Poll: If consoles really do go extinct, wo would you think is to blame?

[funguy2121]

Every few months someone trying to get talked about starts saying this again. Most recently the guy who made Angry Birds and the guy who made God of War.
I don't really think the consoles are going anywhere but you bring up a good point: the devs seem to not know much about business and seem to depend a lot on consumer loyalty to get them by: there are some gamers who will buy any item or title from a particular studio and buy all the peripherals or dlc as well. That loyalty alone could keep the devs and console makers floating as long as the don't keep taking advantage of said loyalty: though they seem to be able to really push it sometimes, they always get away with it-Capcom hasn't stopped selling day one/on disc dlc and xbl gold went up in price during the console's cycle. Normally consumers wouldn't put up with crap like that but gamers will. So that compared with foolhardy business decisions has led to some good profits.
I too think people will continue to buy consoles until some mp3 like revolution occurs (but that didn't kill the PC gaming industry did it) or they just make them so close to PCs in price and function that they just stop becoming consoles and are just alt PCs.
I don't know what level of absurdity they would have to take it to before it started hurting them but let's hope it never gets there. Overestimating demand is what killed the industry in the 80s. But I think that to kill it now, everyone would have to chip in and be supreme pricks.

Well, there have definitely been some interesting developments this generation. Sony waved a huge middle finger banner at the consumer right out of the gate with their superexpensive console and didn't even ensure a number of good titles until a year and a half later. Then they finally brought the price down to a reasonable range and started an excellent ad campaign that wasn't patronizing to their customers. But when they did this they also decided to remove backwards compatibility.

All 3 systems now feature motion controls, which shows that Nintendo's broadening of the market has their competitors scared, even though there aren't nearly as many quality titles (hardcore or casual) for the Wii.

To me, all of this means one of two things regarding Microsoft and Sony. Either they are starting to pay better attention to the market, and so a significant part of their strategy will be to increase quality/versatility and decrease costs, or they're just reacting too late and overreacting big time. Either way, if their consoles continue to have the horsepower (and they will), the developers will continue to make great games. Nintendo is of course still a stuffy stubborn old fart, one who gradually becomes more pragmatic but never admits when he has made a mistake. So they'll continue to do some really amazing things but I honestly don't think anyone outside of NCL has a clue what their next gen console will be like.

 

[funguy2121]

Also, who seriously plays split screen any more?

People with friends. No, not the Facebook definition, the one in Webster's.

 

[zombieeater6000]

i doubt the console will die out
i think the next gen of them will be more multimedia devices which play games

 

[kortin]

It would be Ramirez's fault for not doing what he was told.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Every few months someone trying to get talked about starts saying this again. Most recently the guy who made Angry Birds and the guy who made God of War.
I don't really think the consoles are going anywhere but you bring up a good point: the devs seem to not know much about business and seem to depend a lot on consumer loyalty to get them by: there are some gamers who will buy any item or title from a particular studio and buy all the peripherals or dlc as well. That loyalty alone could keep the devs and console makers floating as long as the don't keep taking advantage of said loyalty: though they seem to be able to really push it sometimes, they always get away with it-Capcom hasn't stopped selling day one/on disc dlc and xbl gold went up in price during the console's cycle. Normally consumers wouldn't put up with crap like that but gamers will. So that compared with foolhardy business decisions has led to some good profits.
I too think people will continue to buy consoles until some mp3 like revolution occurs (but that didn't kill the PC gaming industry did it) or they just make them so close to PCs in price and function that they just stop becoming consoles and are just alt PCs.
I don't know what level of absurdity they would have to take it to before it started hurting them but let's hope it never gets there. Overestimating demand is what killed the industry in the 80s. But I think that to kill it now, everyone would have to chip in and be supreme pricks.

Well, there have definitely been some interesting developments this generation. Sony waved a huge middle finger banner at the consumer right out of the gate with their superexpensive console and didn't even ensure a number of good titles until a year and a half later. Then they finally brought the price down to a reasonable range and started an excellent ad campaign that wasn't patronizing to their customers. But when they did this they also decided to remove backwards compatibility.

All 3 systems now feature motion controls, which shows that Nintendo's broadening of the market has their competitors scared, even though there aren't nearly as many quality titles (hardcore or casual) for the Wii.

To me, all of this means one of two things regarding Microsoft and Sony. Either they are starting to pay better attention to the market, and so a significant part of their strategy will be to increase quality/versatility and decrease costs, or they're just reacting too late and overreacting big time. Either way, if their consoles continue to have the horsepower (and they will), the developers will continue to make great games. Nintendo is of course still a stuffy stubborn old fart, one who gradually becomes more pragmatic but never admits when he has made a mistake. So they'll continue to do some really amazing things but I honestly don't think anyone outside of NCL has a clue what their next gen console will be like.

