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[farnham]

I disagree that it was very obvious that the wii would be as succesful as it has been.

I dont know.. The DS was the hot shit back then and Wii was following pretty much the same strategy.. I think a lot of people said that the Wii will see similar success to the DS.. (in the end it didnt because the DS dominated the market a lot more then the Wii did.. but still)

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Back in 05/06, I thought it was at least obvious that the Wii was going to be a huge success in Japan, seeing as how the DS was becoming the primary platform for just about everything, and the PS3 was priced to fail as of E3 06.

I assumed that Western devs/consumers would not give up their traditional shooters/racers/sports/action/online games unless you pried them from their cold, dead fingers - this was correct to an extent, the market is largely split (1/2 HD, 1/2 Wii), and developers have completely abandoned the platform only 3 years after launch.

 

[Taurus]

Source?

http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php?p=19625436&postcount=90

 

[Stumpokapow]

I don't get point 2 though? Who says Sony/MS aren't making any money from the game market? Sure it's not as much as Nintendo, but come on.

well microsoft has managed to lose around six billion dollars since entering the market and sony has lost so much money on the ps3 that they've literally erased all the profits they made from the ps2 and ps1 so i think you might need to justify why you believe the statement is worthy of a "come on"

 

[Flachmatuch]

There were more people like this (like Maelstrom hehe), with an even more accurate view of the Wii, but you're completely right in that the industry's problems were not very difficult to predict. A lot of what actually happened was very predictable. Third parties fucked up by structuring their processes around HD development, yeah, but it was quite obvious that just relying on doing the same shit with higher production values would not work forever. It's not magic or anything. They both refused to change and also proved themselves completely, utterly unable to change.

Thing is, a lot of the industry seems to be incredibly homogenous today. Everyone's doing the exact same shit. Of course this means everyone's making the same mistakes and noone really sees farther than their nose. That's imo an issue with how people are selected and promoted in the gaming industry, just like it's a problem in *any other* industry btw, and it has a lot to do with industries being led more by "political" type competition (alliances, mergers, money etc) than real market competition.

And this is my pet peeve:

Nintendo needs to pursue this path further by allowing new companies to join the experimentation stage.

This is super wrong. This is not Nintendo's (or any single company's) task, a competitive market is actually responsible for this. It's completely illogical to expect any company to "help" others. Their task is to maximise their own profits, and they can spend their resources a lot more efficiently to achieve this than helping others. Companies actually will use any means to compete against this (as they should, as long as the means are legal) . It's market rules and regulations that should allow new companies to "join this stage" and earn their money, it should not depend on the goodwill or competence of any single company.

 

[The Technomancer]

Great article, but innovation is a fairly subjective term, the success or failure being decided by money and thus demand.

Nintendo has done very well when it innovates, no one can deny that, but if you flip a coin 100 times and it comes up heads every time that doesn't mean you won't get tails with the last one.

They aren't bullet proof, you take enough big risks for long enough and eventually you lose.

Case in point, the Virtual Boy.
And I'm honestly worried about where Nintendo can go next gen in terms of innovation. Its clear now that motion controls are where its at, but the next step there seems to be Natal, and if Nintendo makes their own version, now they're the ones doing the refinement. Is there yet another paradigm shift they could institute?

 

[AceBandage]

Case in point, the Virtual Boy.
And I'm honestly worried about where Nintendo can go next gen in terms of innovation. Its clear now that motion controls are where its at, but the next step there seems to be Natal, and if Nintendo makes their own version, now they're the ones doing the refinement. Is there yet another paradigm shift they could institute?

Honestly, Natal isn't the next big step for all of gaming.
It's very limited and not at all as user friendly as the Wii Remote.
I'd say the next big step would kind of where Nintendo is going with the Vitality sensor, but connected to many more points on a person's body. Using your body's reaction to the game as a bases for what happens on screen.

 

[Crash Station]

There's no such thing as the "casual market", they're simply normal people.

I guess I should've said the industry's infatuation/hatred of the "casual market". Whether it exists or not, a good majority of the industry and even Gaf seems to think it's important/ruining gaming.

 

[AceBandage]

I guess I should've said the industry's infatuation/hatred of the "casual market". Whether it exists or not, a good majority of the industry and even Gaf seems to think it exists.

