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Sony, Microsoft Squabble Over Console Features, But the Real Opponent Is Apple
Nerval's Lobster writes "Now that Microsoft and Sony have unveiled their respective next-generation gaming consoles, the two companies have cheerfully resorted to firing broadsides at each other. Whether the current brouhaha has any effect on sales of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 (if hardcore gamers keep complaining, they may even convince Microsoft to knock $100 off the new Xbox and bring its pricing down to the PS4's level), it's also drowning out what many perceive as the real issue: gaming consoles face an existential threat from mobile devices, most notably those running iOS (with some threat from Android). First, there are signs that the hardcore gamer market is soft: console sales in the United States dropped 21 percent in 2012, and sales of new video-game cartridges haven't fared much better. Second, PC/console games such as X-Com have begun appearing on iOS; if that trend continues, the console companies will have more rivals to fight against. Third, Apple is developing a game controller for iOS which could make it an even more dedicated opponent — and convince other tech companies to follow in its footsteps. But don't tell any of that to Microsoft and Sony, which seem content to fire at each other."
EOM
love is just extroverted narcissism
Cartridge sales are extremely low, but that has nothing to do with PS3/4 or the Xbox family.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
We can talk about the mythical Apple TV with new console generation level graphics(which will make it expensive) when I see it.
Carts.....
So this was written by someone who understands the gaming market well then? In 1995 maybe.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
iOS as serious gaming platform? This must be bat country!
Really, go visit an airport, library, park bench, McDs, waiting room, etc. People are playing games on their mobile phones or tablets.
If you still need high power, play it on your desktop. Consoles are throw-away electronics and their time in the sun is diminishing.
Now, if you'll excuse me I need to get a jump on early Christmas shopping... I need an Angry Birds bed set, Angry Birds jacket, Angry Birds underwear, Angry Birds bicycle, Angry Birds weed whacker, Angry Birds can opener, Ford Focus Angry Birds Limited Edition, Angry Birds home pregnancy kit, ...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
console sales in the United States dropped 21 percent in 2012, and sales of new video-game cartridges haven't fared much better.
What the hell would be considered a "new video-game cartridge"?
I know jargon in certain industries gets weird. I mean, I deal with tables, floors, clouds, nets, webs, pipes, and none of those are physical objects. But whoever is using the term "cartridge", in the game industry, in this year, deserves to be ignored as they are obviously stuck in the last century. Seriously, while you're back there warn them about 9/11 and Bush.
It's been 10ish years since we have seen a new console.....maybe that had a little to do with the drop in console purchases, everybody has one?
The world is now on auto-pilot.
People playing 99 cent time wasters aren't the same demographic as those spending $400 on a console to buy $60 games. If Apple come up with a PC type small box that runs games, and give billions to several devlopers, they will enter the gamers' market, their twee stuff on their iStuff is not taking a single cent away from xbox, ps3 or nintendo, other then child titles and all that useless fitness stuff women buy.
Yes, some sales less is due to mobile gaming. However, some is also due to the effing advanced, decrepit age of the current console generation. Anyone care to guess how much? I bet steam is taking their share too.
Silence is a state of mime.
Apple is planning on taking on Microsoft and Sony. Lol with what a tablet? There is just no way a tablet alone can take on a dedicated gaming device. The deck is stacked clearly in MS and Sony's favor on that. Lets see dedicated devices do not have the same size constraints, do not have to deal with battery life, do not have to deal with powering a display, do not have to deal with mobility, do not have to deal with sketchy wifi/4g coverage.
I suppose someone will chime in suggesting they mean the Apple TV which could be a valid point, except the market penetration of those are MUCH smaller, and the fact that they do not have any AAA titles that rival the competitors.
Controller or not, there are no Apple devices that compete directly with xbox and ps.
18 months ago, Apple as a serious threat to the established console makers looked plausible. It looks a lot less so now.
iOS is becoming a much less credible gaming proposition with every day that passes. Why? Shovelware IAP-laden crap which barely even qualifies as "games". Ok, occasionally you get games like X-Com or Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition which try to swim against the tide; but even there, they're never anything more than slightly inferior ports of games available on other platforms.
