Mat Piscatella: No, the console market isn't doomed

Excuse Me What GIF by Bounce
 
hyperbertha said:
The market isnt growing mat. You can cf25 turbo boost all you want.
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You can't have infinite growth for everything
For example Call of Duty sales are driven by dudes in their 30s 40s that were playing when they were kids and now they can spend more on microtransactions
 
Doomed? No. Shrinking, in terms of consoles sold? Most likely.

If price drops were easier to achieve that might not be the case, but they aren't. Nor do we have reason to think that will change next gen.

However, in terms of revenue consoles are doing very well.
 
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I remember reading articles about how whichever console would be the last one years ago. This has been going on for quite some time now, usually timed right before the release of a new console generation. However, we're currently in another resurgence even while console sales keep steadily trucking along. It's somewhat interesting to watch as it seems to stem from some sort of wish-fulfillment angle (since it's certainly not factual).
 
When half your userbase is on the previous generation console 4 years in... yeah you have a problem.

Especially when even people with the new generation consoles are playing old gen games.
 
It's fairly obvious what's going on.

Playstation and Nintendo (and Steam) are doing fine, Xbox is failing.
Truth Lying GIF by Tangina Stone

Everyone stop trying to pretend it's anything more than that.

Gaming isn't going anywhere, with or without Xbox.

Simultaneously there is a correction going on from inflated markets during Covid.
 
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Yes, thank you for stating the obvious years late and with less rigor than forum posters, Mat. You're analysis is sooo helpful and instructive.
 
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Woopah said:
He provides numbers to people who pay.

Mat is seeing increased console sales from the release of College Football.
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His bosses told him he couldn't freely post numbers anymore, so instead he posts these weird scraps of data and percentages because he likes the social media clout. And he is always acting like a giant baby and deleting posts and blocking people.
 
Bernoulli said:
You can't have infinite growth for everything
For example Call of Duty sales are driven by dudes in their 30s 40s that were playing when they were kids and now they can spend more on microtransactions
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Yeah, the idea that growth needs to be a constant is so weird. I get that no one wants to lose money, but making a hefty profit should be fine regardless of how much more you are making than you were previously.

But then I'm not a greedy investor expecting to reap the rewards of doing literally nothing.
 
S0ULZB0URNE said:
It's pretty bleak for a certain fanbase console so they peddle the narrative that all consoles are in trouble.
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Sometimes people who are failing thinking dragging down people who are successful makes them less of a failure.

This is just the gaming version of that same concept.

What they don't get is that outlook (or mindstate) is partially why they're failing.
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BennyBlanco said:
His bosses told him he couldn't freely post numbers anymore, so instead he posts these weird scraps of data and percentages because he likes the social media clout. And he is always acting like a giant baby and deleting posts and blocking people.
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I do wish we'd get the all NPD reports like we used to, but Mat is still a good source of information and is pretty good at answering questions.
 
Three said:
I assume that the only reason it was even mentioned by Mat is because Series S saw a surge in the US due to College Football 25.
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I would say the dooming comes more from all the layoffs we're seeing and the console declines from Sony's and Nintendo's reports. Mat doesn't agree with doom.
 
rabbity-thing said:
Yeah, the idea that growth needs to be a constant is so weird. I get that no one wants to lose money, but making a hefty profit should be fine regardless of how much more you are making than you were previously.

But then I'm not a greedy investor expecting to reap the rewards of doing literally nothing.
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Hasn't the game industry grown pretty much every single year since 1995? If the market is growing then you should expect to be growing alongside it at the same rate at the least. If you're not (like MS that is operating at the level they were 15 years ago) you are by definition falling behind.

That's on a high level, it's not going to happen every year, but that is the expectation and goal at a minimum.
 
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The problem is the long ass dev cycles for games.

Just because the hardware is more powerful doesn't mean you can't produce games within a shorter dev cycle, its just Devs tend to focus on the wrong things that rarely matters in the end product. This is why Nintendo is dominating, because they found that perfect balance of great gameplay and artstyle.

More Devs need to be creative in their artstyle, so they can better manage their dev cycles. I mean, look how many games we seen these past two generations that looked great, but lacked in gameplay, way too many if you ask me.
 
The problem is that outside US, PS5 is doing worse, likely due to high prices.

And Xbox is dead besides NA and UK for the most part.

Switch is the only thing putting up decent numbers. Yes, it is combining both console and handheld sales, but it's still doing fine as compared to gens other than the Wii/DS one.
 
It's obvious, but a certain group of people said the console market was dying after poor hardware sales.
 
Woopah said:
Maybe Xbox but not PlayStation or Switch, they are both selling well in the US.
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Sells and " magic " are not the same. Consoles use to have identities. Something that made them special. You can look at any game up until the Xbox 360 and say ... that's a snes game .. that's a genesis game. .. that's a pc engine game .. that's a ps2 game.. etc.

Not any more.
 
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RoboFu said:
Sells and " magic " are not the same. Consoles use to have identities. Something that made them special. You can look at any game up until the Xbox 360 and say ... that's a snes game .. that's a genesis game. .. that's a pc engine game .. that's a ps2 game.. etc.

Not any more.
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That's mostly down to diminishing returns on technology.
asdasdasdbb said:
People are buying PS5s to play... PS4 F2P/GAAS games.
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Partly, but also to play Spiderman 2, GOW: Ragnarok, Hogwarts Legacy, Helldivers 2 etc. etc.
 
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