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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?
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.)
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.
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.
"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.
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.
I can't speak for anyone else, but for my own purposes, I have avoided the latest generation of consoles for reasons that have nothing to do with mobile gaming.
Wii: If Nintendo had released a more-powerful, HD version of the original Wii for a similar price point, I would have bought three. Instead they added and required that ridiculous controller, which IMHO completely ruined the experience.
Xbox: Requires a subscription for playing on-line, which I simply won't do.
Playstation: I own three PS3s, but the PS4 went the MS route to require a subscription for on-line play, so I've refused. And Sony's repeated feature regression over the years isn't exactly enticing.
For myself, the draw of console gaming has always been 1) the real-time interaction (including audio) with other gamers throughout the world and 2) and off-line (i.e., completely-disconnected) single-player mode. Both of those experiences have grown steadily worse of late.
If any manufacturer releases a console that allows for offline play and free interactive online play, and doesn't require an absurd controller, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
So, your #1 draw for console gaming is real-time multiplayer, and you're not willing to pay for it. I'm not going to argue about whether MS or Sony are making a huge profit off their subscription prices, but I'm sure that the infrastructure that they've put in place did not come free and the cost has to be covered somehow.
Yes, it does. It's called your Internet connection, and you pay your ISP for it.
You can have high-end online games with 10-20 simultaneous players working just fine with a regular Internet connection. No phoning home. No subscription. No lock-in. No expiry date. I know, because I was there when we started writing them. That was around the 1990s, back when broadband was still a dream for most of us and people on the academic networks were called LPBs.
Given the advances in technology of the past 20 years, I don't for a moment believe that it's actually necessary to have a centralised server as a core dependency just for most multiplayer online gaming today. In fact, I can see only two reasons to write your game that way.
One reason is because you really are co-ordinating massive numbers of players in a shared world or otherwise dealing with huge amounts of content that changes over time. If that really is the nature of your game, that's fair enough, but in most cases it is not.
The other reason is just about keeping control, so you can do things like limiting second-hand markets and making it harder to pirate. That's an entirely understandable goal from a commercial point of view, but there is no advantage for legitimate users who just want to enjoy a game with their friends and there are a lot of potential problems or disadvantages.
I didn't like paying for it as well at first, but I don't really see it as that big of a burden anymore.
And that's exactly what a lot of these services are banking on, but apparently quite a lot of customers are getting bored of being exploited in that way now. I can't say I'm overflowing with sympathy for the services in question, because I remember the days when games were about having fun and not just about squeezing as much profit out of the customer base as possible. Ironically, I bought a lot more games in those days.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I have no idea what modern console games are doing; I don't have one. However, the idea that you need a dedicated server, run by the game developers or some intermediary on a subscription basis, just to get a dozen players in the same arena is just silly. Anyone could run a server even back in the early days of games like Quake, and many people did, and the community quickly developed tools to find them so you could match people up and get a game, and it worked just fine without id Software or Microsoft or Valve whoever else controlling everything. That was about 20 years ago, with devices and connection speeds orders of magnitude slower than we have today. If modern game developers can't do the same for the same kinds of game, then they just aren't very good.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.