2013: The State of the Games Industry

Jason Avent, Georg Backer, Dan Marshall, Ella Romanos and Andrew Oliver on Wii U problems, new hardware, next-generation consoles, the plight of the publisher and the strength of the indie scene
Just as the games business begins to get back to work, GamesIndustry International gathered together a roundtable of development talent and asked them to reflect on the past 12 months, and more importantly, the year ahead. Top of the agenda was Nintendo's launch of its new home console and relevance to other upcoming hardware, the issues of next-generation consoles, what role traditional publishers play in the business and the strength and competition in the independent development scene.
Sitting around the table were Andrew Oliver, chief technical officer of Blitz Games, Dan Marshall of Ben There, Dan That developer Size Five Games, Remode CEO Ella Romanos, Hot Sauce Interactive's Georg Backer and Boss Alien's Jason Avent.

Q: GI: Let's open by talking about the Wii U launch, certainly the biggest recent event on the calendar. Is it enough to rejuvenate the console scene, acting as it does as a bit of a bridge between this generation and the next? Is Nintendo's policy of marketing it first to long-term, core fans sensible? Is it an attractive enough prospect to Wii owners?
Andrew Oliver: It's really interesting - I'm a massive Nintendo fan, and they've got a big, hardcore fanbase, but I do wonder if it's enough to sell a fairly expensive machine to people. You just see every TV advert, it's tablets and phones, tablets and phones. The general population is just going, 'I can play games on these sexy devices. It's coming round to Christmas where I can get a device and once I've got it, I can get all these games for free or nearly free'. I think that's skewed things so massively. It's a tough market for anyone, so it's going to be difficult for them.
They've gone with the idea that people like tablets, so they've made a tablet controller. Yeah, they do love tablets, but the problem is that they're probably going to buy one.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...games-industry