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Slashdot Asks: Is the Golden Era of Video-Game Console Sales Over?
Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it has stopped producing Xbox 360, a gaming console it launched in 2005. According to estimations, the company sold more than 85 million Xbox 360 units worldwide. Quartz has an insightful story today, in which it compares the shipment numbers of Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, the current generation consoles, to conclude that the "golden era" of video-game console sales is over. According to estimations, citing data provided by Nintendo, CNET, GameSpot, and Giant Bomb, the crown for the most popular gaming console goes to the Sony PlayStation 2 (2000) with 155.1 million inventories shipped. Sony PlayStation (1994) saw the movement of 102.49 million units, whereas 101.63 million Nintendo Wii inventories were dispatched. In comparison, Sony has sold 35.9 million units of PlayStation 4 so far, and Microsoft has sold roughly 10 million Xbox One units. From Quartz's report: It does seem, to some degree, that the golden age of home video-game consoles may be over. The previous generation of consoles was the last generation that didn't have to contend for users' time with mobile games. And you could make a strong case that a large portion of the casual gaming audience that Nintendo attracted for the Wii was almost entirely wiped out by mobile gaming. After all, the Wii was released in 2006 -- a year before the iPhone launched. Nintendo's next console, the Wii U, has been the company's worst-selling of all time. The average consumer may now feel more inclined to just pick up their phone and play Candy Crush or Temple Run than to get up and swing a controller around. The home console's saving grace could well be virtual reality. Just about every major tech and video-games company is working on a VR headset -- apart from Nintendo, it seems -- and early reviews of Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive headsets have reduced non-gamers to tears. None of the top 10 most popular games consoles of all time have been released in the last 10 years, and VR may well be what turns the slowing console market back around.What's your take on this?
Who knew? (I now return to playing the latest Angry Bird on my iPad)
This was a predictable cycle to all of us naysayer luddites who play retro consoles. Some manufacturer will come out with a disconnected toy console for children, and the cycle will begin again.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
I think the problem may be that nine out of ten games released now are just Call of Duty with a different skin: CoD: Aliens, CoD: Zombies, CoD: Indiana Jones, CoD: Noir.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go blow on some contacts and reinsert.
(That sounds sexier than it is.)
PS4 has only been out for 3 years, and you are comparing units moved to systems that had a decade or more sales lifetime and drawing conclusions based on those being equivalent things to compare?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Does noone remember the Virtual Boy console from Nintendo? I don't think more than 30,000 or so were manufactured, probably less.
moox. for a new generation.
Actually, that hasn't been the case for a long time. The allure has been 'it just works and won't get cluttered with random crap being piled on and on and on' and 'games don't have no tunables whatsoever'.. PS3 made the fatal mistake of assuming it still had to deliver exotic.
I personally find the lack of versatility disturbing, but most folks don't care about that.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Your troll-fu is weak.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Dirty console peasants tried and failed to become a master race. Why would anyone buy a networked inferior computer that also charges monthly fee when for a little bit extra you can a) buy an actual PC b) if you don't need an actual PC, do just fine with a smartphone and play casual games on it.
That is, PC gaming became much cheaper, to the point that you could game on a $600 box; consoles became more general-purpose computing platforms with apps and networking, and smartphones, that most people would already have, took over casual gaming niche.
... the reality is games are played for fun, the high fidelity games that cost megabucks are not necessarily even more fun than last generations games. Note that most games are sequels.
Is this the updated version of the question asked, what, maybe a year ago asking if computer games were dead and consoles were the future?
Or is it the "consoles and computers are dead, mobile gaming is the future?" question?
I get confused which point on the repetitive-headline cycle we're in this week.
-Styopa
The same thing was said when the Colecovision and Atari 2600 faded.
Yup. when you can get a mid-range gaming laptop for around $500, consoles start looking pretty useless.
I am a little surprised though. I would have thought that things like Netflix integration and other 'media center' goodies would help attenuate this problem, but I guess not.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
many of us don't have fancy desktops, don't want to spend time maintaining a system, and want to just sit on the couch, turn on the tv, and play.
Has it *ever* been true?
Well, maybe pong and the like, back in the days before home computers were remotely affordable. Since the days of at least the Commodore 64 though, I can't think of a single console that's been more powerful than a home PC. A PC of the same price perhaps, but a console is vastly less useful, and if you had a PC you could spend the cost of a console to upgrade it far beyond the capacity of the console.