It exists in the mind of elitists and changes constantly.
Just 6 years ago, the casual market were the people buying up GTA and Halo in droves.

 

[The Technomancer]

It exists in the mind of elitists and changes constantly.
Just 6 years ago, the casual market were the people buying up GTA and Halo in droves.

Can we please not let this thread degenerate like all of the others recently? Yes, you have a point, but it could easily devolve into the same, tired rants about the industry.

 

[AceBandage]

Can we please not let this thread degenerate like all of the others recently? Yes, you have a point, but it could easily devolve into the same, tired rants about the industry.

Isn't that what every Wii third party thread is anyway?
I mean, that's all it boils down too, regardless of the original point.
The industry is screwed up and in need of some kind of change, but everyone is so adverse to it that they'll snarl and claw at anything that threatens their hobby.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

There were more people like this (like Maelstrom hehe), with an even more accurate view of the Wii, but you're completely right in that the industry's problems were not very difficult to predict. A lot of what actually happened was very predictable. Third parties fucked up by structuring their processes around HD development, yeah, but it was quite obvious that just relying on doing the same shit with higher production values would not work forever. It's not magic or anything. They both refused to change and also proved themselves completely, utterly unable to change.

In light of the recent financial reports, I'm pretty curious as to what companies are still genuinely hemorrhaging money these days as a result of their HD transgressions?

Making money:
Sony
MS
Ubisoft
THQ
Sega
Activision
Square-Enix
Capcom
Bethesda
Konami

Losing money:
EA
Take 2
Namco

And of those companies, how many are making noticeably worse games than last generation?

As the generation wears on, I think we'll find that many devs suffered simply for supporting the PS3/360 so universally when they were $399-$599. As time has passed and the hardware prices have dropped, the number of successes has grown substantially.

 

[leroy hacker]

This is super wrong. This is not Nintendo's (or any single company's) task, a competitive market is actually responsible for this. It's completely illogical to expect any company to "help" others. Their task is to maximise their own profits, and they can spend their resources a lot more efficiently to achieve this than helping others. Companies actually will use any means to compete against this (as they should, as long as the means are legal) . It's market rules and regulations that should allow new companies to "join this stage" and earn their money, it should not depend on the goodwill or competence of any single company.

I agree with most things that you write but I don't think you are correct here. If the Wii software market were truly free in the sense that anyone could release any game without any interaction with Nintendo, you'd be right that he is calling for Nintendo to provide unreasonable help, but that isn't how it works so I have to disagree with your criticism of his point. Companies can only release games if Nintendo approves them as developers and sells them dev kits and approves the individual games. He is not speaking of helping smaller companies so much as simply letting them enter the market.

In my opinion Nintendo has done very well in this regard by making dev kits available cheaply and making the rules for developer and game approval very lenient, but they could have done better by having more dev kits for indies available earlier and, as I said above, by having made the Wiiware market both available earlier and better designed. Creating a better marketplace where existing retailer and distributor relationships were irrelevant would not be "helping" any individual company but would have made it much easier for smaller companies to play a role in the market.

Now, I suppose there is a fundamental question of whether it is in Nintendo's interest for the Wii software market to be more competitive and efficient, but in my opinion the answer is obviously yes.

 

[Deku]

here's my problem with the model that exists today, and seems ready to perpetuate itself into the next generation because of overwhelming hardcore suppot.

It's easy to buy affection of anyone, however momentarily by throwing money at them. But when the spigot is tightened and the business side kicks it, and it will have to kick in eventually for Microsoft, what sort of screw job will we get?

Will Microsoft require a monopoly to make the kind of returns they require? and how is that good for gamers?

And if gaming is to be used as a money losing pawn for some corporations plans to dominate the proverbial 'living room' why is it good for gaming, when what it leaves in its wake is an unsustainable model of doing business.

 

[Lonely1]

In light of the recent financial reports, I'm pretty curious as to what companies are still genuinely hemorrhaging money these days as a result of their HD transgressions?

Making money:
Sony
MS
Ubisoft
THQ
Sega
Activision
Square-Enix
Capcom
Bethesda
Konami

Losing money:
EA
Take 2
Namco

And of those companies, how many are making noticeably worse games than last generation?

With their modest "profits", Sony and prob MS will never recover their losses. I don't see how can someone argue that the Ps3 was a profitable venture. And those 5+ millions sells for Mario&Sonic sure helped Sega.

