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[HerjansEagleFeeder]

We know what enough is for Nintendo? Microsoft?

Nope. Do you?

 

[tronied]

I found a comment by John Linneman (Eurogamer) really interesting. He's not suggesting that this is what they're going to do, but they could make the next Xbox compatible with PC games. Since Windows is in-house, they'd create a streamlined version and provide a nice interface (like Steam OS). They'd provide games through a traditional Store / PC Game Pass, but could allow apps to be installed or provide support for things like Steam. This would then allow them to leverage not just their own games, but also the rest of the PC marketplace. Through maybe a customised version of DirectX, it could tells games that they're running on an Xbox and tailor settings and their experiences accordingly. Given where the industry is heading, I've definitely heard of crazier things but I really think this one shows genuine promise. Of course, I hate to say it but I don't have enough faith in Microsoft currently to execute this well enough to reach this goal. Still, they could always surprise me

 

[Fabieter]

Consoles will remain until gaming PC are affordable to the masses. Which isn't going to be any time soon.

Even then consoles will evolve into something else

They will be just an app in 15 years. There is no reason for hardware to exist if the only advantage of said hardware is the price. At that point kill the hardware and make it streaming only.

 

[DeepEnigma]

At that point kill the hardware and make it streaming only.

They'll force a lot of us to touch grass in our twilight years. Nice.

 

[Fabieter]

They'll force a lot of us to touch grass in our twilight years. Nice.

I mean for profitability its also the only way to stop piracy.

 

[Topher]

The next gen consoles will be the final high end consoles from both. Growth is flatlined.

Why do you believe that lack of growth means the market for consoles no longer exists? And it doesn't make sense to lump in "both" when cleary PlayStation has much more of sustainable market than Xbox.

microsoft wins no? PC belongs to them

If that were the case then they wouldn't have to sell their games on Steam.

 

[Hohenheim]

Nothing is dying, but the industry is changing. Like it's always done.
As for the consoles, it seems to be very little growth - but the marked share that prefer to play videogames on a console is obviously still a huge part, even though it's not growing.
But like always in this industry: it's all doom and gloom and rainy days for many enthusiasts.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Why do you believe that lack of growth means the market for consoles no longer exists? And it doesn't make sense to lump in "both" when cleary PlayStation has much more of sustainable market than Xbox.

Especially when only 1 out of the 3 is actually in the negative growth for consoles.

 

[ManaByte]

Why do you believe that lack of growth means the market for consoles no longer exists? And it doesn't make sense to lump in "both" when cleary PlayStation has much more of sustainable market than Xbox.

There’s a ceiling of the number of people who will pay $500 for a plastic box to play games on. Growth is flat because we’ve been at that ceiling for a decade now. Unless companies make more modest budget AA games like Helldivers, the current industry trajectory of $300M games is not sustainable with the available audience for the consoles. That’s why everyone is looking at streaming and PC now to recoup development costs.

 

[Spirit Icana]

Hahhaha!!!! I actually read the article. The first line is a bit deceiving. He largely evaluates what has happened the last few years, and he acknowledges what Nintendo has done with software that is dependent on hardware that couldn't be as easily duplicated on a phone or PC. The opinion piece doesn't really commit to any declaration.

 

[DeepEnigma]

There’s a ceiling of the number of people who will pay $500 for a plastic box to play games on. Growth is flat because we’ve been at that ceiling for a decade now. Unless companies make more modest budget AA games like Helldivers, the current industry trajectory of $300M games is not sustainable with the available audience for the consoles. That’s why everyone is looking at streaming and PC now to recoup development costs.

The boxes are still a main driver for all their services and software. Do they want to expand, sure, growth is business 101, but without said boxes, say goodbye to most if not all AAA investment. There's a reason nobody dares make AAA single player exclusives for the PC or any other platform not a console.

 

[SmokedMeat]

The receipts are all there.

