
Consolation Prize: The Game Console Is Dead. What Will Replace It? - ari_elle
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/10/consolation-prize/all/
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talmand
It's interesting to read an article like this. As a PC gamer, for most of my
life I'm accustomed to seeing articles telling me that my hobby is dead and I
might as well buy a console. It's different to see one that claims the console
as we know it is dead. I see it as the console is finally catching up with the
PC in terms of functionality. But I admit that could just be me.

But I find parts of the article confusing or maybe I just outright disagree.

I don't understand this common comparison of mobile games with console games.
They are not the same thing and not the same market. The mobile game market is
in serious growth (except for Zynga, one example of the article) because, as
the article points out, it is a new market and there's a vacuum to fill. This
has happened before and not just in the gaming sector. Once things have
settled let's see how that market holds up. But to constantly compare these
two markets just feels wrong. To me it would be like saying since the Honda
Accord has such strong sales then clearly Ferrari is destined to fail and die.

Consoles used to do everything best? In what dimension did this happen? Most
PC games didn't require messing with "finicky settings" since Win95, yes
indeed they just "worked". Well, maybe not Games for Windows Live games.
Especially with the release of Steam, which the article points out but doesn't
seem to make the connection. High end games that push the hardware may require
some love and care but there's not many of those. Braid, Super Meatboy and
others like them, that do make money for their developers, just work.

How is Ubisoft going to squeeze money from their customers by offering a $120
collectors edition with a $30 season pass? Is that the only option or maybe
most people will get the regular $60 version and maybe buy the DLC later? What
about people like me who are willing to wait for those wonderful Steam sales?

It's funny to me that article says that AAA games are getting more and more
expensive to produce, which is true, and then just a few paragraphs later it
describes EA's massive campus. So, does most of EA's budget go towards game
development or nice expensive, unneeded office space? Do the large salaries of
managers who are not involved in development nor know the first thing about
development involved in that equation? Assassin's Creed III involves five
Ubisoft offices around the world and just costs too much? How much of its
budget is actually for development?

What is an AAA game title anyway? Who defines that? Maybe the publishers
should rethink what they think a AAA title is and the market think it is. If
AAA refers to quality then Super Meatboy is a AAAA title and was primarily
made by two guys with contractors.

Everything they mention about the dark days of PC gaming is pretty much true.
But they fail to mention that the big publishers attempted to treat the PC
game market the same as the console market, which you cannot do and the market
reacted. Once they failed in the PC game market they then started a campaign
of blaming their customers. Don't get me started on the stupid DRM schemes
that punished paying customers more than pirates. Maybe DRM is what's
responsible for those finicky PC games that don't "just work"? That's one
reason why the indie market and alternatives like Steam work, they understand
their market. Which is really funny is that the big publishers were hesitant
to adopt to the market and now all of the sudden indie developers and Valve
are just geniuses. The market was screaming years ago what we wanted and we
were ignored.

Firefall is a PC first-person shooter that is attempting to get hardcore
gamers to accept free? WTF? There are already numerous games that follow this
model accepted by hardcore gamers. Tribes and TeamFortress2 are two easy ones
right off the bat. Firefall is a gorgeous game that's on graphical par with
the best console shooters? WTF is this guy going on about? Did he even bother
to do research on PC games before writing this?

Nice to know that the apps on the iTunes app store that make the most money
are the free ones, although I'm not sure if that's true. That was one of the
largest complaints about the Android market, they didn't want to pay for
anything.

After talking about how much all these AAA games cost to make, we're left with
a quote of why buy a $60 game when the $1 game on my phone is just more of the
same. What? Is this saying that the $1 is the same thing as the $60? Which
doesn't make sense. Or is it saying that the $60 is not worth buying because
it's the same as the last $60 game? Because that's been the console strategy
for years and another example of the big publishers not listening to the
market.

I love the references to Zynga and EA, since they are commonly the most
disliked game companies in the community and industry.

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incision
Not exactly.

This article makes an odd, meandering case behind such a direct headline.

The points made are true of trends in the game industry in general, but in no
way intrinsic to consoles.

He seems to want to equate a peak in console sales to death, but invokes
properties (WoW, Farmville) which themselves have also peaked in doing so.

I expect the the popularity of carrot dangling non-games like some of those
mentioned to die off long before consoles do.

~~~
lawtguy
WoW and Farmville are games that made a lot of money and Sony, Microsoft and
Nintendo got nothing of that. Besides Final Fantasy XI, the big 3 missed the
party on both of these money making genres.

It's true that both MMOs and F2P "games" will probably die before consoles.
The problem is that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo aren't adaptable enough and
so the money is going to the platforms that have less restrictions. If new
ways of selling games to customers appear, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo need
to have a business model and a platform that will support it. They can't keep
basing their businesses on selling Call of Honor: Medalfighter 4 for $60 and
expect to survive.

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jiggy2011
Well consoles will evolve certainly. I'm sure the primary distribution method
for the next generation will be to download games rather than buy on a disc.

There is also the argument that as consoles do more things they are going to
blur the lines between a general computer , a "media consumption device" and a
dedicated games console.

The real killer feature of something like the XBox360 though is that it is
designed for games out of the box, any compromises or decisions they made in
the design always focused on games first.

Sure, tablets are becoming more capable in the graphics department, but the
primary method of control is still a touch screen that prioritises usability
for things like web browsing and navigating photo albums not shooting people
in the head.

Tablets are also designed to be lightweight, thin and consume less power. This
will always lead to tradeoffs with performance. The article seems to compare
current tablets with current gen consoles whereas I'm sure next gen consoles
will have significantly boosted graphics performance.

I'm also unsure of the market moving to a "free to play" model. It's true that
this is becoming a more popular model; however would a game like skyrim be
more compelling if you had to purchase each sword upgrade with real cash?

