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Wired Proclaims the Death of the Game Console
SternisheFan points out an article at Wired arguing that game consoles and the business model that sustained them are now "obsolete." Quoting:
"Years from now, 225 million devices will almost certainly be seen as the point at which the console business peaked. Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix. The console’s time at the top of the heap is drawing to an end, and these machines won’t survive without radical change. ... Consoles used to do everything best, but those strengths are now being wiped away. Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles 'just work,' fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad. Consoles are cheaper than PCs? Not when you factor in the growing disparity in game prices. Consoles have all the good content? Well, if you want Nintendo- or Sony-exclusive games, you’ll need to buy their hardware. But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.
Until Netcraft confirms it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
i never understand how people who rant about software freedom, openness and how evil apple is will then run out and buy an microsoft xbox and a sony playstation.
My brother's wife's aunt's grandkid's roommate in college brother's son just bought a console so this PROVES that this article is complete horseshit.
Now, mod me up "Insightful" or "Informative"!
Gamers need great controls, and frankly the controls on touch screen games stink. Racing game on touch screen vs racing game on console with Xbox S controls or steering wheel? I'm choosing the console.
The current console generation has already gone one for a year too long, and it will be at least one more year before the new Xbox and Playstation come out. In games media people do seem to be switching to the PC, but as soon as the new consoles come out the unwashed masses will move to them.
As for the iPad and the like? Sure they will take the causal and non gamer markets, pretty much the people who purchased the Wii as their first and only console. Game console might not see as high of sales, but just like happens with every new console generation and the reports of PC gaming being dead, the death of consoles is high exaggerated.
It's not as if people who play Assassin's Creed have suddenly shifted over to Angry Birds in droves. The audience who plays Angry Birds is a separate audience. Furthermore, Angry Birds costs less than console games, so comparing by number of total players is misleading.
Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix.
They are?
Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles 'just work,' fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad.
And that proves ...?
For once PC gaming is supposedly gaining while consoles are dying...I guess you can only predict the death of PC gaming so many times.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Slashdoters have been proclaiming the death of Slashdot for years now, yet the body still twitches every once and a while.
This is just one of those "X is dead" stories where the author knows nothing about anything including market diversity.
It is obvious that McD attracts more customers then 3 star restaurants, therefor 3 star restaurants are dead...
Logic dictates this. But McD has been around for a long time and so is the whole Michelin guide thing, which has also been declared dead many times.
There are indeed people for who Angry Birds is enough and they can buy an iPad Mini for 329. And there are those for who mario is enough and they can buy a Wii U for 350. Wow! Look at that price difference!!! Anyway, for SOME, Angry Birds is NOT enough just as a dry patty on an even dryer piece of fluffed corn isn't good enough for some. And they will buy a PC, put in a video card and play real games.
And there are even some people, who one day buy a hamburger and the next day visit a 3 star restaurant. Amazing!
And some people never buy any pre-made food and cook at home!!! It is almost like there are kinds of different people out there with others catering to their needs!
Right now, in 2012 EA/Maxis is preparing Sim City for a 2013 launch and EVERYTHING looks like it will be a real Sim City again for real men on real PC's. And some gay guys on mac's. No more consolfication attempt, just a hard core sim game like we used to have. And it got just as many fanboys as Angry Birds has, except these fans can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Everytime someone declares something dead, it springs back on its feet. The world is a more complex place then you think and people have different needs and wants, often on the same day.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This isn't exactly on-topic, but since the article mentions it, I'll bring it up. As someone who has played games my entire life (starting with Pong on a black ad white TV, growing up through the Arcade craze of the 80s, and every game console in between), I just don't see the appeal of Angry Birds. Sure, the game is well implemented - graphics, sound effects, and music are all very well done.
However, the basic gameplay mechanics are just so-so. It's just a physics simulation. The real problem is that there is such a massive luck factor involved. For example, when someone beats a difficult "level", what is the chance that they can actually reproduce their success in the exact same way? Pretty much impossible. Things happen in a way they neither intended nor predicted. So in other words, Angry Birds is more of a "slot machine" than a skill based game. Is it just the visual satisfaction of seeing a physics simulation smoothly unfold and crap fall down? Sort of like how the bouncing cards after winning Windows Solitaire was always so satisfying in a strange kind of way?
Now that's all good and well. Some people like to play luck based games. But why such a large percent of the population? With this game your skill quickly plateaus and then you're relying on mere chance, which isn't so appealing to me. Is it that their marketing is that good, or that they reached some magic threshold that the franchise is simply self sustaining now?
How many Slashdot readers feel that Angry Birds is the deserved pinnacle and poster child of non-console, non-PC gaming? And if not, what game should be the flagship of this new gaming market?
Better known as 318230.
I'm one of those kids who's prime was the 80's, I grew up with Atari 2600, Nintendo NES and Commodore 64. I used to program on the commodore 64 in assembly language because I wanted to make those games myself, and did...
