Is Console Gaming Dying?

[wraggster]

PC gamers love to obsess over whether PC gaming is dying, but bit-tech thinks it's time to look at the other side and examine if console gaming is really as secure as publishers would have us believe. All three console manufacturers suffered from the recession — this year, Sony announced its first net loss in 14 years; a stunning ¥989.9bn, which includes record losses of ¥58.5bn in its gaming sector. Microsoft also announced its first loss since it went public in 1986 in the second quarter of this financial year, with a $31 million US loss coming straight from the Entertainment and Devices division, which is responsible for the Xbox 360. Not even Nintendo has escaped the financial plague either, with sales of the Wii dropping by 67 percent in the US, 60 percent in Japan and 47 percent in the rest of the world. In addition to reduced profitability, casual games and the rise of the iPhone further suggest the current model is not invulnerable.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/14/2010234/Is-Console-Gaming-Dying

[symbal]

Sony are gonna have to get out of the keep it the same and add more power mentality that made Ps3 suffer, Microsoft are similar but at least they can dish out consoles at a reasonable price and deal better with developers, even if the peripherals are a huge rip off, they both need to develop an imagination like Nintendo and Apple if they gonna work.

[nomi]

Nintendo are you kidding me? i would rather have a overpriced PS3 then what i believe is a overpriced Wii.. Wii should not have a price tag anywhere near a ps3 or a 360 considering the crappy games and graphics that it has... PS3 i agree has been overpriced but 300 dollars is all right... 360 actually costs more if you consider all the things the ps3 actually shells out with its own console...

I would say the PS3 and 360 seem to have it right ( even though 360's accessories are a bit too expensive and should be included in the cost of the console.

Apple on the other hand dishes out products that look nice and have advertising to hype up their products.. The quality is as good as any in the market but there advertisements have us believe otherwise...

Nomi

[Qmark]

It will die in the same generation the manufacturers cease issuing any physical media. If not PS4/X720/Mii2/Pippin2, then the generation after that. Then, we'll see a crash on par with 1983 all over again. Gamers will get sick of being burned on games they can't return or resell, the Gamestop empire will implode (leaving big-box hellholes as the only place for hardware), and Amazon will eventually grow tired of the manufacturers increasingly screwing it out of "online game code" margins.

If we're lucky, open-platforms and community-content will have matured enough to take over in time. Sure, we'll miss mip-mapping and bloom fields, but there would be no real need to play hide-the-modchip when we're all playing crappy little apps on dozens of different devices.



Nintendo are you kidding me? i would rather have a overpriced PS3 then what i believe is a overpriced Wii.. Wii should not have a price tag anywhere near a ps3 or a 360 considering the crappy games and graphics that it has... Nintendo hardware is for playing Nintendo games. It's only worth your investment if you really need that latest Mario or Zelda.

[symbal]

Whatever you say about Nintendo games and consoles the fact is they are massively more innovative than Microsoft and Sony and learning from that is the only way they can survive.

[fpcreator2000]

What I see is a convergence of the markets, where one game can be played in multiple platforms, ala Sony Minis. I see this with the Android platform more though, but it will happen though not in the next generation of games as that will probably be the "transition generation" because backwards compatibility is the key to that generation.