 

[Topher]

There’s a ceiling of the number of people who will pay $500 for a plastic box to play games on. Growth is flat because we’ve been at that ceiling for a decade now. Unless companies make more modest budget AA games like Helldivers, the current industry trajectory of $300M games is not sustainable with the available audience for the consoles. That’s why everyone is looking at streaming and PC now to recoup development costs.

Yeah.....but you are still not explaining how the console market evaporates to nothing simply because there is a ceiling. And you just provided the solution to the problem: expansion. Expanding to new markets doesn't make the existing market go away. They will coexist.

Especially when only 1 out of the 3 is actually in the negative growth for consoles.

 

[Zathalus]

the userbase has expanded significantly. All the kids are playing on their switch and playstations nowadays. PS has over 100 million monthly active users.

What they have lost are the casuals from the Wii era who bought the Wii and realized gaming wasnt for senior citizens, girls and housewives. That wii craze help add around 70 million users who will never play video games. If you remove those 70 million and re-run the numbers, you will see that the console userbase has increased.

Everyone from nintendo, sony and MS are posting record revenues. You dont get that just from subs and microtransactions from Fortnite which btw is mostly being played by the younger generation proving that kids do love playing video games and are going to continue help this industry grow.

Yet the amount actually buying the consoles have not risen since the PS2 days. As for revenue, subs, DLC, and microtransactions make up the far majority of the revenue increases.

 

[Mr Moose]

The boxes are still a main driver for all their services and software. Do they want to expand, sure, growth is business 101, but without said boxes, say goodbye to most if not all AAA investment. There's a reason nobody dares make AAA single player exclusives for the PC or any other platform not a console.

If the consoles are not involved there is no Witcher 3 as it is, we can lay it out that simply. We just cannot afford it, because consoles allow us to go higher in terms of the possible or achievable sales; have a higher budget for the game, and invest it all into developing this huge, gigantic world.

 

[DeepEnigma]

The receipts are all there.

Instead of gaslighting, what are you seeing in this opinion piece that the poster below is not seeing?

Explain, please. Curious.

Hahhaha!!!! I actually read the article. The first line is a bit deceiving. He largely evaluates what has happened the last few years, and he acknowledges what Nintendo has done with software that is dependent on hardware that couldn't be as easily duplicated on a phone or PC. The opinion piece doesn't really commit to any declaration.

 

[daclynk]

but Nintendo has that all figured out and they are

 

[OverHeat]

I welcome 160$ games from now on.

 

[cash_longfellow]

It doesn’t mean anything. Console players are still going to buy consoles. Sure a small amount might shift to PC, but I think the majority of players play where they want to play right now, and availability of software on other systems isn’t going to have a large impact on the console space at all.

 

[Crayon]

MS. So brave leading the way.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Instead of gaslighting, what are you seeing in this opinion piece that the poster below is not seeing?

Step outside the opinion piece and look at the headlines.

The job losses. The need to push for more multi-platform releases. The unsustainable growing AAA budgets. No console growth.

It’s been everywhere. This guy’s just doing a piece on it.

Personally I hope someone disrupts the market in a big way. We need a good shakeup for the overall health of the industry.

I think this push for everything to be bigger and more powerful is just going to continue to send the AAA industry off a cliff.

 

[Elios83]

Don't see consoles going anywhere, the only brand truly struggling is Xbox.
There are definetly business challenges that will require different approaches.
What Sony has been doing is pretty balanced, Helldivers 2 is the perfect example of the diversification they need to achieve to improve growth.
Also as Nintendo demonstrated you can pretty much reinvent yourself without giving up on consoles.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Written by a Nintendo fanboy.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Step outside the opinion piece and look at the headlines.

The job losses. The need to push for more multi-platform releases. The unsustainable growing AAA budgets. No console growth.

It’s been everywhere. This guy’s just doing a piece on it.

Personally I hope someone disrupts the market in a big way. We need a good shakeup for the overall health of the industry.