What consoles brought to the table was platform stability - everybody has exactly the same hardware, so developers were free to push it's limits to the maximum without worrying about performance problems. If it ran well enough on the developers test console, it ran well enough everywhere. And yes, the associated lack of fine tuning necessary to get the best experience.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
By rights then the XBone should be the clear winner.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
To compare games to comics, I'd call Atari 2600 and the original wave of popular arcade games the golden age, with NES through Dreamcast being the Silver age and everything newer being modern age.
Microsoft’s follow-up console, the Xbox One, has not sold nearly as well as the 360. In 2008, less than three years after it was launched, the company said the 360 had sold over 19 million units worldwide. The Xbox One was released in 2013, and has sold about 10 million units in roughly the same amount of time as its predecessor.
I'm not sure of any time in the last 20 years when console horsepower exceeded PC horsepower. It has just become laughable in the last generation or two. The one benefit you had was that the game was designed to run on exactly that platform and optimized for that platform so you had less of an unpredictable experience to your customer.
But they have fallen so far behind, and so much more time is spent on trying to make the console into a PC or appliance (ipad/iphone) with a bad input device.
And as far as the Wii U is concerned, as an enthusiastic Wii owner, I have to say, why would I upgrade? The Wii brought something truly new and interesting to the table, the Wii U is just more of the same with slightly improved graphics and the addition of a gimmicky handheld. There's a couple games I'd like to get, but they're not worth the price of a new console, and most are just expensive new retreads of games I already own, or can buy used for pennies on the dollar. Seems like almost everybody I know who has a Wii U are people that thought the Wii was cool, but never got around to getting one for themselves.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Why say all this?
Consumers are abandoning video game consoles
Consumers are abandoning wired internet
Consumers are abandoning PCs
Consumers are abandoning cars
Consumers are abandoning colleges
Just say...
Consumers will soon use mobile phones for *everything* (coming soon, the pizza flavored iPhone).
Consoles are expensive and middle-class wages have been stagnant (read: purchasing power is decreasing due to inflation).
It used to be when kids were asked, "What do you want for Christmas?"
It was either:
- The newest console, if the next generation finally came out
- One or more games for the latest console they owned
Now, they want an iPhone or a (Samsung) Galaxy.
Since parents are buying smartphones and money is tight, guess which other electronics aren't flying off the shelves?
Apparently not:
PS2 in 2000: $299
PS4 in 2015: $399
$399 in the year 2015 equals $285 in the year 2000
EA needs to go away!
The tablet is dead! Long live the tablet!
The laptop is dead! Long live the laptop!
The desktop is dead! Long live the desktop!
Over the years the naysayers have smugly declared the death of all sorts of technologies that are still around. It goes through phases. Yes mobile gaming holds some appeal to the younger generation because it's always with you and can be played anytime. But can you really compare Candy Crush to The Division? Or Boom Beach to GTA V? There will always be a market for games on multiple platforms. Just like some users swear consoles are the only way to play games and us old timers say "bring it on, I'll crush your gamepad with my keyboard and mouse circle-strafe!" As long as people are buying and playing games on a particular platform, publishers will continue putting out games on that platform.
Each one may have it's "golden age" as well as it's "golden years" but they'll all be around for a long time to come.
"early reviews of Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive headsets have reduced non-gamers to tears."
What exactly is that implying? The headsets are so awesome that non-gamers will start gaming? They're so awesome non-gamers are crying because their gaming loved ones will spend all their time playing games again? Motion sickness? WTF?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
In my younger years, during the golden age of Nintendo, it used to be a schoolyard agreement to temporarily trade game cartridges for a week so that you could try out a game that you didn't own. You could also go to a video rental store and rent a game for a few dollars.
Commodore 64 was still relatively pricey such that it was out of reach of many households. The advent of PCs being in every home *anyway* was a mid-90s sort of thing, despite still being pricey compared to a console of the same era.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I believe that honor goes to Virtual Boy... Which lends to another mention in the article that Nintendo isn't making a VR. Probably because they already learned that lesson.
These losses and failings are the result of console developers own shortsightedness.
For years, they've been creating consoles based on the worst aspects of PCs with none of the PC benefits. No couch multiplayer, required internet connection, long boot times, frequent software updates, all while being completely unable to compete with PCs on graphical fidelity, multitask capability or input selection (PCs support keyboard/mouse, console controllers, etc, up to full HOTAS setups with rudder pedals and such). Consoles also lack the markets like Steam, GoG, GMG and Humble Bundle.
So yeah ... all the weaknesses, none of the strengths from both sides. Are we surprised that they aren't doing so well?
This signature is false.
What was the big selling point for consoles over PCs? Simplicity and "just works". Seriously. Put it up, plug it in, plug it into your TV, throw that CD or cartridge into the thing and here we go. Game on. Wiggle those thumbs 'til your eyes fall out and your brains rot.