Finding anything worth playing on iOS is getting harder and harder. Square-Enix and Cave put out a few titles worth a look - but even Square-Enix have gone down the route recently of pay-to-win shovelware.
At the same time, the low-priced offerings on the consoles - and on the Playstation Store in particular - have soared in quality. If you want a mobile device right now that can play high quality indie games, sold at a reasonable price, then you don't want an iPhone or iPad, you want a Vita.
Indeed, though the Vita's failure as a "PS3 in your pocket" is now almost complete (barring the occasional decent game such as Littlebigplanet Vita or Soul Sacrifice) the machine's sales seem to be trending upwards on the back of a decently priced but rigorously quality-controlled low-budged and indie scene.
How many times will people think that the iOS gaming and the HD console gaming is the same market? this is bullshit. yes there is some overlap, yes there is a bit of cannibalisation because time is a limited ressource, but no one can compare the experience of a AAA game on a PC or next gen console with what you can get on even an iPad.
even if it's streamed on a TV, even with a controller. the hardware is incomparable, the promise of the experience is completely different.
let's stop with this "new apples are disrupting oranges!" please.
Just like PCs became faster and replaced Unix workstations at many places, the low end devices are becoming faster and are threatening the dedicated gaming consoles. Mostly all you need is a good quality controller and you can fairly use high end PC to replace your gaming console. Newer Wi-Fi standards are becoming faster by the day (to easily connect controller to PC) and also virtual controllers like Kinect can easily be ported to PC, so that shouldn't be a bottleneck. The game publishers will be more than willing to support open (relatively speaking) platforms as they don't have to invest huge amount upfront and don't have to pay per game commission to console makers. As of now, I am not planning to upgrade my gaming console. I will wait and watch whether it is worth or not.
I keep seeing everywhere how mobile is going to take over every industry, everywhere. Each and every time I see it, I marvel at the ignorance that stance engenders. Don't get me wrong, I think mobile is great, but there are limitations to the format that make the idea of an all mobile computing environment ridiculous to consider.
It boils down to the physical format; small screens with touch input are great for some tasks, but who really wants to sit down and fiddle with their phone/tablets, when their 50" TV is there with actual physical controls?
It's absurd.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Mobile gaming is always just about to take off and has been that way for like 10 years. It's just happening. It can even stop the 3DS from continually growing and it's a direct competitor to it.
This article makes no sense, the console market was expected to have a drop off in anticipation of the next generation consoles. Console sales and game sales typically drop.
A controller for iOS this sounds about as good as the Ouya or how ever you spell it. It's a great idea but adoption is far and long off and it's not going to replace the console market any time soon. Don't get me wrong the idea behind this and the Ouya are good concepts but the developers aren't there for AAA titles, the quality doesn't quite match the consoles for 300 more, you get a real video card, blu-ray player, and nice online game community. Seems worth the extra cost for a gamer casual to hard core. Before the next Console comes out? Maybe but Sony and Microsoft have nothing to worry about with Apple for the start of this console generation. Why even bring it up? This is just a piece just to drum up page views and nothing more.
Hardcore gamers are not on consoles, they're on PCs. Consoles have always had fairly dumbed down gaming experiences compared to what is available on PCs.
When consoles became a "big thing", it was the non-hardcore gamers who went there, and the hardcore types that stayed on the PC. Consoles didn't have the right kinds of controllers, the games were more dumbed down, etc.
So, about this:
First, there are signs that the hardcore gamer market is soft: console sales in the United States dropped 21 percent in 2012,
... those are not the hardcore gamers, those are the "middle-core" gamers.
Consoles succeeded in a vacuum. When your Apple or PC couldn't really play like the glorious dedicated devices in arcades you needed a console. Now you don't. Computer hardware, even the cheapest, can do pretty well for MMO, 3D experience (not great, but good enough for most and bet on it most don't shell for an $800 video card.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The iPad and iPhone gaming market exists, but it's limited. It's a casual gaming device to satisfy you as you wait for your flight. The "hardcore" market is soft for a couple of reasons. Keeping the current gen system around for 7 years was a bad idea. Increasing development cost too rapidly was a bad idea that Nintendo warned Sony and MS about. Now we have good games like Tomb Raider, but Developers and Publishers are spending far too much to make them. The adjustment will be the companies who are bad at business will die. I'd put money on Square dying given how they turned success into failure. Not even stratospheric Kingdom Hearts sales will save them if they keep overspending. Keep in mind not a single KH game has exceeded 6 Million in sales, but I bet they budget for exceeding 6. This is what is killing the market. Not the witches poisoned Apple.
