Nazrel said:
Baresark said:
the Dept of Science said:
Nazrel said:
I can see this current generation being the last. Not because it's dying, but because there's really nowhere to go.
What are they going to do? More graphics and processing power? They can't use what is currently available and are driving themselves into the ground trying.
Barring some dramatic change in the very nature of game play, there's really no reasonable reason to have one.
snip
snip
You seem to have missed the "driving themselves in to the ground trying" part.
Here's the bottom-line for EA for the last 3 years.
Year end March 31, 2010: Loss of 677,000,000
Year end March 31, 2009: Loss of 1,088,000,000
Year end March 31, 2008: Loss of 454,000,000
and Activision is being kept aloft by a 7 year old game that never ends with dated graphics.
Spending increasingly more money for increasing less gains, is not a viable business model.
I would not use EA or Activision as examples, no offense to your choices. EA and Activision have a very poor business model. A better company wouldn't get caught in the diminishing returns cycle. And these examples are only two of the hundreds, if not thousands out there. Also, with the way technology has progressed, it's become perfectly viable for developers to publish their own games. The need to have a big name, money spending publisher is diminished with things like Steam out there. Hell, Mojang published their own game by selling it via Paypal. They have netted millions in profits, which they are very wisely investing back into the company itself.
WoW is not technologically advanced at all, you're right about that. Only, they have 12 million subscribers a month throwing $15/month at them. That is proof that the game itself is more important than the technology to push more out.
Also, think of it this way. As long as there is a company that can bring in $180 Million per month, there is going to be people trying to emulate it, and compete with it. I'm not afraid to say that I am reasonably sure with a high degree certainty (confusing, I know, but it's fun to say) that David Jaffe is suffering from lack of vision. He was behind God of War, three of basically the same game with better graphics each time, and Twisted Metal. The ladder wasn't nearly as successful as the former, but the last iteration did very poorly because he failed to change the game for the times. Not the industries fault, and certainly not the foreseeable end to the industry based on his past experiences.
As a final note: MS and Sony have poor business models, where Nintendo by comparison has a much better one. The Wii, though far from the most popular among gamers, is still the highest sold one. They turned profits on the Wii from day one. And the DS, and the DSi, and now the 3DS. MS and Sony (to a degree anyway), took hits to put the biggest baddest thing out there and rape publishers for money for the "right" to put software out on it? Those companies will fail in the video game market. But Nintendo isn't going anywhere by my reckoning.