That huge advantage was lost when consoles became essentially PCs without keyboard. Because hey, it's so much easier to produce games that way and you can produce games that play on consoles AND PC that way. Well, nobody wants to play them on a PC because the controls are ass-backwards if they are designed for a controller and you have to use them with keyboard+mouse, but who gives a shit about customers?
And the console jockeys were pissed to. Pop that CD in and ... install an update for your system. Go online to register it. Download some shit for that online content you don't give a fuck about. Install some more shit. Update the system once more because you changed your sitting position. Choose your avatar. Upload it to some server. Customize your avatar. More time to upload it again. Here, buy some bling! Or some new levels! Reboot your console after the update. And FINALLY you get to ... oh fuck it's bedtime.
Get consoles back to what they were. Simple, easy to use and most of all NO FUCKING LOAD TIME! For fuck's sake, given that these games come now on BluRay discs and most PCs have a SSD HD, load times are SHORTER on PC than they are on consoles!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I had a nickle for every time someone told me that PC gaming was dead, then maybe I'd have a current gen console in the house. I expect this is much of the same.
They have to be making money from playstation network- you would think that this would probably be their revenue focus.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Give me a console that does this, and I'll buy it.
In the meantime, I need to keep browsing forums for another 20-30 minutes while my console updates... and then has to download a patch for the game.
This signature is false.
You mean, like, say, "always online" requirements in PC games?
Face it, you don't own jack anymore. I'm tempted to simply build my own computer. With blackjack. And hookers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Next year it will be "PC gaming is dead"
Been seeing this same headline pop up every few years since Atari went bust in 1983. Yet consoles still get made, still sell well, and still get revitalized periodically.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
My Xbox 360 has logged more hours streaming Netflix, Amazon and HBO Now than playing games. We also have a TiVo and a Chromecast. Each one of the devices does some things well, but not one of them does everything.
In the spirit of asking for everything for free, my ideal game console would play games, but could also be a DVR (recording OTA signals, or acting as a cable box), in addition to streaming services (all of them, not with some of them removed for one reason or another) and VR. Naturally it will also work with Steam so I can pay once and keep game progress if I play on a laptop/PC or console. While we are at it, it will do 4K video, make my lunch and be reasonably priced. And of course, run Linux so I can tinker with it.
Yeah, I won't hold my breath.
Thanks for keeping us posted on your personal preferences. Is there anything else you like or don't that you want to share with us? We're anxiously awaiting any tidbits you can give us.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
If you look at "aligned" sales aka, how fast a console is selling both the PS4 and Xbox One are outpacing the Xbox 360 and PS3.
The difference is that there simply isn't a market for ancient consoles anymore. The jump from SD -> 720p -> 1080p and now to 4k TVs has happened in the blink of an eye in technological terms. The PS2 was able to hold on for a long time because bigscreen TV adoption was slow. Now that we've gone from a 32" 720p TV being $300 to a 55" 4k TV being $300 people are upgrading more often.
http://www.vgchartz.com/articl...
You have to think in terms relative to a computer- you can build a nice computer now for 500$. You couldn't do that in 2000.....
love is just extroverted narcissism
What are they? I haven't stumbled across any. Playstation has some 4-player Co-op multiplayer (like Ratchet and Clank, and some from the Lego series), but I haven't found anything close for the Xbox. Doesn't help that reviewers don't even look for that feature anymore.
Learn to love Alaska
Hopefully. I am sick of console-friendly games being the standard, with ports of their lameness to the PC being most of the offerings. Even MMORPGs that are PC-only suffer from the backwash of consolitis design.
But I don't think phone and tablet based game design, which is what's killing consoles, is any improvement. At least a touch interface is mouse friendly on port.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Then next console that matters will be the one that supports 4k well.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well, perhaps memory is biased - I got into computers in the mid to late eighties, when a second-hand Commodore (or no, it was a Vic20 first) wasn't all that much more expensive than a second-hand Atari2600 with a bunch of games, and both were within reach of a frugal family on the ragged edge of poverty.
Still, once we hit the "computer in every home" stage, the appeal of consoles started falling rapidly. Especially considering the huge libraries of games available as shareware (and the fact that "don't copy that floppy" was never terribly effective)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I have a Wii and a Wii U. Not because it is a superior system. However the Nintendo brand games seems to be better for family play.
Me and my wife have only one TV setup, if we are to play a game, we will play a game together. So games like Mario Kart, Mario Party and Smash Bros are high on our list of games to play. After we decided to get off the Wii we did our research on the Xbox 1 and PS4 (Mostly because we use them for netflix/hulu/amazon prime) And the More powerful boxes had serious games titles, and less fun games for casual play.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What's a console?
