Support NeoGAF

[tebunker]

You know you still can't remove the wii from the equation but you can normalize that data. Just how exactly and what standard deviation to use is up in the air.

It is hard to say how much you should discount the wii hardware sales, 30% 50%? I am not sure but I bet that some here can apply a good statistical method to normalize the sales data to use it in an overall comparison. You just can't throw out all of the data to make it fit in your argument. Especially when Sony is saying that a percentage if their buyers are converted wii owners

 

[GoofsterStud]

The Bone has substantively the same software lineup at this point as the PS4. The fact that the PS4 has become the default console for third-party games should be extremely worrying to Microsoft.

No.. The ps4 has had more titles month to month for a while. Also the price drop isn't the reason. It's a good copout.

 

[turnbuckle]

I said the exact same thing, if you bother to read. Feel free to make your own chart with traditional version Wii numbers.

Well, I read what was in Post 3203 and Post 3205

Looking back a page I see you brought up the point but said you can't be bothered to try giving a more reasonable set of charts. That's fine.

You said "Make of that what you will". So I did.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

It's not a sign of disinterest in games. It's a sign of disinterest in traditional home consoles. Mobile and PC is where a significant amount of people are now and it doesn't look like they're coming back anytime soon.

In a world where Tomb Raider barely clawed it's way to profitability with the combination of 360 and PS3 near the end of their life cycle install base plus PC how does that paint a good picture for third parties for PS4 and X1?

Tomb Raider hardly made any money because some companies can't budget and management is total shit .
There are market problems sure but some companies are to blame just as much or more and when they fail it's not the markets fault .
Bishock is another eg of this .

 

[Hero]

the ps2 was designed as something more than just a video game console. it was the start of sony's vision to dominate the living room (otherwise microsoft would have ignored the console market as a hardware maker). as such, it did one really big thing to make it more than just a games player, and that was play dvds at a time when other dvd players were really expensive. a lot of the early appeal to the ps2 was that it was a dvd player, but it was a games player too... so the value proposition was there beyond it being just a games machine.

it was a very mainstream machine from the start, and that's evidenced by the lack of crazy-major sellers for the period leading up to gta iii's release (which is really what defined that generation in terms of software, at least from my perspective).

I also don't see why people act as if the PS2 wasn't casual loaded as well. The PS2 had extreme casual appeal from the start if only for being one of the most affordable DVD players on the market.

 

[Version 3.0]

Well, I read what was in Post 3203 and Post 3205

Looking back a page I see you brought up the point but said you can't be bothered to try giving a more reasonable set of charts. That's fine.

You said "Make of that what you will". So I did.

Can't argue with that.

 

[Plinko]

Yeah, it is pretty clear what this shows. The Wii was definitely a break-thru console that was picked up by many as a new fad. Remember all those stories about retired people buying Wiis and playing Wii Bowling?

Well, that fad ended and we are just back to the standard videogamers. Hopefully somebody will find a new way to cause videogames to break into the broader public. I don't think VR will be it though.

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

 

[DrWong]

So, who can remove one of the twin from the chart and let the Wii in to try to gauge what the real "normal gamer" base is? I mean, let's remove all those double dippers

 

[lightning2k3]

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

We are already seeing a decrease in the number of AAA games and a large number of studio closures. The trend is eventually maybe a few AAA games a year and the rest of the year being padded out by indie games. That's not necessarily a bad industry.

 

[cackhyena]

We are already seeing a decrease in the number of AAA games and a large number of studio closures. The trend is eventually maybe a few AAA games a year and the rest of the year being padded out by indie games. That's not necessarily a bad industry.

Sounds like the kind of industry I'd like.

 

[Version 3.0]

I also don't see why people act as if the PS2 wasn't casual loaded as well. The PS2 had extreme casual appeal from the start if only for being one of the most affordable DVD players on the market.

Every market leading console has had plenty of casuals, all the way back to Pong consoles and the 2600. They come and go individually, but are always there on the whole. And every serious gamer starts as a casual.

But if you don't see that the Wii was a different kind of phenomenon, then sorry, you have blinders on.

 

[Valkyria]

Too many people is too emotionally invested in Nintendo to take a step back and see the bigger picture, and not jump in defence of an "lol Wii" argument that is not on the table here.

 

[Plinko]

Too many people is too emotionally invested in Nintendo to take a step back and see the bigger picture, and not jump in defence of an "lol Wii" argument that is not on the table here.