Consoles have always had fairly dumbed down gaming experiences compared to what is available on PCs
Dumbed down?
There are console games with plenty of complexity, you just don't realize they exist because most PC gamers know diddly squat about what's out there. They only see Halo and Madden and don't see anything else.
Oh sure, they don't make crazy ass flight sims that you have to have to be an aeronautical engineer or have an actual fucking rating in the aircraft in the game to actually play for consoles. But how many people actually play stuff like that these days....the market for that grows ever smaller as the obsession of the niche bearded Janes-reading engineers for ever more hardcore detail and complexity drives away new players. There isn't much of an entry level for flight sims or hex wargames anymore....the elitist jerks drove everyone else out.
When consoles became a "big thing", it was the non-hardcore gamers who went there, and the hardcore types that stayed on the PC.
Consoles became a big thing in 1977, when Atari debuted the 2600. And this was incidentally the same year, when the first computer, which called itself "PC", was available.
Isn't that because the current generation is 7 years old? You're actually shocked that fewer people are buying computers designed with 2005 technology?
yeah submitter is an idiot. Do you want to know why console sales dropped 20% last year? Its because everyone knew a new one was coming out this year genius. Also he reckons ios is a direct competitor because they got xcom a turn based video game? HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Rocket Surgeon.
One of the main things game publishers look for are analytics and Apple neither has the expertise nor the patents for that.
half of every iOS apps traffic is analytics. it's not through apple, but it's there. put your phone to a wlan ap you control once and watch the magic of your every press on the apps being sent for evaluation to make them more captivating...
analytics isn't the problem. the fact that they're different markets is the problem. iOS as a gaming platform is competing with playstation vita.. not playstation 4.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Oh sure, they don't make crazy ass flight sims that you have to have to be an aeronautical engineer or have an actual fucking rating in the aircraft in the game to actually play for consoles.
You don't see that as a problem?
But how many people actually play stuff like that these days....
Dunno, ask the guys who make X-Plane.
the market for that grows ever smaller as the obsession of the niche bearded Janes-reading engineers for ever more hardcore detail and complexity drives away new players.
No way. Those are the kind of players who want to play realistic combat flight simulators to begin with. Anyone else would rather play something like Crimson Skies, or at worst, Aces High; realistic physics but you don't have to actually know how to go through all the motions of flying a plane.
What would be awesome would be if you could use additional consoles to power additional displays, and maybe weather processing or other reasonably non-realtime tasks could be farmed out to them as well. Not quite clustering, but not quite just using them as display controllers either. The problem is, consoles don't embrace arbitrary input devices, so it doesn't actually make any sense, it would just be cool.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Mobile games are popular because they are time fillers. If I expected the same quality I get from my PS3 or PC when I play an ipod game I'd be severely disappointed. I don't though. I just appreciate the ability to whip the device out and obliterate dirty pigs or slash monsters and fruits with my fingers when I'm waiting at the doctors, dmv, end of my lunch break, etc.
Let's put this in perspective: Has anyone ever accused Nintendo of sabotaging their console market with their Game Boy/DS products? No?
Well I don't see why Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo should be worried about Apple then.
Let me guess: You don't have a Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, or PlayStation Vita. All use cartridges.
And it's vastly easier and simpler to pick up an iOS device and simply tap an app to start playing.
But once you tap the app, how do you control the character in the game? A flat sheet of glass gives the thumbs no tactile feedback as to where the on-screen action buttons are. Swipes on the left third of the screen can substitute for an analog stick, as first seen in Super Mario 64 DS and Metroid Prime Hunters First Hunt, but how can the player make sure he doesn't miss the jump, fire main weapon, and fire secondary weapon buttons? What's the uptake for clip-on Bluetooth gamepads?