 

[Flachmatuch]

Sony and MS have lost about $4-5bn this gen so far. Activision is making money because of Blizzard and MW2, that's not really a super stable position for one of the large companies. And overall, the whole industry, even counting Nintendo's profits is in the red (at least last time I saw the earnings reports thread). No idea how anyone could argue that everything (anything) is all right

 

[manueldelalas]

Case in point, the Virtual Boy.
And I'm honestly worried about where Nintendo can go next gen in terms of innovation. Its clear now that motion controls are where its at, but the next step there seems to be Natal, and if Nintendo makes their own version, now they're the ones doing the refinement. Is there yet another paradigm shift they could institute?

I've always seen Natal more of a curious UI controller than a gaming input, and I think it will be pretty useless. I haven't seen anything from Natal that impresses me (except for the number of articles that praises it, which is pretty confusing, then again, there are a lot of articles saying Avatar is a good movie :lol).

Also the Virtual Boy was never the new Nintendo console from Japan. It was always an experiment, made in NA, that was supposed to link the SNES with the N64 (to help the wait, etc).

 

[Mayor Haggar]

Someone give that man Pachter's job.

 

[Flachmatuch]

I agree with most things that you write but I don't think you are correct here. If the Wii software market were truly free in the sense that anyone could release any game without any interaction with Nintendo, you'd be right that he is calling for Nintendo to provide help, but that isn't how it works so I have to disagree with your criticism of his point. Companies can only release games if Nintendo approves them as developers and sells them dev kits and approves the individual games. He is not speaking of helping smaller companies so much as simply letting them enter the market.

In my opinion Nintendo has done very well in this regard by making dev kits available cheaply and making the rules for developer and game approval very lenient, but they could have done better by having more dev kits for indies available earlier and, as I said above, by having made the Wiiware market both available earlier and better designed. Creating a better marketplace where existing retailer and distributor relationships were irrelevant would not be "helping" any individual company but would have made it much easier for smaller companies to play a role in the market.

I'm not saying that they couldn't help, my point is that relying on them to help is wrong. If the market is structured in a way that needs first party help, it's a bit fucked up imo. If Nintendo or anyone else is hindering competition, it's a market structure issue which means the market requires some kind of regulation, imo. The point is (which is also quite obvious) that having an open, competitive market cannot depend on the good intentions of a large company, the whole idea is quite silly imo.

Now, I suppose there is a fundamental question of whether it is in Nintendo's interest for the Wii software market to be more competitive and efficient, but in my opinion the answer is obviously yes.

But you can't do everything that might be in your interest. They have limited resources they can use more efficiently, and of course they may just be missing the point and wrong. A market shouldn't rely on a single company not making a mistake (that btw isn't obviously respected in their bottom line)

 

[beelzebozo]

the part about companies who are likely to care (nintendo, ea) is almost frightening in how accurately it predicts who will have success on the system and who won't.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

With their modest "profits", Sony and prob MS will never recover their losses. I don't see how can someone argue that the Ps3 was a profitable venture. And those 5+ millions sells for Mario&Sonic sure helped Sega.

MS is on pace to make nearly a billion dollars in this fiscal year from the 360. They don't have to recover their losses. Going forward, the gaming division is (for now) a profitable endeavor, making the previous Xbox, the 360 launch, the RROD fiasco a sunk cost to make the company larger and more successful now.

Sony as a company bet everything on the penetration of Blu Ray. They won, they company didn't sink, and now they're back making money again.

Will Microsoft require a monopoly to make the kind of returns they require? and how is that good for gamers?

And if gaming is to be used as a money losing pawn for some corporations plans to dominate the proverbial 'living room' why is it good for gaming, when what it leaves in its wake is an unsustainable model of doing business.

That they're profiting now with just 40 million sold (with only half of that being active LIVE members) renders your first question moot.

To an extent, we've already seen what happens when MS is interested purely in profit over marketshare - they remained completely uncompetitive on price in 2009, and turned to a software solution for Natal to avoid taking a loss.

What's good for gaming is that more good games continue to be made - at least, that's my opinion as a consumer. Forcing developers to work on hardware they hate is only good for Nintendo and Nintendo hardware owners, not "gaming" in the general sense.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

In light of the recent financial reports, I'm pretty curious as to what companies are still genuinely hemorrhaging money these days as a result of their HD transgressions?