My argument about astronomically rising budgets and a stagnant MS/Sony consumer base is definitely seeing bigger picture, no?

 

[Chezzymann]

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

Not just that, but its going to be very hard for this generation to sell as many consoles as gen 6 unless the PS4 breaks out and sells far more consoles than the PS3 did. Which I don't think will happen. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if gen 8 sells significantly less consoles than gen 6.

 

[borghe]

In specific instance, sure they did. Overall, clearly not, since the size of the PS3/360 market was just as large as the PS2/Xbox market of the prior gen. And Guitar Hero is a bad example, because plastic guitar games sold fine on the PS3/360 - better than they did on the Wii. I said, and will say again, the Wii in its entirety shouldn't be removed. But most of its sales were out of the ordinary and can't be expected to repeat.

this is a disingenuous comparison as the "just as large" market was 17 combined years vs. 9 years of the other market. aka "more PS360s were sold over 17 combined years than PS2boxes were sold over 9 combined years"

I mean those are just bad metrics.

No, the point of the conversation is the relative health of the traditional console without a market like that to tap into. People have been trying to insinuate that the health of the PS4 and X1 falls in line with expectations when you remove a huge part of the equation. The PS4 even with it's success is not going to make up for the weakness of the other two. It is extremely concerning.

"relative health" being a subjective target. I mean where are you targeting "healthy" vs. "unhealthy"? Would you consider SNES/Genesis numbers as healthy? Anything less than the cumulative total of the PS2 or Wii gens as unhealthy? etc.

Also in this argument AAA publisher behavior absolutely needs to be critically examined if it is being used in a talking point of health. Games like Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies, just to name two off the top of my head, have shown that there are SERIOUS problems in the way the AAA publishers are approaching the market.

I also don't see why people act as if the PS2 wasn't casual loaded as well. The PS2 had extreme casual appeal from the start if only for being one of the most affordable DVD players on the market.

This thread is moving fast, but I made a post just a few moments ago posting exactly this. That the PS2 was absolutely the beginning of the casual growth that the Wii eventually turned into a casual explosion.

 

[Hero]

Every market leading console has had plenty of casuals, all the way back to Pong consoles and the 2600. They come and go individually, but are always there on the whole. And every serious gamer starts as a casual.

But if you don't see that the Wii was a different kind of phenomenon, then sorry, you have blinders on.

The Wii was different in terms of strategy and execution but the results were the same. Why do you think the methodologies call for the data to not be included? Who does your chart help exactly?

 

[gundamkyoukai]

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

Budgets did go up but there also more way to make money DLC , DD etc etc.
Still we are going to get less AAA games but that is to be expected when you can make 1 game and milk it yearly for rest of the gen .

 

[Phades]

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

It is true, we aren't "back" to normal. What normal is, is just being interpreted differently. From the reaction of many developers, it appears on the surface though, that whales can support anything. As such, they are all going harpooning in varied degrees now and will continue to do so in order to draw those whale's attention in various ways.

 

[Draft]

Are these correct numbers? And perhaps already posted (searched, but did not find anything)? If I've screwed up, feel free to strangle me with my own hair cut:

https://twitter.com/thuway/status/478909148415807490

PS4- 197k
3DS- 97k
Xbox One- 77k
Wii U- 61k
360- 57k
PSV- 56k
PS3- 36k
Wii- 11k

He got them behind a closed door at E3.

 

[AniHawk]

Too many people is too emotionally invested in Nintendo to take a step back and see the bigger picture, and not jump in defence of an "lol Wii" argument that is not on the table here.

i think you're misreading people's arguments to a fairly insulting degree.

 

[Ilúvatar]

MLB at #3 is surprising. And I guess every WiiU owner bought Mario Kart 8?

 

[Version 3.0]

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

Budgets are the publishers concern. Neither you nor I tell them how much to spend. If they want to make a game on a PS2-level budget, they can. What was Minecraft's budget? Look how many games are being kickstarted. There's no reason a big publisher can't greenlight a game on a similar budget. All 3 consoles have online stores that sell everything down to games made by single individuals.

The only thing "normal" that we're back to (maybe) is market size, measured in hardware sold. Instead of dropping tens of millions into a budget and then hoping the market will grow, maybe the starting point should be gauging the market size and then budgeting accordingly.

 

[Tobor]

We are already seeing a decrease in the number of AAA games and a large number of studio closures. The trend is eventually maybe a few AAA games a year and the rest of the year being padded out by indie games. That's not necessarily a bad industry.