Every iTrinket since the first generation iPod has had a headphone jack. Plug in a pair of Koss PortaPro headphones and hear all.
the actual need for a dedicated game device is passing by.
Unless you want to play games with house guests who happen not to have brought a gaming laptop. In theory a home theater PC could serve this use, but in practice there are more consoles than home theater PCs.
I've been both a console and PC gamer my entire life. I'd be willing to bet that I'm better than you at just about any genre you care to compete in.
Any PC-exclusive gamer with a smug sense of superiority over consoles games being "dumbed down" is a jackass. Yeah, there are some examples of bad ports, and of bad sequels; fortunately, those aren't actually indicative of the entire library of video games of the past 30 years. There are a few specific genres that are definitely easier to play on a PC (strategy games in particular) and that allows for some additional complexity in some cases, but in general, it's the same shit on both platforms and it has nothing to do with PC games somehow being dragged down to the level of console games.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It has amazed me how hard it is to find good games for mobile devices. I'm a big-time gamer, I'd much rather play a game than watch TV for entertainment. It is my primary goof-off activity. So I have a nice powerful smartphone (Android in this case), and it would be nice to have some portable games for it.
Some I want just for quick things, like waiting in the doctor's office or the like. Those are reasonably easy to find, I have a small collection of simplistic titles that do the trick for that. Still though it took a good bit of wading through crap to find them, and there were some things that initially looked promising but turned out to be "pay-2-win" that wanted to suck tons of money out of your pocket.
However I also wanted some with more substance, for if I'm traveling or something like that. Those... Well results haven't been great. I've bought some of the highest rated and reviewed stuff and so far it has been at best ok, either than Plants vs Zombies (which I already had on my PC). These are games that would be 5 or 6 of 10, maybe 7 in rare cases on the PC or a console, but are the "best" you find. Symphony of Eternity, NFS Most Wanted, etc are ok to play, but they really aren't up to what I'm used to.
Then some games that used to be good go to shit. Like Zenoia. Not a wonderful game, but at least a reasonably competent Zelda type. I have the first two. There are more... but again they are all pay-2-win crap.
Now compare that to the PC. I have more games then I can play. I have games on Steam I literally haven't installed yet, because I don't have time to play them yet, and I have another list of games I'd like to buy, if I have time. My problem isn't finding games I want, it is finding the free time to play them all.
I'll believe iOS or Android can compete with Sony and Nintendo if I start to see some serious amount of high quality titles out. Not a small handful, many of which are ports, but a real library that regularly sees new releases.
X-Com is a great example: That launched a year ago for consoles and PCs. I played it and loved it. So now had I waited I could get it, with lesser graphics, and a rather cramped UI to be touch enabled... No thanks. I'll stick with it on the first-flight systems, thanks.
Apple needs to keep kids working. Why not gaming cartridges...lol
I left PC gaming over 10 years ago when I switched to my first Mac. There wasn't a lot of titles and I was working mostly in Perl and later standard LAMP or LAPP stack stuff deployed on *iux servers.
A few years ago I wanted to get back into gaming and the GMA 950 in my MacBook at the time was fine for running XP for work stuff, but was never going to be for gaming.
So I ended up getting a 360 about the time Halo Reach came out. Part of it was the titles I wanted to play were on 360, not PC, the other part of it was I didn't feel like maintaining a PC anymore. I dealt with other peoples computer problems, often clients with our software running on windows, 50 - 60 hours a week in those days. Last thing I wanted to do was come home and fuss with my own machine. I wanted to turn on the TV, turn on the console, play for 15 minutes or at most a couple hours and that was about it. In fact the 360 has spent more hours streaming the likes of Netflix to a TV than video games.
Well this generation of consoles are coming and I'm torn. I have a MacBook Pro with decent enough graphics card. I downloaded Battlefield 3 for PC for $5 last weekend. Instantly it was try to find updated windows drivers for my MacBook Pro, problems with punkbuster that required spending half a sunday trying to download and reinstall the program to stop an error and I instantly remembered why I went to gaming on the 360. And even then life has changed with wife, kids too young to play on consoles, and different stage at work that means the time I get to play a week is now limited maybe a couple hours a week at most.