I have on my lap a device capable of playing every game I've ever bought, right through to GTA V and things released just now. It fits on my lap. It can go to my mate's house. It can connect to wireless controllers. It has HDMI out. It can download ALL my games and keep them all on the same device. It can emulate - or directly play - all my old games too.
And it costs no more than I'd normally pay for a laptop, which is about what everyone else would pay for a laptop, and a games console. Oh, and it does all my work, contains all my movies, connects to the net, and all the usual stuff you'd expect a computer to do.
And I bought it years ago, and it's still going.
Honestly? Consoles are dead. There is no sufficiently compelling reason to do anything on a console compared to just using the laptop that you probably already have anyway, or a very slightly upgraded version of the same.
Golden Age? If anything, we are in the Silver Age. The Golden Age would be Atari 2600 and it's ilk, including Pong. That's right. A console that just played Pong.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Just sayin'.
I've still got 20+ unplayed games on my XBox 360 which I bought two years ago. For the reason that it is a mature product with the glitches removed and an excellent lineup of countless dirt-cheap multiple-award-winning AAA titles.
Make the XBone backwards compatible and I might even consider getting one. Other than that I'll wait 10 years. Some time in the not so distant future somebody will finally come up with convergence and we'll have tablet and mobile consoles you hook up to you TV or monitor. But for that to happen, the mobile vendors need to stop scimping on storage.
Other than that I'd say the market is probably saturated at the moment. I think we can all agree that there is no lack of high-powered electronic computer-like thingies floating about to care too much about yet another generation of consoles. VR and ginormous cheap ultra-high-resolution displays might change that, but for now I'm not holding my breath.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I theorize that a lot of people who bought consoles for simple games have moved onto their phones or even handheld consoles. That leaves the folks who are willing to spend $60 per game. So given that supposition, what are Microsoft and Sony's total revenu on games sales for the new platforms? Or what is the revenue per console? Has that actually shifted much? If a lot of previous generation consoles were used for cheap games, or hardly at all, then there would be little disparity in the sales income. This is based on the assumption that console sales still fix the (expensive) razor blade model.
It depends on how powerful the next generation of phones/tablets/goggles are. If they are powerful enough to present a reasonable VR gaming experience at an affordable price then there will likely be no need for a next generation of consoles. If, however, more computing power can be crammed into a console device, and if developers can take advantage of that extra power, and if the total experience can be delivered at a competitive price point then I expect consoles to continue to be developed.
Tablets certainly have a lot going for them. They are portable. They do multiple functions reasonably well. A wider audience may already own them. Maybe most of all - there are only two OSes to develop for. Now the hardware does vary, so unless the APIs are well designed you're going to have to deal with varying user experiences.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
when a second-hand Commodore (or no, it was a Vic20 first) wasn't all that much more expensive than a second-hand Atari2600
Was that when people were willing to spent five grand so they could play Arkanoid in four thousand colors and stereo sound? :)
That could very much depend on how quickly VR takes off.
If VR takes off.
A 4k console would like the PS/2 and the PS/3 probably offer a player for 4k video aka 4k Bluray
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I absolutely agree with many of the comments here - especially Simple To Use, and the requiring to join aspects but for me personally it is really about just sitting down to play. I have to jump through so many hoops - load screens, authorization, everything just seems to stop me from playing a game. Usually I have half an hour but if there is an update - whoo boy, forget it. Wii really started to miss the mark on playability - simple seeming characters or interfaces, but the actual playability was somewhat complicated and required confirmation after confirmation or selection. Xbox 360 was soured from the Game Destiny - required online play and our internet is not the best. Every time I tried to play a >100MB update was required before I could even start! I'm excited to see what happens with VR - that could change the landscape a bit.
Granted. But if you have a PC anyway, then the video card upgrade would make far more economic sense if you intend to purchase a lot of games, especially if you don't insist on buying most of them on release day. After all, the reason those consoles are so cheap is because the hardware is heavily subsidized by high licensing costs for games, which in turn tend to cost at least as much initially and remain expensive far longer than on the PC. (Also the probable reason Sony shut down the Linux-on-PS3 option hard - if you're not buying at least N licensed games per console, they're losing money selling it)
No argument on the console optimization benefits though, a uniform deployment platform is one of the incontestable benefits they offer, though careful optimization of each PC game can yield comparably beautiful results, if you have the time, patience, and knowhow to do so (yeah...every once in a long while I care that much) Consoles also have the benefit of being relatively immune to malware, cruft, poor configuration, and all the other things that tend to hobble PC performance. On the other hand, PCs get mods. So, sooo many mods, which give the games that really speak to you radically more long-term potential. Have you seen how beautiful modded Skyrim can be? To say nothing of the gameplay enhancements.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
what good is 4k when there will be no 4k tvs because 4k is doa? i still have a 720p tv. you don't see me complaining?
