything off only to have to plug it all back in afterwards.
In the industry dying = "not growing"
I think the reason nobody has made a game worth $60 on the tablet is that tablets are just too much of a moving target. $60 games (ones that are actually worth $60) take years to develop. The tablet hasn't been around long enough for developers to be able to gauge where it's going to be in 6 months.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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!
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.
The problem is that these "mobiles and portables" tend not to have gaming controls. Let me know when Xperia Play isn't the only Android phone with a physical directional pad and physical buttons that give your thumbs physical feedback as to which button the player is pressing. A completely flat touch screen just can't do that; try playing a platformer like Super Mario Bros. or a twitch puzzle game like high-speed Tetris with just touch controls. Or let me know when one of the dedicated gaming handhelds has a developer program open to individuals like the major smartphone platforms have.
In that case, the advantage of a console is the combination of guaranteed processing with guaranteed physical buttons that the player can locate by feel. An iPad just has a flat surface, which doesn't work so well for some genres.
I would also lay odds that he PS3 is STILL better than the budget boxes in many people's homes (many are still single core with GPU's nowhere near the capability of the Nvidia chip in the PS3)
That all depends on how fast these budget boxes get replaced with Ivy Bridge boxes, whose integrated GPU runs a PS3-class PC game (Skyrim) at a playable frame rate according to AnandTech.
hell, becoming more niche would be a good thing to this PC gamer
Hell yes. The latest Mass Effect has sticky walls and maps every damn player action to the space bar. If I wanted everything mapped to one button I'd get a console. Game makers, if you're going to charge more than $20, please don't cripple the game so it plays on consoles.
Also, trends don't continue forever. People who write headlines love to do that, but it doesn't make any sense. Mobile gaming increased 400% last year? Yes, you can make a graph implying that in 5 years, we will all be playing "Angry Birds" 24 hours a day, but that's not going to happen.
Xbox, wii, and PS3 sales may be going down, and facebook games going up. But people who like playing "real" videogames (whatever you choose to call them, the $60 big titles like mass effect 3) are not going to say "Hey, you know what's really big right now? Farmville! Fuck Modern Warfare 27, I'm just going to plant wheat!" Facebook is not going to replace gaming.
Prediction: in a few years, we're going to see stories on slashdot about "Why the mobile/facebook gaming bubble burst." And I'm going to say "I told you so" to all those people totally surprised their facebook game developing company went belly up.
Hell that is what i love about my EEE 1215B, as not only can it carry a couple of dozen movies easily, and all the music i care to listen to, but when i am stuck somewhere I can fire up GTA:VC or L4D or Crazy Taxi 3 and have me some fun without needing an extra device. I need to carry the netbook anyway for service calls so why bother having a handheld like my old GBA? Of course you'd probably laugh your ass off if you saw me in the doctor's office as I have all these 'backseat drivers' going "Look out, watch out for the truck! the cops are chasing you, head down the alley!", its like trying to drive with my mother in the truck LOL!
That is why i couldn't believe that NOW of all times Sony releases the Vita gimped all to hell with Vita cards and Vita memory and Vita connectors, talk about the absolutely WORST time to try to gimp everyone with lock in, when everyone and their dog has cells and tablets and netbooks to choose from that use bog standard and cheap hardware. if they would have used standard SDHC or miniSD i could have seen it, but why would anyone want to deal with another memory stick assraping?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.