Exactly. This is where the industry was headed regardless. The AAA studio closures of last gen were going to happen regardless of the Wii, and the casual market who bought PS2's were going to depart for mobile regardless of the Wii.

The Wii was an anomaly.

 

[Plinko]

Budgets are the publishers concern. Neither you nor I tell them how much to spend. If they want to make a game on a PS2-level budget, they can. What was Minecraft's budget? Look how many games are being kickstarted. There's no reason a big publisher can't greenlight a game on a similar budget. All 3 consoles have online stores that sell everything down to games made by single individuals.

The only thing "normal" that we're back to (maybe) is market size, measured in hardware sold. Instead of dropping tens of millions into a budget and then hoping the market will grow, maybe the starting point should be gauging the market size and then budgeting accordingly.

I agree completely, yet have no faith in the industry to move back toward this model.

 

[small44]

Every market leading console has had plenty of casuals, all the way back to Pong consoles and the 2600. They come and go individually, but are always there on the whole. And every serious gamer starts as a casual.

But if you don't see that the Wii was a different kind of phenomenon, then sorry, you have blinders on.

Casual definition has changed some consider Call of duty a casual games for me Casual games are games like Cookmama and Nintendo dogs.
Call of duty gamers will always stay on consoles.

 

[Opiate]

Wii was the pet rock of consoles.

It really wasn't. The Wii audience is still around, the consoles just lost them. Unfortunately, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo seem incapable of recapturing the interest of these consumers.

 

[Version 3.0]

The Wii was different in terms of strategy and execution but the results were the same. Why do you think the methodologies call for the data to not be included? Who does your chart help exactly?

The results were not the same. The Wii is the fastest-selling console of all time, and also had the shortest life of any console with a remotely comparable degree of success.

Who does my chart help? People crying doom because the Wii's success is not being replicated. It won't be, obviously, but that doesn't mean the entire industry is doomed - or even Nintendo.

 

[Opiate]

Exactly. This is where the industry was headed regardless. The AAA studio closures of last gen were going to happen regardless of the Wii, and the casual market who bought PS2's were going to depart for mobile regardless of the Wii.

The Wii was an anomaly.

This is just so silly. Obviously the problems the industry is facing could have been avoided, and clearly the Wii is not an anomaly, as the people who bought the Wii are still around still buying games; they're just not doing it on consoles any longer.

 

[donny2112]

Once again, yeah, I said that. Feel free to do it, I don't feel like it.

I feel that's a good compromise instead of removing it entirely, yeah, so okay!

 

[borghe]

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

hate to be a wet blanket on your state of the industry fire, but your point here is a much bigger condemnation on AAA publisher practices than actual industry health.

also, as those publishers are going bankrupt (and obviously they are), new developers are coming into those schedules.. yes they are indies.. but we've already determined that the AAA COD/AssCreed/Batman/etc model isn't maintainable in any environment short of a casual explosion. So you have to deal with that... and IMHO those pubs are taking the absolute wrong approach in dealing with that. Hell we've already seen UBI straight up say they'd rather see a few 5M sale franchises a year than dozens of <1M titles per year.

This is just so silly. Obviously the problems the industry is facing could have been avoided, and clearly the Wii is not an anomaly, as the people who bought the Wii are still around still buying games; they're just not doing it on consoles any longer.

I think it's disingenuous to paint the mobile and console markets as the same right now. particularly because the "gamers" that you are referring to moved to mobile not just for their gaming fix, but likewise for the snapchats, vines, etc that the platform hosts as well. i.e. they were never gamers attracted by gaming, but an outlying audience being entertained by a flavor of the moment.

 

[Shaanyboi]

really wish we could get individual sku numbers for Watch Dogs.

 

[Majmun]

The Wii was different in terms of strategy and execution but the results were the same. Why do you think the methodologies call for the data to not be included? Who does your chart help exactly?

The people who claim that console gaming is dying?

So many people still claim that console gaming is dying because we aren't currently seeing Wii number of sales.

The charts just shows that the Wii was an exception and definitely not the rule.

 

[Opiate]

The results were not the same. The Wii is the fastest-selling console of all time, and also had the shortest life of any console with a remotely comparable degree of success.

Who does my chart help? People crying doom because the Wii's success is not being replicated. It won't be, obviously, but that doesn't mean the entire industry is doomed - or even Nintendo.