No it won't. No one really cares about 4k, because it doesn't make any discernable difference at all to most people. At 10 feet from your TV, your eye can't resolve better than 1080p on a 65" TV (but it can on a 70" or above).
Actually, that hasn't been the case for a long time.
It is the case when you factor in costs. A basic gaming PC is ~$1000. A current gen console is ~$300.
games don't have no tunables whatsoever
When the hardware is identical, you don't need to tune. Like, just in case you happen to want worse graphics? To save power?
> In the meantime, I need to keep browsing forums for another 20-30 minutes while my console updates... and then has to download a patch for the game.
This has really hurt my console gaming. I have a Wii-U and a PS4, and I like them both. But every single time I get a new game, it needs to download hundreds of megabytes- and sometimes dozens of gigabytes- from the mothership before it will play.
This is a stupendously fragile system, and is only workable because I have a good internet connection. More importantly, it makes the process of playing a game orders of magnitude stupider than before, and roughly as stupid as on a PC. If I have friends coming over, I can't go buy a fun party game none of us have played, because I know that's something I need to budget time for ahead of time, to ensure it works.
The issue with PC's for gaming is the fact that the average user is so riddled and hobbled with spyware or the three anti virus applications running in tandem, that gaming is not an option. Consoles were going to bring no support necessary gaming to the masses.
Yup. when you can get a mid-range gaming laptop for around $500, consoles start looking pretty useless.
Link something from a reputable sight and from a brand I've heard of.
I just did a search for gaming laptop on newegg and saw NOTHING under $1000 (and even then you are getting something that going to require low-end graphics settings).
I don't know that it was ever quite *that* bad, at least for most. I mean a C64 cost $595 at release, about $1,500 in today's dollars, and most of the people buying one probably weren't in it *just* for the games. But I suppose I've spent almost that much on a gaming PC before. I'd probably spend even more this year for a VR system if I still had the income to play with.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If VR takes off. A 4k console would like the PS/2 and the PS/3 probably offer a player for 4k video aka 4k Bluray
4k is still the magic number needed for VR to have decent resolution since you always have to divide that number in half to get the 3d.
My issues is that so many consoles REQUIRE online access to play the games. Not that they require always on connections but just have to phone home occasionally. The Xbox 360 is swilling down the tubes, game companies have dropped servers for PS3 games. We are loosing what will be one day our gaming heritage.
Take a look at the older systems. Anything from the original PlayStation backwards, if you found a working console and undamaged game you'd still be able to play it now. How many contemporary games disappear forever because the servers are no longer around.
No good deed goes unpunished.
They suggest that console sales have been affected by mobile games, but then they exclude portable systems--even though portable systems are more similar to the mobile game niche than home games, and would be more affected, if anything. Furthermore, mobile games are a different type of game from console games. You don't play Call of Duty on a phone.
And it's misleading to compare figures for a couple years after a system's release to lifetime figures for other platforms. The article includes a single example of non-lifetime figures (for Xbox 360), but fails to give anything else. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/... shows sales of the PS3 for the first three fiscal years to be 22.91 million (including a partial year). The article here shows PS4 sales as 35.9 million since 2013, which includes a similar partial year and is clearly greater. In other words, the Xbox One has lower sales than the 360 had back then; but the industry did not.
Link? Make sure it's something I can buy off the shelf today, and make sure it's pre-built.
Since the days of at least the Commodore 64 though, I can't think of a single console that's been more powerful than a home PC
Depends on which PC and which price and which game. Sure the C64 was a fairly good machine, but it was no NES. The NES could do things with its sprites and tiles the C64 couldn't. And the NES use of ROM cartridges meant no 2 minute load times for an RPG from the slow 1541.
The SNES was a pretty good machine for the time, 1991, it could do a fairly good approximation of the 256 color low resolution 320x200 mode of VGA, and that SNES stereo sound chip was probably as good or better than the average soundblaster. And again, HARDWARE sprites let the SNES do things an Amiga or ST couldn't. The Jump to 3D with DOOM, now that sort of thing the SNES had trouble with. .
A PC of the same price perhapsbut a console is vastly less useful, and if you had a PC you could spend the cost of a console to upgrade it far beyond the capacity of the console.