Making money:
Sony
MS
Ubisoft
THQ
Sega
Activision
Square-Enix
Capcom
Bethesda
Konami

I haven't looked at all of these individually, but you should be careful that you're not just looking at the holiday quarter. Sony for instance posted a $210 million profit for the 2009 holiday quarter, but the previous 2 quarters showed a combined loss of $1066 million.

Clarification - I'm looking at the profitability of their gaming sectors.

 

[Version 3.0]

I see a lot of wrong things in this article.

I see a lot of things wrong with this article, too, but I'm also not willing to elaborate.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I haven't looked at all of these individually, but you should be careful that you're not just looking at the holiday quarter. Sony for instance posted a $210 million profit for the 2009 holiday quarter, but the previous 2 quarters showed a combined loss of $1066 million.

Of course I was just looking at a current snapshot, but it's hard to look back knowing how much the landscape has changed in the last 3 months - especially in Japan and North America - since the PS3 launched a $299 SKU that doesn't cause them to eat a fortune on every unit.

 

[beelzebozo]

I see a lot of things wrong with this article, too, but I'm also not willing to elaborate.

i don't like the font.

 

[Flachmatuch]

MS is on pace to make nearly a billion dollars in this fiscal year from the 360. They don't have to recover their losses. Going forward, the gaming division is (for now) a profitable endeavor, making the previous Xbox, the 360 launch, the RROD fiasco a sunk cost to make the company larger and more successful now.

Sony as a company bet everything on the penetration of Blu Ray. They won, they company didn't sink, and now they're back making money again.

Love this kind of economics. MS bought their success with about $6bn which they might make back in five or ten years; Sony have mostly wasted all their PS1 and PS2 profits, but it's all right because they make money in this year?

That they're profiting now with just 40 million sold (with only half of that being active LIVE members) renders your first question moot.

To an extent, we've already seen what happens when MS is interested purely in profit over marketshare - they remained completely uncompetitive on price in 2009, and turned to a software solution for Natal to avoid taking a loss.

What's good for gaming is that more good games continue to be made - at least, that's my opinion as a consumer.

The only reasonably "objective" way to decide what's "good for gaming" is how well the market's doing, not hardcore gamers' opinions.

Forcing developers to work on hardware they hate is only good for Nintendo and Nintendo hardware owners, not "gaming" in the general sense.

Errr, bullshit. Developers should work on whatever makes money (which might not be Nintendo btw, I'm not really sure). It's a job ffs. It's not developer preferences that decides what works, but the market.

 

[Celine]

Yeah, Daniel Cook is one of those people who really understand this industry (and he worked on Tyrian! How could you not just love the guy?).

I also remember his great series of articles on game genre lifecycles from that period, it's definitely a recommended read (an introductory article of sorts can be found here).

Yeah the guy articles are really worthy read.
He wrote an article on Gamasutra about game genre lifecycles. link
Didn't know he worked on Tyrian although I know the game only because the GBC and GBA version were canned.

 

[AceBandage]

Love this kind of economics. MS bought their success with about $6bn which they might make back in five or ten years; Sony have mostly wasted all their PS1 and PS2 profits, but it's all right because they make money in this year?





Errr, bullshit. Developers should work on whatever makes money (which might not be Nintendo btw, I'm not really sure). It's a job ffs. It's not developer preferences that decides what works, but the market.

Too bad most developers are fanboys, which is why we such a girth of dudebro games that really don't do anything for the majority of us.

 

[Flachmatuch]

Too bad most developers are fanboys, which is why we such a girth of dudebro games that really don't do anything for the majority of us.

Well there's nothing wrong with being a fanboy imo, the problem is that the industry seems to select only these people I think this has to do with the industry being overly focused on more general technology (graphics, physics) and not their actual use in games, which is actually understandable, but gaming's a lot more than technology now. Technology (like IT) people for example used to hold way too much power in lots of other industries too, but were reigned in, it just seems more difficult to do in gaming (because it does rely a lot more on technology).

 

[DNF]

Too bad most developers are fanboys, which is why we such a girth of dudebro games that really don't do anything for the majority of us.