~~~
kayoone
i agree with most of your points but not all. Sure tablets are a compromise,
but the pc/tablet/mobile hardware market is moving MUCH faster than the
console market. Current gen consoles have been around since 2005/6, a time
when even the iphone didnt exist and things like Free to play or digital
distribution were a non-issue.

Today all of that has changed dramatically and the console makers reacted to
it, but only very slowly and in general they are limited to adapt to these new
markets. The PC, tablets, mobile phones however have done a massive step in
the same timeframe. Measured by todays standards, mobile gaming didnt exist in
2005, today its the biggest growth market in gaming there is. Even though
tablets are still much less powerful than a current gen console, many of
todays top notch games on tablets dont look too far off of console games...

Of course touch controls are limited and games need to be tailored to those,
but in the end its an issue about which market is more attractive to
developers. Mobile and Free to play certainly has alot less risk than pay-
upfront triple-A titles with millions of budget.

That being said i still see a good future for consoles as entertainment
devices in the living room, in fact an Apple-TV like device with powerful
hardware and Apps (including tripe-A free to play games) could be a massive
hit!

~~~
talmand
The reason mobile gaming has major growth is because the market is rushing to
fill a vacuum. Once things have settled a bit let's see how it compares then.
Plus comparing tablets made today with consoles based on five-year-plus
hardware is not a proper comparison. Let's see how they match up once the
console refresh has happened.

Touch controls don't bother me because eventually bluetooth based controllers
will be common once we get used to the idea of hooking a tablet to the TV.

~~~
kayoone
True but still, even PC hardware todays evolves much faster than consoles
because of their very long lifecycle and that is definately holding the state
of high end PC games back because today you cant make a blockbuster game that
isnt cross-platform. Of course the next-gen consoles will be much much faster,
but that doesnt stop their lifecycle from being very long compared to almost
all other entertainment devices.

~~~
talmand
Well, I can't really disagree, especially about the part of PC games being
held back because of consoles.

But I think that eventually the hardware refresh on mobile and tablets will
taper off because they'll have to hit a wall at some point. Unless a
breakthrough in battery technology happens you can only go so far in upping
specs on mobile devices. Plus there's the heat aspect.

Plus, once the market is flush with devices, or when people who want a tablet
gets one, will people toss out their old tablet to buy a new one that's better
in some insignificant way that matters little to them? I have a tablet and I
can't see replacing it anytime soon unless it breaks or I find a large enough
amount of software no longer works on it. Although I'm not saying the market
would follow my whims but it just seems likely there's a large enough group
that thinks in a similar fashion.

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neovive
As long people are still buying big screen TV's the consoles will sell well.
The XBOX and similar devices will evolve into home-entertainment hubs --
hopefully replacing the long-outdated cable set-top boxes.

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CKKim
I don't really like the way this is written. It seems akin to calling the
cellphone "dead" because we now have smartphones which do so much more than
just make calls.

~~~
tatsuke95
Exactly. Consoles will continue to evolve; the idea of not having to hook up
some kind of device to my TV is not on the horizon.

iTunes, Netflix, Steam, xBox Live, Playstaion Network, Hulu...these are the
new distribution channels, but they all still require a device in the living
room, hooked to the TV, to run them. Consoles will become that, if they aren't
already.

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fghh45sdfhr3
Consoles and PCs take turns being "dead".

If the PC is "dead" it means consoles are at their top of performance. If
consoles are "dead" it means the current console generation is getting old and
in a few years new consoles will appear, their hardware artificially low
priced because manufacturers expect to make more money from licensing.

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Tiktaalik
I don't agree with the article's conclusions, but it offers a good look at the
challenges facing the console industry.

At this point it's simply too early to write off the consoles. Sales are in a
slump, but we're obviously at the end of the current generation, and exciting
new stuff is yet to be announced. It's important to recognize that the
hardware out there is from 2005.

If the next slate of hardware comes out without addressing any of the issues
brought up in this article then they'll certainly be in trouble, but even
Nintendo's Wii U, a product from a company with a history of being extremely
conservative, is pushing things forward with interesting social networking
ideas that I haven't seen elsewhere. I fully expect the next Microsoft and
Sony hardware will introduce new ideas that will also keep them relevant.