Sony also removed the OtherOS and (purely out of neglect) the web browser from the ps3. When I bought it I was really looking forward to what they were going to do with it; I didn't know they would proceed to run it into the ground. Now all the updates it gets seem to be there just to prevent hacking and not actually add features and the features it does have are very inconsistent. Then the 360 also launched pretty expensively and half of them were bricking for a while.
The Wii is actually the best performing console this gen when you look at it: It printed money for the investors, didn't melt on peoples shelves at a rate of 50%, and it slowly gains consistent features without losing them. The bad part about the wii is that it gets terrible third party support and that's why I don't play games on mine very much.
But that's a whole 'nother thread we probably shouldn't deviate into right now.
I'll admit that the prices and performance of this gen's consoles (and games) has made me reluctant to even consider buying one when the next gen rolls around but I don't think most gamers feel as strongly. At least, not so many that it would cripple the industry.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Every few months someone trying to get talked about starts saying this again. Most recently the guy who made Angry Birds and the guy who made God of War.
I don't really think the consoles are going anywhere but you bring up a good point: the devs seem to not know much about business and seem to depend a lot on consumer loyalty to get them by: there are some gamers who will buy any item or title from a particular studio and buy all the peripherals or dlc as well. That loyalty alone could keep the devs and console makers floating as long as the don't keep taking advantage of said loyalty: though they seem to be able to really push it sometimes, they always get away with it-Capcom hasn't stopped selling day one/on disc dlc and xbl gold went up in price during the console's cycle. Normally consumers wouldn't put up with crap like that but gamers will. So that compared with foolhardy business decisions has led to some good profits.
I too think people will continue to buy consoles until some mp3 like revolution occurs (but that didn't kill the PC gaming industry did it) or they just make them so close to PCs in price and function that they just stop becoming consoles and are just alt PCs.
I don't know what level of absurdity they would have to take it to before it started hurting them but let's hope it never gets there. Overestimating demand is what killed the industry in the 80s. But I think that to kill it now, everyone would have to chip in and be supreme pricks.

Well, there have definitely been some interesting developments this generation. Sony waved a huge middle finger banner at the consumer right out of the gate with their superexpensive console and didn't even ensure a number of good titles until a year and a half later. Then they finally brought the price down to a reasonable range and started an excellent ad campaign that wasn't patronizing to their customers. But when they did this they also decided to remove backwards compatibility.

All 3 systems now feature motion controls, which shows that Nintendo's broadening of the market has their competitors scared, even though there aren't nearly as many quality titles (hardcore or casual) for the Wii.

To me, all of this means one of two things regarding Microsoft and Sony. Either they are starting to pay better attention to the market, and so a significant part of their strategy will be to increase quality/versatility and decrease costs, or they're just reacting too late and overreacting big time. Either way, if their consoles continue to have the horsepower (and they will), the developers will continue to make great games. Nintendo is of course still a stuffy stubborn old fart, one who gradually becomes more pragmatic but never admits when he has made a mistake. So they'll continue to do some really amazing things but I honestly don't think anyone outside of NCL has a clue what their next gen console will be like.

Sony also removed the OtherOS and (purely out of neglect) the web browser from the ps3. When I bought it I was really looking forward to what they were going to do with it; I didn't know they would proceed to run it into the ground. Now all the updates it gets seem to be there just to prevent hacking and not actually add features and the features it does have are very inconsistent. Then the 360 also launched pretty expensively and half of them were bricking for a while.
The Wii is actually the best performing console this gen when you look at it: It printed money for the investors, didn't melt on peoples shelves at a rate of 50%, and it slowly gains consistent features without losing them. The bad part about the wii is that it gets terrible third party support and that's why I don't play games on mine very much.
But that's a whole 'nother thread we probably shouldn't deviate into right now.
I'll admit that the prices and performance of this gen's consoles (and games) has made me reluctant to even consider buying one when the next gen rolls around but I don't think most gamers feel as strongly. At least, not so many that it would cripple the industry.

Its not so much the lack of players, its the excessive cost. The console market is hard to get into, and since the profits are drying up companies would rather make a farmville clone than a console game.

That's what scares me about people talking about the next gen consoles already. Not only have they not really opened up the current gen (on the contrary my ps3 feels like it's sandbagged) and there are very few massive games that we should start seeing before this gen dries up.

 

[Leemaster777]

Blame the gremlins. It's always the gremlins.

Seriously though, all I hear is "PC gaming is dead" or "Console gaming is going to go extinct".

If both of those are true, what the hell are we going to play games on? A fucking toaster?

 

[Lyx]

I don't really see "consoles" going extinct.... creating a machine specifically for being (cost-)efficient for a specific task is something general - consoles aren't really anything special in that regard. Even if the console market would crash, new ones would just after a while emerge.

However, something that i could imagine happening, is something similiar as what happened to mobile phones: Them becoming more flexible and multitalented, so that the boundary between a home-computer, laptop and console becomes more blurry. I mean, there aren't even any technical hurdles towards this anymore.... from a technical POV, a console nowadays simply is a homecomputer with standardized hardware, limited support for input-interfaces, and a heavily vendor-controlled software market.

Standardized hardware doesn't really stop a console from being more multitalented. Heck, most computers before the PC had standardized hardware, and were NOT called a "console". The lack of input-interface flexibility could easily be solved (and without a 3rd party market explosion). The lack of software beyond games too is easy to change (it's just a vendor-decision and lack of controllers anyways).

What would such a device be like? In principle, just a compact computer with standardized hardware and controllers. So, a compact cheap computer with heavy vendor-lockin.