As someone has mentioned in an other thread, every time fanboys (i don't know if it is the correct word, he meant people who grew up spending their time with this medium as kid and are now employed in this industry) are the decision-makers (and acting still as a fan and make decisions based on that) in the companies instead of managers, the industry take a big hit. He mentioned that the same happened with comic books and the anime industry. i haven't the knowledge of neither of these 3 industries to say if it is 100% true, but it sounded like an observation that makes sense.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Also the Virtual Boy was never the new Nintendo console from Japan. It was always an experiment, made in NA, that was supposed to link the SNES with the N64 (to help the wait, etc).

This is some good historical revisionism. I guess this is what we would be saying about the Nintendo DS if it was a failure? :lol

Nintendo and risk and innovation is an interesting topic. They are probably the most wildly innovative companies out there, and they are able to experiment so much because I think they have a culture that experimentation is ok and failure is ok. That the Virtual Boy was released is a bit of an anomaly, as it seems that previous experiments were kept internal for an extreme length of time until they were ready. The recent Iwata asks interview on the Motion Plus team details that a bit. Motion Plus could have been pushed out the door but it just wasn't ready yet.

 

[Celine]

Speaking of prophetic articles I remember reading Chris Crawford articles ( written in early '90) a couple of years ago and finding some of them really great.
Should be those two I think but maybe there are others worthy:

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_9/Games_are_Dead.html
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_5/Computer_Games_Versus.html

Here is the complete index:
http://www.erasmatazz.com/Library.html

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

Wow. Amazing article. So well written and logically thought out.

Yeah it wasn't 100% spot on, but fuck me it was close.

It's quite true that Nintendo's success HAS been good for Sony and Microsoft, because in many cases, casual gamers can and DO become 'core' gamers and can eventually convert.

Might explain why Sony and Microsoft don't take too many jabs at Nintendo, and more at each other. They're probably smart enough to realise Nintendo did them a favour.

 

[Raist]

I know, it's barely positive about Sony at all. I'm surprised you can hold yourself back.

:lol that's a new one.

Let's just take the first "central philosophy"

* The increasingly hardcore nature of the game industry is causing a contraction of the industry.

The game industry was never "increasingly hardcore" before the Wii, nor was it contracting.

 

[BishopLamont]

I guess I should've said the industry's infatuation/hatred of the "casual market". Whether it exists or not, a good majority of the industry and even Gaf seems to think it's important/ruining gaming.

Of course the casual market exists, only the platforms of choice for this market changed, one which excludes your typical HD gamer's game. It wouldn't be such a big deal if only a few gamers thought that way but sadly many developers/companies have the exact same mindset, that is when it becomes a problem.

The game industry was never "increasingly hardcore" before the Wii, nor was it contracting.

Stagnant would be more fitting, but increasingly more expensive to make games.

 

[sadaiyappan]

His article reminds me of the book, "Blue Ocean Strategy." He sort of ties together blue ocean strategy with product life cycle.

 

[KamenSenshi]

Apple changed the music industry, not by making the first MP3 or MP3 player, but by making a simple to use, attractive piece of hardware with great marketing. Companies were able to recognize what Apple was doing and capitalize on it quickly.
Frankly, any company that was upset with what Nintendo was doing/has done, has only themselves to blame. You can keep doing things the old ways or adapt and excel.

but this is the problem with the games industry isn't it? at least as far as nintendo is concerned, they dont like what they think the wii stands for. so they ignore it and do things the old way on the other systems. instead of adapting they are mad at nintendo and constantly blame the wii/wii consumers when the only people to blame are themeselves.

 

[gerg]

The game industry was never "increasingly hardcore" before the Wii, nor was it contracting.

In a sense, I agree; in another sense, I don't.

On the one hand, it has always been true that the gaming industry has been supported by a disproportionately large number of casual gamers, irrespective of their certain demographics. However, that being said, I think it is undeniable that the gaming industry was, at some point in time, headed in the direction whereby it would become "increasingly hardcore", and it would subsequently contract. Whether or not Microsoft and Sony are now going to attempt to avoid this, on account of what has happened with the 360 and the PS3, is a matter of debate.

 

[ReyBrujo]

I still recommend the Lost Garden article to everyone who thinks how the industry works. Wonderful article, and I remember the site going down when Digg/Slashdot/Penny-Arcade and others linked to it ^_^

 

[Night_Trekker]

This is some good historical revisionism. I guess this is what we would be saying about the Nintendo DS if it was a failure? :lol

We would, because the DS was positioned as a "third pillar" until its meteoric success, which Nintendo themselves didn't see coming. After that they decided to retire the "Game Boy" brand, but not before.