Uncle Clive is that you? To the parents: "Buy a Speccy, your lad can do homework on it and it is not just a games machine" To the lads: "Psst, we know you won't be doing any homework on that horrible keyboard and that all you'll be doing is copying tape games from a rich mate, but by telling your parents it can help with school we can get them to buy you one."
Sure you CAN upgrade, but there is a cost/benefit ratio to think of. If you just have that computer, if you're using it, no one else can. Sometimes it's better to have multiple dedicated devices rather than just ONE general purpose one.
Besides, it's all about the games and the coherent easy experience.
If a system update takes 20-30 minutes, perhaps you need to upgrade that 768K DSL. And if you have the thing set up right, that is done while you're not using it.
It should have done the game update in the background as well, while you're playing a different game...what...you don't have a PS4?
What happened was the Playstation, particularly the PS2, was built on cooperative and competitive multiplayer games.
It was? Maybe if you were 13 playing after school or 19 playing in some dorm room.
But I thought it was based on the MASSIVE number of singleplayer RPG's and action RPG's, and the fact that as an adult I could play some games online, including MMO's, on MY schedule, and not have to worry about the logistics of OTHER peoples schedules.
In other words, your use case wasn't everyones.
Actually, that hasn't been the case for a long time.
It is the case when you factor in costs. A basic gaming PC is ~$1000. A current gen console is ~$300.
1) Just because you keep repeating it doesn't make it true. In *your* words - "A basic gaming PC" is $469.
2) I already have a computer. It already has games that still work, from 1994 to 2016. To play newer-than-2014 games I merely need to add in a $200 video card (which I did). The difference in cost means that the PC-gaming works out much cheaper than console-gaming.
3) The biggest reason to game on PC rather than on console is, in fact, cost - it's a great deal cheaper to acquire (as we already have to have the computer anyway), the games are frequently cheaper if you're willing to wait, *AND* I can still play my entire library that I purchased.
games don't have no tunables whatsoever
When the hardware is identical, you don't need to tune. Like, just in case you happen to want worse graphics? To save power?
Well, if I decided to spend $100 less on my video card upgrade I can still play the game (tunable!). Whereas, if you decided you want to spend $100 less on your console, you have to go without the console (not tunable). The PC is tunable to my specific financial situation, which is why it's so damn cheap to game on a PC.
I do, in fact, have the consoles - but they're gathering dust as my son and I tend to game on the PCs. We spent the last 6 months playing Diablo II multiplayer on a pair of old desktops I was going to throw away - roughly 300 hours of gaming, and it cost me next to nothing AND he's still getting entertainment out of it. When he gets tired of this we'll do Starcraft I-BW
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
1) Just because you keep repeating it doesn't make it true. In *your* words - "A basic gaming PC" is $469 [newegg.com].
You link to a PC with integrated graphics. That PC doesn't play 1080p 60 FPS games now does it? How about comparing apples to apples? Just because you are calling that a gaming PC doesn't make it true. Regardless, it's still 50% more $$$ than a current gen console anyway so WTF is your point?
2) I already have a computer. It already has games that still work, from 1994 to 2016. To play newer-than-2014 games I merely need to add in a $200 video card (which I did). The difference in cost means that the PC-gaming works out much cheaper than console-gaming.
Yeah and you know what? Buying a car is cheaper than buying a bicycle? Can you believe it? Oh I forgot to mention, that's because I already own the car so it costs me nothing. Brilliant. Useful information that really benefits the conversation here.
3) The biggest reason to game on PC rather than on console is, in fact, cost - it's a great deal cheaper to acquire
See #1. $300 $469. I hope you aren't also helping your son with his math homework.
The costs of the consoles have been increasing since the days of the NES. I remember when I first got the Nintendo when it was about $100 brand new. I remember getting the N64 when it was about $140. Now we have consoles costing $300+. Even adjusting for inflation the prices have gone up.
You Fail at math. The earliest release model of the NES included ROB and launched at $249. The control deck+ Mario release which came later was $199. The NES only became $100 late in it's life, AFTER the SNES was out. The N64 also launched at $199.
The NES would cost around $450 if rleased now.
http://www.ign.com/articles/20...
http://kotaku.com/36-years-of-...
The C64 also had a ROM cartridge slot. Just not many games available for it.
The SNES was awesome when it came out. You had plenty of arcade quality ports available for it. First time I saw Street Fighter II on it I was sold on the idea.
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/comp...
Good point.