But I will say this much about the kids, they may be a little young yet for the consoles, but have mastered iPad games & Netflix.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I can't believe no one has mentioned Android. It's the highest selling os today. Its driving phones, tablets, settops, consoles and laptops already. With the arm architecture slowly getting more powerful (64bit quad-core) and things like nvidia licencing its gpu it's not long till we'll see it on desktops. The android play store allows you to purchase a game and play it on all your devices with (in theory) quality scaled to the device's capabilities. Apple will be to Android what it was to Windows; a distant second.
Phones and tablets are a threat to those in the gaming market, but not in the console gaming market (or at least not for awhile).
The most loss is in the portable arena. Your iPhone/Android might not replace a high powered console, but a gameboy or PSP is a different matter. It's much more convenient to use a device you're already carrying around than to lug a portable along too.
In the future though, the upgrade trend may favor mobiles over consoles, a next-gen phone/tablet chipsets will come or much faster than new consoles. We're not there yet, though, as quality, price, and storage have a ways to come.
Of course if console game makers continue to insist on shovelware with pay-to-advance, ads, nasty DRM etc, then the borders between the two may shrink even faster.
and you can do Xbox 360 level graphics on a $300 android. Apple could easily subsidize that and get the cost down to $150. They probably wouldn't even lose that much money if they bought in quantity. The Shield's a niche item, I bet nVidia's not making that many of 'em.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
First, there are signs that the hardcore gamer market is soft: console sales in the United States dropped 21 percent in 2012
No troll intended, but since when were consoles, with their meagre amount of buttons and auto-targeting, considered hardcore gaming?
Give it 5 years and we'll be seeing stories about how the causal iWatch gamers are eating into the hardcore tablet gaming market.
1. They have little expertise in something as complex as a multiplayer server infrastructure. iTunes it ain't. Microsoft has the benefit of owning an entire server-based ecosystem of software that they can leverage. Add to that the difficulties in preventing hacking (cheating), which Apple had relatively little experience with as well. 2. Gaming ergonomics. Tablets suck for gaming, and their controller looks like something from the 80s. They can catch up fast, but God help them if they come out with an Xbox controller clone, ala Nintendo. 3. Gaming development environment - they need an SDK, they need a language (gonna seriously expect game devs to adopt Objective C?) 4. What would differentiate their device? They need exclusive content, and this late in the game, it's going to be problematic trying to convince anyone to go exclusive with them given the risk and the presence of *two* major players with track records. Without exclusive titles, why would someone go with an Apple console other than brand loyalty? Would an Apple fanatic not have one of the other consoles, and if not, why would they suddenly decide to get into hardcore gaming? 5. No first party experience. Who would they buy? 6. Is Apple really willing to lose money on consoles like Sony/MS? That's never been their MO, and if they come out more expensive than MS (without a Kinect 2, mind you) who would buy it, other than some hibernating NeoGeo owners?
and the graphics and sound on the 2600 were superior.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
To be fair, I scanned the entire comment section, assuming I'd be replying to this exact comment. That was the first thing I saw when I read the 21% drop. Glad I'm not the only one.
Seriously, the is no comparison in capability between say, an X-Box 360. Consoles will still be the choice for graphic-intensive gaming. The iPad just doesn't have the horsepower with a Cortex-A8 processor. And if it did, it would burn your hands because there's no fan.
Is it just me, or is the tone of this article and the use of superlatives suggesting that it was written by an Apple fanboy? Or worse, their marketing division?
The content may indeed be factual, but the tone makes me suspicious, and somewhat mistrustful of anything reported.
A simplification to be sure. Consoles were big in 1977, stayed big through Nintendo, then PC gaming started to pick up in the late 80s and was incredibly popular through the 90s. Then consoles "grew up" and added 3D chips and someone demonstrated that a dumbed down FPS would run on a console too, and they became dominant again.
People are getting bored with the same lame rehashes, and there's been very little innovation in consoles (partly by definition: they're dominated by a few companies who want to minimize development costs) and PCs are coming back.
The cycle won't end... This free market/command economy thing plays out in many ways in many places and has no consensus.
Who is this 'many' that you refer to?
