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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.
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.
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.
These arguments can be summed up as:
"Books are dying, magazines are more convenient and require less mental effort therefore magazines will replace books"
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.
Xbox LIVE is a better social experience than anything Farcebook could deliver on
If by social experience you mean 12-year-olds and 20-somethings that act like 12-year-olds screaming in your ear and hurling obscenities as though it makes them more mature, then yes, Xbox Live is a wonderful social experience.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.