Are the types of people who generally buy consoles really the same type that would be satisfied playing games on mobile instead? I don't know if I'm an average console gamer, but I don't see much appealing about mobile games, beyond being able to play them when waiting around or otherwise bored and not able to easy access my computer or console. Freemium games and cheap games chock-full of ads and microtransactions are not my cup of tea. Besides, according to one link I found (http://www.vgchartz.com/article/261037/ps4-and-xbox-one-vs-ps3-and-xbox-360-aligned-sales-comparison-august-2015-update/) this generation of consoles is selling significantly faster than the previous generation. It's only Nintendo that has stumbled, which can probably be explained better by the Wii U itself than by the mobile market stealing the attention of console gamers. Plus if Microsoft hadn't screwed up the XBO, this generation be selling even better.
You would need to wait for another 10 years before those comparisons even begin to make sense.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
i can play console games on the couch on a big screen tv with a well-made controller.
PCs have VGA and usually DVI or HDMI out; HDTVs have HDMI and usually VGA in. (HDMI is DVI-D with audio in the blanking period and a different connector.) Set the PC next to the TV, connect a well-made Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller to its front USB port, and play.
i'm not spending 1500 dollars on a gaming pc every few years.
The beauty of desktop PCs is that there are so many builds to choose from that you're more likely to find one to fit your needs. There are $500 builds that'll match any current console, and even the integrated HD Graphics in Intel Core i series CPUs is running games at lower settings nowadays.
you can't play nintendo games on a pc.
Or on a PS4 or Xbox One. Nor can you play Halo on PS4 or any Nintendo console. (On PS1 through PS3 you can make a joke involving the numbering system of Nine Inch Nails albums; PS4 dropped this capability.) But there aren't a lot of critical games that are on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 or both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but not on Windows. In addition, a lot of especially indie games are PC-first or PC-only.
Unless you have a reason to specifically get a Wii U, why wouldn't you get a used Wii with a bunch of controllers and a mountain of games for half the price?
All Wii games with online play relied on GameSpy. Its closure killed online play for Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and to many players, continuing online play in those franchises is a good "reason to specifically get a Wii U".
You want to count exclusives? Show me Stephen's Sausage Roll or Undertale or Stardew Valley or A Good Snowman for PS4.
I got into computers in the mid to late eighties, when a second-hand Commodore (or no, it was a Vic20 first) wasn't all that much more expensive than a second-hand Atari2600 with a bunch of games
Atari 2600 booted instantly. Adding a 1541 floppy drive to a Commodore 64 to shortcut obscene Datassette loading times made it a lot more expensive.
even though portable systems are more similar to the mobile game niche than home games
I disagree. Most mobile games are either point-and-click or endless runners because that's all you can make with a touch screen. Things like a PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS come with input devices much more similar to the gamepad of a traditional set-top console, which allow interaction methods other than point-and-click.
Are the types of people who generally buy consoles really the same type that would be satisfied playing games on mobile instead?
Not necessarily. Good luck playing something like Mega Man on a touch screen.
But if you have a PC anyway, then the video card upgrade would make far more economic sense
True if you live alone. But if you live with others who don't own their own PC, you can't easily use a single PC for gaming and other use (homework, Facebook, etc.) at once. You need either a PC and a console or a PC and a second desktop PC connected to the TV.
On the other hand, PCs get mods.
Some of which allow cheating in online multiplayer, which is serious enough that some console fans prefer consoles specifically to block cheat mods.
This console generation just isn't exciting. The hardware was laughably underpowered before it even shipped, with many games rendering at some oddball resolution and later upscaled to 1080p, just to maintain acceptable performance. For those less technically inclined, the rising game prices and egregious DLC / season passes is too much to swallow. I'm financially quite comfortable, and even I balk at new game prices because the value just isn't there. AAA titles are released full of bugs and it's a coin-toss as to whether they will be properly patched. Just recently, some baseball game was launched in an unplayable state, allegedly due to underpowered/unstable servers. I think it took them 3 weeks to finally get it working.
Customers will only accept mediocrity for so long, and I think they're starting to snub these console makers and game publishers who repeatedly treat the customer like a fool.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Your perspective is valid for the US and maybe parts of Western Europe. Some regions of the World _got_ the Commodore 64 around the mid 80's. There was no time for a secondary market to have developed, and ebay and Internet didn't exist, and half of Europe lived behind the Iron Curtain, where a Commodore 64 in the mid-80's wasn't a second-hand thing, but of a luxury item for few, who clang onto them for like a decade, and a dream for most, its initial price in the range of a teacher's annual salary. And since you mention the Vic20: sure it was slightly cheaper and earlier (but way less prevalent outside the US i.e. no secondary market), but that wasn't really seen as a gaming platform or console alternative even by the standards of the time.