Most gamers appear content to just play games on their platform of choice, be it on consoles, PC or smartphone. I doubt that many of them care whether or not 'gaming consoles face an existential threat from mobile devices'. If they can't get their fix on their current platform, they will switch to a new one, just as they have always done in the past and will continue to do in the future.
The decline of the console market is relevant to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and their fanboys, but not really anyone else.
Look at what they did to Dragon Age on the console compared to the PC
What did they do? As far as I know it's the exact same game on all platforms. The PC version does have that isometric Baldur's Gate camera view to appease the oldbie grognards who want to play it old-style Bioware and an MMO style UI but that's really the only difference. It plays the same. Having a different UI doesn't mean dumbed down if you do the same stuff in it.
Look at driving games, where console gamers think Forza is a good simulation.
You're confusing Xbox owners with all console owners there buddy.
Even the controllers are dumbed down, compared to a keyboard and mouse.
Look friend, just because you can use EVERY key for a function doesn't mean you should, that's Bad UI. These are games we are talking about, simpler is better. Keyboard controls are a relic from the 80's when Atari/Commodore/Apple game developers couldn't be sure gamers had a joystick. Then it became tradition. It's actually possible to design a UI that doesn't need dozens of keys AND alt and ctrl key combos.
Let me explain... pick up a copy of the PC and PSone versions of diablo.... play both... you'll see. (Make sure to set relative movement and combo buttons on). The console version is actually more intuitive because of the direct control over movement. You lose individual targeting yes, but that's not really necessary in an action game and actually slows down gameplay. Not only that the PSone version has a normal gameplay speed and an option for faster gameplay speed... PC diablo is much slower paced and is easier because of that. The PSone version is also more comfortable to play over long periods. So IMHO Diablo (and it's clones) make much better console games than PC games
Console gamers need auto-aim bots to be even remotely competitive with PC FPS.
Considering there was only one game that had cross-platform play that's not really proof. Besides the term is "aim assist" it "assists" it doesn't aim for you. And you can turn it off (some games are better with it off because it's too strong)
And there's nothing stopping console games from using mice and/or keyboards. I have several console games past and present that do. Or USB HOTAS. I think Ace Combat 4 was the first version that included that on the PS2.
They never have been. Even in the 16 bit days, console games were simpler experiences compared to PC games of the day.
Just don't pretend consoles are for hardcore gamers.
And PC's are? I'm old enough to remember the hex-game and SSI RPG fans lamenting the frat-boy DOOM players as being "not hardcore" for playing a "dumbed down action game" And considering that some of the games have been multi-platform for years... there's no excuse for elitism.
Even in the 16 bit days, console games were simpler experiences compared to PC games of the day.
They were? How can you say that when some of them were ports!
There's nothing wrong with preferring simpler games.
Like FPS's and RTS's? Real men play hex-games with unit icons you have to be a West Point graduate to decipher and fight the battles of Stalingrad and Gettysburg over and over again for 30 years.
I'm old enough to remember that argument used by PC gamers against other PC gamers.
The article mentions console sales dropping, but I don't suppose that anyone has realized the real reason why...that's because almost EVERYONE that wants a console (and doesn't game on PC or not at all) has purchased one...in this 7 year time span that current consoles have been out. Has nothing to do with apple or anything else.
Disclaimer: I have: 350 games on steam, a 360 with 30 games and a Wii with 17. I also have PS4 on pre-order, though i'm reconsidering an Xbox One thanks to policy changes.
Troll-bait: Also married with 2 children, but all of the games/systems are mine! :D
Currently, consoles have a big problem, that's not easy to overcome. While from the 1970ies to the 1990ies, consoles could use specialised components developed for consoles, and thus implement features a PC lacked completely, and the home computers only had in reduced form, it's no longer so. With the advent of highend soundcards for PCs in the 1980ies and highend graphic cards in the 1990ies, and with the 3D boom in the 2000s, the technical advantages of consoles were gone. Today, you won't find any console with better specs than a decent PC, specialized chip development for game consoles is dead, and the only advantages consoles can have is a set of very well integrated standard components and a comparatively low price, and maybe the additional advantage of having some hardware constancy over several years, which allows game developers to better adapt to the hardware and invent tricks and routines to make better use of the console capabilities.