I am not defending the VB comment you were responding to, by the way. I think Nintendo views any new, risky venture as... new and risky, and I think they generally have back-up plans.

Might explain why Sony and Microsoft don't take too many jabs at Nintendo, and more at each other. They're probably smart enough to realise Nintendo did them a favour.

They know at this point they aren't coming in in first place (and everybody else knows it too), so there's no strategic reason to take jabs at them.

They're also hitching their buggies to motion controls, and so it wouldn't be smart to poopoo them or the wildly successful company that has made them the next big thing.

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

I disagree with your disagreement. The second I saw the revolution controller, the first thing in my mind wasn't "this is going to be a fad", it was "Nintendo will win the next generation". It wasn't blind fanboyism that lead me to that conclusion. Hell, the PS2 was and still is my favorite console. I just knew the mainstream market would eat it up.

What I didn't predict was the birth of the casual market. That threw me off guard.

That makes no sense.

So you thought Nintendo would win WITHOUT the casual market, but the mainstream would eat it up?

My brain hurts.

People didn't really notice the decline of the arcade racing games after Gran Turismo hit the genre upside the head because every game, even arcadey games, scrambled to imitate GT's features and car collecting theme. However, genuinely arcade games were absorbed into the quasi-simulation style until there were for a number of years no significant arcade racers. What hardcore racing fans failed to see or acknowledge the significance of though, is that the Gran Turismoid games turned a huge number of people off. They just stopped playing racing games.

It wasn't until Burnout began to get really popular that there was once again an alternative for lapsed racing fans. And over the next few years, arcade racing games began to make a big comeback. For many folks though, that comeback was disguised since games had generally absorbed some Turismoid traits (such as car collecting and a pantheon of licensed real world cars). To people who had given up on racing games however, it was blazingly clear that arcade racers were experiencing a resurgence in a new form.

Totally. Gran turismo made me COMPLETELY stop playing racing games for a long time.

The exception was Rallisport 2. Still the best racing game of the last decade. I really want TRUE arcade racers to come back.

You jump in, pick from one of maybe 10 cars, try and come first, unlock some shit, done.

 

[RurouniZel]

As someone has mentioned in an other thread, every time fanboys (i don't know if it is the correct word, he meant people who grew up spending their time with this medium as kid and are now employed in this industry) are the decision-makers (and acting still as a fan and make decisions based on that) in the companies instead of managers, the industry take a big hit. He mentioned that the same happened with comic books and the anime industry. i haven't the knowledge of neither of these 3 industries to say if it is 100% true, but it sounded like an observation that makes sense.

That was me actually. I'll try to find that post but since they disabled the search function it'll take a while... ^^

EDIT: Here we go. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19514226&postcount=620

Here's my opinion on the subject, and I'll try to make it as short and sweet as possible.

In the 80s and early 90s, the vast majority of 3rd party videogame developers were run mostly by professionals who were doing a job and trying to make money in the most efficient manner possible (i.e. appeal to certain demographics, userbase, licences, budget etc.)

In the late 90s-today, the vast majority of 3rd party videogame developers are run mostly by professional fanboys who are doing what they want to do and live to create their dream game on the most powerful hardware despite userbase numbers or concessions to broaden appeal, despite the fact that it runs against most common logic.

Really, the results were predictable. Let fanboys take over any market and watch as it proceeds to never expand beyond the occasional one-hit wonder (see American comics, anime, and now videogames).

At least we have Nintendo.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Love this kind of economics. MS bought their success with about $6bn which they might make back in five or ten years; Sony have mostly wasted all their PS1 and PS2 profits, but it's all right because they make money in this year?

If MS makes 10 billion over the next 15 years in their gaming division, what does it matter in the end?

The only reasonably "objective" way to decide what's "good for gaming" is how well the market's doing, not hardcore gamers' opinions.

That's a rather cynical viewpoint. I'd like to think, as a consumer, that the industry exists soley to produce and distribute consumable content. If the recording industry collapsed, people would still make and consume music, just less conveniently so. If all of the major publishers collapsed, Nintendo, Valve, Bungie, Blizzard, Epic, Bethesda, and many others would still survive putting their games on watches if they had to.