However, now...much MUCH later, I still play console games. And I've noticed something over the years next to all my PC gear and consoles...is that consoles have a distinct advantage over the PC, I'll try to mention a few:
- Console games are just...you just start playing already, no need for all the driver-installation fuzz. Very practical.
- The PC is much more forgiving when it comes to BUG fixes, PC versions tend to have more bugs and bug-patch releases, on consoles - you can't afford this so the games actually comes with less bugs in my experience.
- Less cheating: One of my no#1 pet peeves when it comes to online gaming, are cheating bastards, they destroy the fun for everyone else, and they can literally WIPE out an entire planet of avid gamers with their stupid aimbots, wallhacks and frustrate the hell out of seriously good gamers. On consoles, it's not so easy to cheat that any wannabee script kiddie out there can add a patch, simply...it's too hard for them to do it. Less cheating, wonderful!
- Games last longer: This might sound a bit odd, but I love to keep my games forever, and so I keep the consoles forever as well. I still have my Atari 2600, repaired the joystick a 100+ times, but enough OT. The games last longer because the games ages with the consoles. When you purchase NEW PC's or upgrade, you need endless patches and driver updates - buzz killington right there!
Nope, enough reasons above. The consoles will stay. (At least in my house) ;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I bought an X-box 360 5 or 6 years ago when my kids were 7 or 8 years old. It crapped out on me a couple of times and both times Microsoft "fixed" it and sent me another. Perhaps about 2 years ago, the kids got bored with it and began using the computer for gaming. The Xbox, along with the $1000 or so worth of games, controllers, and other swag sits gathering dust and the kids seem more interested in a fancy phone or tablet these days while they play minecraft online. I'll probably throw the Xbox up on ebay along with all the games and accessories before it becomes completely worthless. No plans here to buy a replacement.
Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles 'just work,' fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad.
My washing machine "just works", it doesn't mean game consoles are losing market share to it.
Games consoles and iPads are completely different things. Just because it has a processor and a screen and UI doesn't mean its the bloody same.
It is free (I played it and did NOT feel ANY need to buy any more levels), it is extremely simple and it just plays.
I can't show of a console or pc game to friends at work and they can't install it right there and then on their devices.
Angry Birds is Garfield, it is the most read comic strip in the world but nobody would claim it is the best, it just is so easily available, so easily digestible, that the rest of the comics just can't really compete. First off, not all who read Garfield even want to read comics let alone ones that take effort and further the remaining comics are less all encompasing so they appeal to a smaller section of the general public. Some people like Nukee but it is hard to find, hard to read (you can't just jump in anywhere) and just not funny at all. You might not think Garfield is that funny anymore but at least it raises a smirk for normal people.
Angry Birds is indeed comparable to Solitaire, it is so easy to get, it doesn't have to overcome as much of human laziness.
This doesn't mean it is better then harder to get games, it just means more people seen it.
If Angry Birds was really as good as "proper" games, its owners could have bought Apple by now, they can't. Because people play the free version and that is it. If all who played it bought it, and if all who COULD play it, bought it, it would have ignited the makers bank account. It didn't.
Back to the michelin guide I use in another example, Angry Birds get 0 stars. That doesn't mean it is bad, it just ain't noteworthy while it still might get swamped by local customers.
Your local McD might have lines waiting to be served but it will NEVER be a 3 star restaurant, an experience worth the journey itself. Angry Birds is fast-food, it serves lots but nobody is going to make an hour long journey just to get it.
That people still put up with finicky PC's and expensive consoles just goes to proof how much people still want them.
Want to test Angry Birds appeal for real? Make its users go through a debug session to get it running. If they give up, then it obviously wasn't desirable enough.
If this wasn't slashdot, I could use the girl example. The amount of shit you put up from a girl is directly related to how attractive she is.
Angry Birds would be out the door if she said "hello".
Skyrim can kill your cat, fuck your best mates and pay them for it with your salary while telling everyone your pc is in reality a Dell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The game console will never die, but calling it that certainly will. When people spend far more time doing non-gaming activities, it behooves Microsoft and Sony not to call it that anymore so they can try to grab a wider audience. They want people to rent movies, buy TV shows, listen to music, download apps, etc... in addition to playing games on this device. In fact, if you could record and watch live TV, the cable set top box would be dead (and that's the real market they are trying to go after). With the apparent success of the $99 Xbox 360 w/ subscription, we are going to see Microsoft push that model further with the next Xbox. I'd say buy the console for $200 (high-end SKU), then for $30/month for at least 2 years, get Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Music, and maybe 1 free movie rental a month. The last part clearly indicates it's a media machine, and people have gotten used to paying monthly bills for cellphones and stuff like Netflix and Hulu Plus. Considering the Xbox 360 isn't that much cheaper now than it was when it launched ($299 & $399), the only reasonable reason not to buy a new console immediately is because it lacks any tangible functionality over the old one (back when they only played games). Oh, and the next Xbox must be FAR better at multi-tasking. Taking 3 minutes to boot an app is ridiculous. NEEDS MORE RAM.
yeah, but what happens when there's a generation of kids who grew up playing angry birds as their first game instead of super mario?