I think this push for everything to be bigger and more powerful is just going to continue to send the AAA industry off a cliff.

This is happening in every industry outside of weapons manufacturing tax dollar laundering.

There is nothing in this actual piece that correlates to any of this. What do you think will happen to the industry with a hypothetical, "all consoles by Nintendo are doomed," which they're not.

 

[SmokedMeat]

This is happening in every industry outside of weapons manufacturing tax dollar laundering.

There is nothing in this actual piece that correlates to any of this. What do you think will happen to the industry with a hypothetical, "all consoles by Nintendo are doomed," which they're not.

I don’t think they’re doomed. But I do think there needs to be big changes, which we are seeing.
What’s certain is that the old way of doing things doesn’t work anymore.

I also think Sony needs to back off this notion that everything needs to be a blockbuster budget.

 

[Topher]

I don’t think they’re doomed. But I do think there needs to be big changes, which we are seeing.
What’s certain is that the old way of doing things doesn’t work anymore.

Yeah......I agree with that, but somehow putting the end of the console as the solution to those problems. That just is not the case.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don’t think they’re doomed. But I do think there needs to be big changes, which we are seeing.
What’s certain is that the old way of doing things doesn’t work anymore.

And that is where the context of the opinion piece fails at.

 

[TransTrender]

Chris Dring

 

[hinch7]

Consoles aren't going anywhere. Such a daft take from a industry 'journalist'. There's so much more competition on PC that Sony and MS has to contend with rather than on their own platforms.

Until there's no demand for consoles (don't see that happening any time soon) there will be new hardware.

 

[Three]

Step outside the opinion piece and look at the headlines.

The job losses. The need to push for more multi-platform releases. The unsustainable growing AAA budgets. No console growth.

It’s been everywhere. This guy’s just doing a piece on it.

Personally I hope someone disrupts the market in a big way. We need a good shakeup for the overall health of the industry.

I think this push for everything to be bigger and more powerful is just going to continue to send the AAA industry off a cliff.

That isn't about consoles l though. None of the headlines were about consoles except maybe the recent xbox headlines. A lot of job losses were on multiplatform games coming to PC and even mobile. Budgets ballooning are about multiplatform games coming to PC and console. Why paint the industry problems and talking points on consoles specifically? The console ceiling has also not grown for close to 20yrs already and that spanned multiple generations.

 

[OverHeat]

just raise the price of games…we need aaa gaming

 

[graywolf323]

Yeah.....but you are still not explaining how the console market evaporates to nothing simply because there is a ceiling. And you just provided the solution to the problem: expansion. Expanding to new markets doesn't make the existing market go away. They will coexist.

exactly, I mean Sony has never sold as many consoles as they did during the PS2 generation yet we’re here on the PS5 and suddenly despite the fact they’re on track for yet another 100+ million console they‘re going to quit?

 

[DeepEnigma]

That isn't about consoles l though. None of the headlines were about consoles except maybe the recent xbox headlines. A lot of job losses were on multiplatform games coming to PC and even mobile. Budgets ballooning are about multiplatform games coming to PC and console. Why paint the industry problems and talking points on consoles specifically? The console ceiling has also not grown for close to 20yrs already and that spanned multiple generations.

 

[WitchHunter]

Video game consoles are doomed… right? | Opinion

Console gaming is dying. If you've been in this business for more than 15 years, you've probably heard a sentence like …

www.gamesindustry.biz

What an article about nothing. They don't give you any insight, any data, just some predigested, then regurgitated shit you should somehow consume, but since it holds nothing of value it is devoid of calories.

 

[WitchHunter]

Watch out, GN is ex MS... ... ... Could be MS's sleeper agent.

 

[Topher]

just raise the price of games…we need aaa gaming

What's that got to do with consoles "dying"?

 

[OverHeat]

What's that got to do with consoles "dying"?