Agreed. And what is more, the console which you'd expect to be most harmed by mobile phone gaming (the 3DS, which is both the same type of games as mobile phones AND is based around a vaguely unfashionable novelty tech) has been reporting surprisingly strong sales. As did the other DS sales before it.
Maybe Apple (or Android) will kill off dedicated mobile gaming at some point in the future, but they definitely aren't doing so right now. By the same token, Apple TV might one day hypothetically compete with PS and Xbox, if they ever release a version with decent hardware and started releasing games for it and so forth, but they definitely aren't doing it right now.
This console generation is shaping up to be a remarkably interesting one, with both Microsoft and Nintendo appearing to have made major missteps, with the Steambox on the horizon, and with dozens of new entrants in the budget bracket (Ouya, Gamestick, Nvidia Shield, etc.). Certainly doesn't look like the console apocalypse from here.
Could it have something to do with the fact that the current consoles are 7 years old and potential buyers are saving up for the next generation consoles?
I bought a cart just today. Super Scribblenauts Unlimited.
The main target market for a lot of the handheld consoles is kids, our kids had a couple of DS-lites for Xmas. The mobile phone market doesn't compete with this as they're both under ten and don't have mobile phones, Nintendo also had some success selling to much older casual gamers. A group that often doesn't get on with touch controls but can handle the stylus based gameplay of the DS.
The thing that mobile games are the biggest threat to are casual PC and facebook games. Those kind of games that offer a temporary distraction.
I think all those triple-A publishers who are hoping to enjoy a mobile gold rush are going to be in for a bit of a wake up call. It seems insane to me, as it's a market better suited to lots of small players having the occasional hit. It's as if Pepsi suddenly decided to get into the Lemonade stand market because a kid managed to make it big.
You don't see that as a problem?
yes, and no. Those games are a niche market, but they could at least try to do one now and then for consoles to try to increase the niche.
But as we both know, the developers of those games tend to staunchly anti console. I can understand it to a certain extent for the flight simmers, those games can be system intensive....but the hex-wargames with 1993 level graphics.
No way. Those are the kind of players who want to play realistic combat flight simulators to begin with. Anyone else would rather play something like Crimson Skies, or at worst, Aces High; realistic physics but you don't have to actually know how to go through all the motions of flying a plane.
That's a valid point, but what happened to the Flight Simulator II/JET market. There was a time when practically every DOS gamer had a copy of one of those. What happened to the games "in between" the arcade-y ones like Ace Combat and those hardcore "you actually have to flip all the virtual cockpit switches in the right order before you can fly" games.
What would be awesome would be if you could use additional consoles to power additional displays
It's been done for displays, though only with Gran Turismo as far as I know. With GT3 you need firewire capable PS2's since GT3 only networks via Firewire. With GT4 you can use Ethernet on the PS2's. GT5 can use ethernet for multi-display the same way.
The problem is, consoles don't embrace arbitrary input devices, so it doesn't actually make any sense, it would just be cool.
Depends on what you mean by embrace and it depends on the game.
I think every flight game on the PS2/PS3 from Ace Combat 4 on supports HOTAS over USB (the official Ace Combat HOTAS is a rebadged x45 I think). Some, not all FPS's do support mouse and/or keyboard. (though I've found a hybrid setup with mouse for aiming and analog stick for movement works well). It's hit or miss, for example the PS2's Half-Life portt\ has keyboard and mouse support but the PS3's orange box doesn't. Dust514 DOES support mouse and/or keyboard which works well (and you can use hybrid controls)... except for vehicles... then you're screwed because the inverted Y will mess that up.
Console MMORPG's always have keyboard support at minimum for chat, sometimes for game control too, though usually not mouse support.
Most online games in general can and do support keyboard chat. Some other games support keyboards for various text entry (naming enchanted items in Oblivion or Skyrim) or more rarely mice. Such support is often not mentioned on the boxes.
I think a lot of the complaint about consoles "dumbing down" games has less to do with that and more to do with the horrendous ports we've gotten in the past several years. Just a week more spent on the port to scale the UI properly and remove the pictures of xbox buttons *cough* Skyrim *cough* would do wonders to those perceptions and complaints.