Poor parenting has been an ongoing issue for generations!
2006:the death of consoles.
2007:the death of the gaming PC
2008:the death of consoles.
2009:the death of the gaming PC
2010:the death of consoles.
2011:the death of the gaming PC
2012: (now) the death of consoles.
Both seem just fine.
The fact is that yes, ipads can play Angry Birds gloriously. I (personally) don't know how well they play the bazillion flash games at armorgames.com or kongregate.com that seem to be very entertaining for the gamer-set that likes those sorts of tactical-reflex games. So they're not replacing PCs EVEN IN THAT SPECIFIC DEMO.
Further, I'm not a consoleer, but for them intuitive quick controls and immersiveness seem to be almost everything. The controls on touch pads are, well, touchpads (and suck, mostly). You are also never going to get the immersiveness of Call of Duty 4 on a 9" ipad screen, compared to the 54" plasma with 7.1 sound.
I'm sure they're just trying to sell more magazines but seriously can we move on from this conception of the zero-sum gamer's market?
-Styopa
People keep conflating casual gamers with actual gamers. Casual gamers bought the Wii as a fad. They had their little Wii parties. They bought Wii Fit and no other games. After about 6 months when the fad died down they put the Wii in the closet and forgot about it. This is the same demographic whose only other games are Angry Birds, Farmville, and Words With Friends. They might have owned an NES when they were 10 years old, or maybe their older sibling's hand-me-down PlayStation 1, but they never bought their own games, they have no retail PC games, they don't have Steam installed, they don't own a full sized PC, and they certain don't own a PS3 or Xbox 360. If they are parents, they might have bought a console for their kid, but they only use it for NetFlix.
This casual gamer demographic caused a massive spike in sales from the Wii fad, and a tiny spike from the smaller follow-up Kinect fad, but it's unlikely they'll buy any consoles in the upcoming generation, and that's fine. If the console manufacturers were relying on them for their own projections, then that's their mistake from not understanding their audience. It doesn't mean consoles are dead. The core gamer demographic is still going to buy consoles, and still going to grow slowly and steadily. Maybe some other fad will come along and give them a similar spike, but they would be fools to rely on it in their business model.
i never understand how people who rant about software freedom [...] will then run out and buy an microsoft xbox and a sony playstation.
It's because not enough PC games support USB gamepads well or support more than one player on one HDTV monitor. Some people prefer the multiplayer model traditionally associated with consoles, especially for games that aren't FPS or RTS. PCs can do it; it's just that major PC game publishers choose not to in order to sell a copy per player instead of a copy per household.
No, they're the ones look at how tubes are woven together, thinking that something is therefore looming.
rewriting history since 2109
In a fighting game or a cooperative platformer, not so much
Unless you're an adult who wants a variety of opponents or wants to play cooperatively a game that no one else in their household wants/or can play on their own schedule.
I'm finding it funny to find people defending same-screen multi when in the past, PC gamers used the lack of network play pre-PS2 days as one of their reasons to bash consoles..
I agree with you that nowadays, a commercial multiplayer video game SHOULD support an online play mode, using lag-hiding techniques such as those seen in GGPO. In essence GGPO works by delaying all keypresses by 3-5 frames (just over half a ping time), timestamping all keypresses as they're sent over the wire, and then rewinding to the last agreed frame and fast-forwarding from there when a player's action during a ping spike over 150 ms causes the game states on both ends to lose sync. I just disagree that online-only is the only way to make a multiplayer PC game, especially now that 21" desktop PC monitors are as big as 19" bedroom TVs used to be.
There are vast differences between different types of gaming. You have MMOs, which generally require a dedicated computer and not a massive amount of processing or graphical power. Modern FPSs such as the Crysis series are extremely taxing, and therefore more likely to be played on a system that costs more from a manufacturer/distributor or was custom-built by the user.
Then there are your Call of Duty style games which are FAR more popular on consoles simply because the buy-in and hookup is easier than PC-side -- you don't need TeamSpeak, matchmaking clients, dedicated servers, etc., to have a fun time. You only need to "plug and play" and hop online; the game itself will cost you $10 or 20 more than its non-console counterpart, but the hardware on which its running is at most half the price of a good gaming rig...and you probably already own an HDTV so that's not extra cost out of your pocket just to play.
Then we consider mobile or tablet gaming. Angry Birds and Words With Friends don't need all that real-estate, even though an iPhone or iPad (or equivalent device) may cost as much or more than a console. You play them anywhere, any time...and that's great for someone who can't or won't commit the time to a 45 minute MOBA match, a 2+ hour MMO raid, or dozens of hours on a single-player RPG or hack-and-slasher.
The TLDR is this: whether consoles have hit their "high point" and are on the decline is irrelevant. They're still going to be around because they are geared toward a different type of gamer than many other platforms. They'll change shapes, sizes, capacities and functions...but they'll continue to exist in one form or another.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?