Console won’t die if they raise the price of there products and stop selling hardware at lost

 

[Seyken]

Step outside the opinion piece and look at the headlines.

The job losses. The need to push for more multi-platform releases. The unsustainable growing AAA budgets. No console growth.

It’s been everywhere. This guy’s just doing a piece on it.

Personally I hope someone disrupts the market in a big way. We need a good shakeup for the overall health of the industry.

I think this push for everything to be bigger and more powerful is just going to continue to send the AAA industry off a cliff.

It already happened and we got a lot of it from Insomniac's leaks. Indies and lower budgeted games together with digital distribution have already disrupted the industry. Making a game with a colossal budget is not enough to guarantee sales anymore, since you are not fighting for shelf space in a physical store and making games is more accessible than ever, so you see big publishers getting their asses handed to them by much smaller companies with a fraction of the budget.

The old way of thinking that if you throw enough money at it you can buy your way to good sales numbers is dying.

We have the latest example of this in Helldivers 2. Who could have expected that game to surpass Halo, Destiny 2, Starfield before it launched? You don't think that's disrupting?

Japan and Asia overall have also been thriving ever since the PS4 because they realized that this infinite push towards better and better graphics is unsustainable. Just make a game with good art direction and MOST IMPORTANT, gameplay and the sales will be there. It's some of the occident studios that have yet to get the memo and pivot.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

"Console gaming is dying".

Annnnnnd I stopped there.

Thnx for tl;dr

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Nope. Do you?

Did I claim to?

You singled out Sony, hence my question.

 

[lughnasadh123]

I do wonder how things would have worked out if it was for Covid and all the hell that snowballed from that. Even as the most basic level you can easily see the mentality of why should I spend 500 bucks (or more!) to get a console with limited exclusive when so much already plays on my PS4? PS5Pro/GTA VI will completely wreck that and we'll see numbers hit closer to what their targets should have been.

 

[Punished Miku]

Console won’t die if they raise the price of there products and stop selling hardware at lost

Consoles have multiple downsides compared to PC, but they have 2 advantages. Low cost, streamlined ease of use. They're already going to put most games on PC now, so getting rid of low cost consoles eliminates one of their only remaining advantages and just hastens their decline.

 

[Topher]

Console won’t die if they raise the price of there products and stop selling hardware at lost

Consoles won't die as long as there is enough demand for consoles. You are right that there be continued adjustments to pricing to maintain proftiability. But the logic in this thread seems to be that console manufacturer's are going to leap frog any solutions in that regard and just decide to turn off the light and close the doors on a console market that is 170 million strong without a second thought and leave all those potential customers scratching their heads. I don't get it.

 

[Neofire]

"Console gaming is dying".

Annnnnnd I stopped there.

Yup sounds like another "all games should be on PC" acolyte, after reading that nonsense.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Only way I see consoles dying anytime soon is if streaming and general internet infrastructure improves to the point that the people who buy consoles for GTA and Fifa only abandon consoles for an even cheaper entry point.

 

[Topher]

Only way I see consoles dying anytime soon is if streaming and general internet infrastructure improves to the point that the people who buy consoles for GTA and Fifa only abandon consoles for an even cheaper entry point.

Agree. Between infrastructure and lack of worldwide data center coverage, I don't think streaming will be where it needs to be in 10 years when the gen after next starts.

 

[Fabieter]

Console won’t die if they raise the price of there products and stop selling hardware at lost

Thats half the reason they exist in the first place.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

didn't read but i bet i have a better take that this buffon.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Console won’t die if they raise the price of there products and stop selling hardware at lost

But they're not dying, only 1 is retracting at a more rapid rate.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

What an article about nothing. They don't give you any insight, any data, just some predigested, then regurgitated shit you should somehow consume, but since it holds nothing of value it is devoid of calories.

You do know that you don't have to quote the OP to share your thoughts on this opinion piece, right?

Just post a regular reply like 99% of the posters do.