You see I'm of two minds about that.
One is that I think that PC players deserve scaled UI and acceptable controls with mouse and keyboard. Wouldn't mind having a UI scaling option on the PS3 versions myself.
The other is me thinking "The xbox button icons are there in Skyrim because they are suggesting you use the 360 controller even on Windows. It's an RPG so the controller works fine just like it did in Oblivion and Fallout 3."
And yes, I know some PC gamers aren't used to using a controller, might not have one, and really don't want to anyway so they do the "dumbing down" complaints. I understand that, and know it's even worse when the game isn't an RPG.
The situation goes the other way too.. with PC to console ports. I consider the PS3 version of the orange box one of the worst offenders. The PS2 port of Half Life has mouse and keyboard support and I used a hybrid analog stick + mouse setup with it (And with Deus Ex as well) but the Orange box has absolutely no such support, not even in HL2 or Portal.
Or take the PS3 version of FreeRealms which is an SOE game. While it does have keyboard support You have to use the controller to open the chat box.. and it uses the standard PS3 text entry popup which blocks the screen and takes focus.
Interestingly enough the PS3 version of DCUO also by SOE uses a PC style chat interface which doesn't have that issue. Neither does the PS3 Home virtual world thingy which uses a PC style chatbar.
"Apple will dominate the gaming landscape with this new revelation, just as television was forever changed by Apple TV."
=)
PS
This is actually about apple adding controller to apple TV:
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=597876
Tablets are way more expensive, don't control as well, don't have high enough graphics fidelity, and don't offer the same gameplay experience. A tablet can be a fine companion device, but it won't take over as your main game device any time soon.
You can argue that they have some nice looking games, but most of them are a controlled linear experience. There are tons of clones, and the popular titles get lost in the sea of a constant stream of apps coming out.
I play games casually (when I just want a distraction) and hard core (when I want a couch experience that's going to last a few hours at least) and I'm happy with my 3DS and PS3. I've got a phone but only a couple of games on it, Dodonpachi and Deathsmiles, probably the only games which control better on a phone than on console. I don't see myself getting deeper into mobile games.
Twinstiq, game news
Who keeps writing these articles? Do PC gamers not exist? They outnumber console users in case you were wondering. Oh, here's more fun numbers: for every iOS device, there's 3 android devices. So nobody has to "worry" about Apple, especially considering how they treat their app developers.
Then there's the logical progression that everyone knows is true but nobody want to admit. Game controls on a touchscreen and tilt smartphone are a joke. Controls with joysticks and buttons are a slightly less funny joke. A keyboard and mouse is the most precise, exact method for operating a game. If you don't believe me, play Starcraft 2 with an Xbox 360 clone USB controller. Consoles are dead, PC gaming is the king.
actually not that different. They've been singing this song for a long time. I haven't seen the WWDC stuff but I have minimal interest in playing games on a phone where my large fingers will cover up the playing area and that's my central problem with phone gaming.
Just another second banana
And nobody is talking about steam-box yet, and I think it will ruin every single console manufacturer's future.
Its true Apple pose a big threat to the console racket since the 'core gaming' market is shrinking, although us core gamers would like to think that isn't the case, you cannot get away from the fact more people carry and use mobile devices than consoles. That said, I feel the decline in console and video game sales has dramatically declined over the 2012 - 2013 period due the abnormally long console life cycle and with the new consoles on their way its sure to boost the 'core' video game market no end, and I see big sales of retail and digital video games in the not to distant future.
Either a lot of big-name games are going to have to come up with controller support at once, or each developer will have to somehow convince each user to buy a $59 controller to play a single $3 game. Besides, people who own an iPhone 4 or a fourth-generation iPod touch are still left out because iOS 7 requires an iPhone 4S or newer or a fifth-generation iPod touch. This means anyone who bought an iPod touch before October of last year will have to buy not only a controller but also another iPod touch. Who will buy a $299 iPod touch to play a $3 game?
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Damnit! I just switched to Android!
Anyway XCOM being available on a mobile device was the most important part of the article I felt.
"...and sales of new video-game cartridges haven't fared much better." You're showing your age there Timothy.
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