Absolutely, it's a little bit of both. It suggests there is a solid core of console users who are still around, while simultaneously showing that basically all the growth the console industry has seen for the last decade+ has all been stolen away and lost to other market segments in gaming.

I think both sides are taking from this what they want and ignoring the other part of the equation.

 

[Lemondish]

it also points to why these manufacturers are narrowing their audience onto the ones that spend the most money by making more dlc than ever, increasing the price of software, and locking them into paywall plans. they're going for depth, but they should be going for breadth.

With how badly DLC is looked upon around these parts I feel its necessary to at least point out the one benefit it has. Simply put, it puts developers to work. With how tumultuous this industry is with regards to job security, DLC at least provides work for those who would otherwise be laid off at the end of a project.

 

[lightning2k3]

It really wasn't. The Wii audience is still around, the consoles just lost them. Unfortunately, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo seem incapable of recapturing the interest of these consumers.

Well, when you are a dedicated piece of $400 hardware with $30+ games, its hard to compete with hardware already in everyone's pocket and free or 99 cent games. To be fair though the mobile gaming market itself has a lot of issues. The 99 cent or free mentality has really devalued software in the eyes of the consumer and its really hard to sell any decent software to make a living. Instead you just get crappy flappy bird clones from people who hope to get lucky and hit it big.

 

[Version 3.0]

I agree completely, yet have no faith in the industry to move back toward this model.

Neither do I, but I don't worry about it. As long as there's money to be made, publishers will keep making games, many of them overspending to do it. I feel sorry for their employees, though.

 

[Freeman]

I feel that's a good compromise instead of removing it entirely, yeah, so okay!

To me this also shows that last gen lasted to long without ever reducing the hardware price properly.

PS3 sabotaged the whole generation with its poor hardware choice and din't provide enough competition to lower prices.

PS4 and Xbox One should drop price much quicker, they are closer to direct competitors of PC now and share much of the same technology.

 

[Biker19]

Aquamarine, I really do appreciate what you do in these threads. Thank you.

I agree. She's definitely one of my favorite posters.

 

[Opiate]

Well, when you are a dedicated piece of $400 hardware with $30+ games, its hard to compete with hardware already in everyone's pocket and free or 99 cent games. To be fair though the mobile gaming market itself has a lot of issues. The 99 cent or free mentality has really devalued software in the eyes of the consumer and its really hard to sell any decent software to make a living. Instead you just get crappy flappy bird clones from people who hope to get lucky and hit it big.

Absolutely, the mobile market is not some perfect panacea that generates money for every person who tries.

Further, mobile isn't the only growth market we're looking at here (although it is definitely the most prominent). PC Gaming has been growing hugely as well, and mostly in non-traditional means; social gaming, gambling, and casual portals like Facebook have all been on the rise.

 

[shinra-bansho]

the ps2 was designed as something more than just a video game console. it was the start of sony's vision to dominate the living room (otherwise microsoft would have ignored the console market as a hardware maker). as such, it did one really big thing to make it more than just a games player, and that was play dvds at a time when other dvd players were really expensive. a lot of the early appeal to the ps2 was that it was a dvd player, but it was a games player too... so the value proposition was there beyond it being just a games machine.

it was a very mainstream machine from the start, and that's evidenced by the lack of crazy-major sellers for the period leading up to gta iii's release (which is really what defined that generation in terms of software, at least from my perspective).

The PS1 played music CDs, towards the end of its life the system could also play movies of some format from memory. The idea of consoles being more than just games machines and rather entertainment hubs had begun in earnest already. And the idea that the reason the PS2 managed to sell being because it was a DVD player that also played games, rather than as a game console first and foremost seems somewhat revisionist. The system was where Final Fantasy would go. And Metal Gear would go. It was where Gran Turismo, which at the time was more significant than it is now, would go. There wasn't bizarre talk of it's CPU being some sort of nuclear missile risk because the system could play DVDs. And people didn't defer from buying the Dreamcast because they wanted to watch movies. And it's initial demographic focus, and that of the software on it, doesn't particularly strike as different to that of the current systems - young males.

The 360 and PS3 followed the same modus operandi, providing a central entertainment box, with one doing it well and one doing it at a crazystupid price. The PS4 and XBO are again doing the same thing.