As long as games are being made that people want to play, the industry is healthy IMO.

Errr, bullshit. Developers should work on whatever makes money (which might not be Nintendo btw, I'm not really sure). It's a job ffs. It's not developer preferences that decides what works, but the market.

Again, completely cycnical. Didn't GAF just have a thread about how cash-ins were bad?

 

[gerg]

That's a rather cynical viewpoint. I'd like to think, as a consumer, that the industry exists soley to produce and distribute consumable content. If the recording industry collapsed, people would still make and consume music, just less conveniently so. If all of the major publishers collapsed, Nintendo, Valve, Bungie, Blizzard, Epic, Bethesda, and many others would still survive putting their games on watches if they had to.

As long as games are being made that people want to play, the industry is healthy IMO.

By this logic if someone produces a single game that people want to play, then the industry is healthy.

 

[Gozan]

I think this post was picked up by joystiq and turned into a story. Once I had read it, I registered for an account here.

Yeah, me too!

 

[RurouniZel]

If MS makes 10 billion over the next 15 years in their gaming division, what does it matter in the end?

The flaw with this logic is that it's assuming a LOT. Like this is just going to keep going no matter what, even if new machines that sell for a loss are introduced.

That's a rather cynical viewpoint. I'd like to think, as a consumer, that the industry exists soley to produce and distribute consumable content. If the recording industry collapsed, people would still make and consume music, just less conveniently so. If all of the major publishers collapsed, Nintendo, Valve, Bungie, Blizzard, Epic, Bethesda, and many others would still survive putting their games on watches if they had to.

There's a difference between cynical and realistic, many here can't seem to tell the difference it seems. The reality of the matter is that a business model that relies on one bigger company helping out every other company to make THEM successful is a faulty premise to begin with. Companies have the responsibility to be able to stand up on their own first and foremost.

As long as games are being made that people want to play, the industry is healthy IMO.

That's like saying that so long as I'm not in a coma, I'm perfectly healthy. A person can slowly get sicker and sicker over time, you know.

Again, completely cycnical. Didn't GAF just have a thread about how cash-ins were bad?

Cash ins are bad in the sense that they're typically not of quality. However, companies finding good ways to make money is not bad for their bottom line, which is what most 3rd parties seem to be having problems with these days.

 

[Duckhuntdog]

The notion of genre life cycles is utter hogwash.


Looking back my hat, the market is far too young to establish anything but cursory trends.

I disagree. Look at the fighting game genre. Huge in the 90s-and early 2000 all but niche now. Or the scrolling shooter- Huge in the late 80's to early 90's, all but dead or niche.

I believe that it is possible for genre's to have life cycles and hit points of stagnation. That said, I also believe that a genre can come back given innovation and accessibility. The problem is that as an industry, we don't look to revive and update genres that are in lulls to make them fresh and accessible, partly in fear of upsetting the niche followers, and partly our innate fear to innovate overall unless someone else does, so we have a model to copy, follow, and extend.

I think SFIV while big, could have been huge if Capcom would have made it more accessible. Yes it would have brought the niche followers into an uproar, but sometimes you have to "upset the tea table" as Anouma would say. The niche will whine and complain, but by re-energizing a tired genre, they will be all the better.

 

[donny2112]

I remember this. Lapsed + early Malstrom (Wiikly) + this = memories, bannings and tears.

Yeah, I remember it, too. First mention I saw of "genre kings," and it made a lot of sense.

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

I think SFIV while big, could have been huge if Capcom would have made it more accessible.

You think they could have made Street Fighter 4 MORE accessible?

Would this new game have still been Street Fighter 4?

I mean, part of what MADE Street Fighter 4 was it's accessibility to new players. It's fighting system seemed balanced enough for MOST where a button masher/jump kicker could pull off a victory here and there, but the frame counters will still mop the floor with everyone.

Then again, Virtua Fighter 5 has that same balance down pat, arguable even MORE so than Street Fighter 4, and yet Virtua Fighter 5 is as niche as you're gonna get.

So Street Fighter 4 is as big as that game was EVER going to get.

 

[Boss Man]

I think mine was more prophetic - keep in mind that this was written before Wii's controller was even shown - we know absolutely nothing about the device:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53465

Wow.