The same argument might have been made after the heyday of the Atari 2600. The follow-on Atari systems which offered only incremental improvements and the competing systems which were only marginally better never attracted the same attention. Then, after 7-8 years, along comes the NES and the next resurgence in the console market. But yet again, there was a repeat of the Atari phenomenon. The follow-on and "slightly better" systems just never got the same market penetration. Took another 7-8 years until the next big thing with the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox. I think the console industry is just taking another hiatus. The day of the console might be over *for now*, but give it ~10 years and we'll have the next awesome gaming system.
4k sets are dropping in price all the time so I would say that people do not agree with you. Also in apartments 10 feet is pretty far to sit back from a TV.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Commodore 64 cartridges could include a circuit that switches different pages of ROM into the 16 KiB of address space available to a cartridge. For example, if writing to cartridge space ($8000-$BFFF) instead writes to an octal D flip-flop (e.g. 74HC373/377) that controls A14 and higher address lines of the ROM, this would allow (in theory) up to 4 MiB of ROM. Similar techniques were common on Atari 2600 (which originally topped out at 4 KiB ROM) and especially on NES (likewise 32 KiB). But cartridges were underused because they were more expensive for game publishers to replicate than tapes and floppies.
So, you linked to random PC. What evidence do you have that can play 1080p games at 60 FPS? Moreover, it's $700, more than 2x as much as console. I'm really confused. Are you trying to prove my point?
I'd say that the decline in video games comes to a few key points:
1. Lack of trust / ownership. We're at the point where the makers of the consoles basically say "You don't own it, we can change the terms of usage, you can be locked out of your own device, you can't do any soft modding, and if you try we can wipe your softmod or wreck your device because our TOS says we own it after you pay for it".
See Nintendo and the Wii U.
Now realize any of them can do this.
2. Price per game. Lack of any significant discounts.
3. We're not that far from tying your purchased games to a single console, completely eliminating any resale market -- point numbers 1 and 2 to the extreme.
4. As others have mentioned, a normal computer is becoming more convenient than the consoles.
5. The fundamental question: Why bother?
The Wii gave us a reason to bother: the motion-sensing control. And then the improved control that actually senses motion instead of sensing jerks and angles. Now if only the software was actually fixed/improved -- many of the games seemed to operate under "Ok, we're learning how to work with the controls, and got X working, we learn more, make Y much better, we now know how to go back and improve X, but we won't". And this is *before* shipping.
Nintendo's own "Wii Fit" is the perfect example of this. I'm sorry -- the quality of working with the balance board is different in the different exercises, and worst, when they made Wii Fit Plus, they did not go back and fix any problems with the older exercises/games.
The Wii Sports Plus, the key game for the Motion plus sensor? Seemed to have the exact same issue.
6. Reduced quality / lack of bug fixes and patches. Yes, computer games get patches and fixes. Can you add a patching system for these cartridge/CD games? Sure. Do they? Nope.
What evidence it can play? You can just read the specs to see that it can. I thought a slashdot audience would have the background knowledge to know that.
And while it is more expensive than a console it is only a little. That site is Australian dollars and XBONEs are $549 to $599 and PS4s are $450 to $590 depending on the version. So we are talking $100 to $150.
Basically you wanted a link to a prebuilt computer, under a $1000 (and I assumed US$) that could play games and was prebuilt. Well here you go and it's from the largest big box retailed in Aus so its not like it is an obscure online only place that no one will have ever heard of.
Where in the specs does it say what FPS at what resolution is supports?
2.5x is not "only a little" more expensive by anyone's measure.
Basically you wanted a link to a prebuilt computer, under a $1000 (and I assumed US$) that could play games and was prebuilt.
No. I wanted it to have the same graphics horse power as a console. If not that, WTF are we talking about? Gee whiz I can get a $99 Android phone that can play games. Does that prove me wrong? Heck I can pick up a Tiger handheld LCD game for $29. OMFG that's 10x CHEAPER than a console! It meets the criteria right: plays games.
PC I linked to Price $698, XBone $550. Where is your 2.5 coming from?
As for graphical horespower. It kicks the crap out of the consoles. It has a faster processor, a better GPU and the same amount of RAM compared to the xbox one.
And as for your FPS & resolution specs. I don't understand. PCs don't have an upper bound for resolution that you are locked at. If your monitor can support 4k then it will output 4k. It might struggle to get decent framerates though, but that will depend on what game you are playing. That machine would play games at 60fps at 1080 without breaking a sweat though. Is that what you want?
I'm assuming you are on slashdot via a PC so I don't really understand why you are talking about resolution support on a PC. You know that you can change the resolution on your machine right?
PCs are not a straight console replacement. They are a mutli-use machine that can do a consoles job as well. So given that why would advertised specs for a PC be limited to what a console is limited to?