Conversely, the Wii from it's outset was focused on audience expansion rather than fighting for the traditional market. It brought a new, accessible, simply and intuitive way of playing games that resonated with people beyond the young male market. It had software that wasn't specifically designed towards those consumers, and in fact was specifically aimed at other markets, again from the very outset. It sold abnormally well, abnormally fast, and the software that sold well on it tended to be titles that appealed to a different audience base. It also saw decline abnormally fast. It wasn't a "traditional console" and its rapid expansion and collapse don't lend well to interpretation of the health of the fundamental or traditional underlying market for console games.

 

[BigDug13]

I think people are brushing this off as, "Well, just the Wii was lightning in a bottle and now we're back to normal."

Well, we're NOT back to normal. Why? Look at the insane amount of money being budgeted for games nowadays compared to each previous generation. If the same audience stays stagnant and doesn't grow, the industry is bound to crash. No way it can sustain at that level.

If publishers and developers aren't able to be agile enough as a company to scale back game development to properly handle a contracted market, then they deserve to fail. If they honestly went into this generation counting on 260 million consumers as the Wii+PS3+360 numbers suggested, then they deserve to fail.

 

[Hero]

The results were not the same. The Wii is the fastest-selling console of all time, and also had the shortest life of any console with a remotely comparable degree of success.

Who does my chart help? People crying doom because the Wii's success is not being replicated. It won't be, obviously, but that doesn't mean the entire industry is doomed - or even Nintendo.

I never said it was doomed but with 7 months of data of the PS4 and X1 combined with the failure of the Wii U it is concerning enough to discuss.

 

[Version 3.0]

I feel that's a good compromise instead of removing it entirely, yeah, so okay!

Very nice! Let's get a couple more years on there, and hopefully it'll look like a nice, stable, viable industry...even though on closer inspection it's always been barely structured chaos.

 

[Chezzymann]

What I think is really happening here is that the video game console market is on its way to transitioning back from being a huge, major mainstream business to more of a niche thing like it was in the early 90's. I wouldn't be surprised if there is never a generation that sells over 200 million consoles again.

 

[nextgeneration]

Chiming in on the Aquamarine love. Thank you for all your posts.

 

[lightning2k3]

Absolutely, the mobile market is not some perfect panacea that generates money for every person who tries.

Further, mobile isn't the only growth market we're looking at here (although it is definitely the most prominent). PC Gaming has been growing hugely as well, and mostly in non-traditional means; social gaming, gambling, and casual portals like Facebook have all been on the rise.

The biggest issue that consoles face these days is that the barrier to entry is still too high. If PS3 can get down to maybe 150 and release some software for <20 bucks, you might see a lot of casual people pick one up for the bluray player. However, the cell architecture is really holding it back in that regard.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

It really wasn't. The Wii audience is still around, the consoles just lost them. Unfortunately, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo seem incapable of recapturing the interest of these consumers.

Truth is there was nothing MS or Sony could have done to get back some of them.
Grandma and certain demographics was never going buy back another console when they never bought one before .
MS try and they almost lost the core , Nintendo saw it happen and try to get back the core .
Sony will do the usual and try when there PS4 get cheaper but the also expanding with theirs steaming service .

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

On this note I'm kind of wondering when the 4DS is showing up. This E3 was pretty sparse for new game announcements, and they're the kind of niche titles we often see near the end of the cycle instead of the banner hardware drivers.

Like, I feel they should really try to avoid having almost no first party games for 1-2 years before launching the next handheld for similar reasons, even if the third party market is notably healthier on the 3DS than the Wii U.

I think next year 4DS is gonna be announced at E3, the downfall of 3DS sales is too evident and Nintendo can't let themselves to lost even more marketshare in the portable space. They killed prematurely the GBA, and I think they'll do it again seeing as iPhone and Android are a bigger danger than PSP at the time....

Also no significant release in the next months means YTD for 3DS can be potentially dreadful. Nintendo can't give mobile too much leisure...

 

[Exokell]

So Mario kart sold 300,000 plus copies. Isn't that bad? Even Wii u owners aren't buying games.

 

[Silas]

No.. The ps4 has had more titles month to month for a while. Also the price drop isn't the reason. It's a good copout.

Only if you count retread PC indie titles. Microsoft's abysmal launch has somehow made it easy for Sony to convince their customers that the their weak library of games so far is somehow better than the what the XB1 has.

That weak library also helped convince many that Second Son was much better than it really was. I mean, it was finally a legitimate string title so that people could stop pretending that Knack and Killzone were any good.