21st Century Video Game Crash?

[Jamisonia]

I don't see the dedicated console model lasting much longer. I also do not think Sony will remain in the race for much longer. Sony is a company that needs a major restructuring and a total realignment of priorities. They need to refocus on the areas they are capable of doing best in. I'd really like to know of PlayStation has turned an overall profit for Sony. I mean from the inception of R&D for SNES CD through today.

[SirPsycho]

Eh, we're entering a new generation. Things change then anyway.

I think the only reason it feels so "status quo" right now is because the current generation has been really prolonged.

I would say it also feels so status quo not so much because this generation, but because there have been the same 3 companies at the top since 2001 when the Xbox launched and Microsoft entered the race.

Its been 12 years and there's been no major shakeup of who's a major player, that has never happened before in the video game world. Within 12 years of most console releases the company that released them exits the market with a hail of apathy from most.

[AppleQueso]

I don't see the dedicated console model lasting much longer. I also do not think Sony will remain in the race for much longer. Sony is a company that needs a major restructuring and a total realignment of priorities. They need to refocus on the areas they are capable of doing best in. I'd really like to know of PlayStation has turned an overall profit for Sony. I mean from the inception of R&D for SNES CD through today.

In some ways the dedicated console is already out. Pretty much every console out there right now has multimedia capabilities, and I don't see that stopping one bit.

The whole consoles = Smart TV thing people like to bring up I don't see happening at all. How many people do you think will really be on board with the idea of having to buy an entire new TV just to play the latest games?

[AppliCotton]

It's often forgotten that in 1983, for the most part, the thrill of playing video games that very, very roughly resembled arcade games on your home television was so mindblowing, we took crap games in stride. Conversely, the NES, with its unique market position, was home to more garbage than any other system.

People say Nintendo ended the video game crisis, but they fail to nail the reason. It wasn't like "wow, Super Mario Bros. is an awesome game, maybe this isn't a fad!" There were plenty of amazing arcade cabinets, but that could do little to stop the fairly rapid decline of arcades in the US around the same time. Nintendo used all sorts of shady measures (many later found to be illegal) to create a dedicated user base, it's "Power Network", which it in turn managed so well that still today you have sizable swaths of the gaming community that swear by it purely for the sake of nostalgia. That's what guaranteed profitability and, as a result, good games that Nintendo could easily ensure people knew about and that people (kids) were willing to spend $50 on (in 1988; I believe that comes to approximately a gazillion 2013 dollars). Look at Europe, on the other hand, half the "gems" on the Commodore 64 are utterly unplayable to those of us raised on Contra and Final Fantasy, but there was this openness which balanced that out (daily "game broadcasts" on radio stations that people would tape and pop in their machines, for one). No boom, but, most importantly, no crash.

If PC gaming is looking mighty strong right now it's because the internet naturally favors the (initial) European model of relatively open, relatively cheap, and ultimately maybe not as flashy. The only surefire way to lock value in is to keep it proprietary, which Nintendo continues to be (tolerably, e.g. the Wii U specs) good at doing, a large part of which stems from the property itself. The cycle that began after 1983 has basically run out; whether the next gens succeed or fail will ultimately depend on how well the companies succeed in selling (at a premium, of course) an identity to gamers that goes above and beyond the games themselves. Like what Nintendo did, but it would have to be all the more cool in light of all the cheap alternatives, which will only become more plentiful and better.

It would be quite revolutionary if they could pull it off, and in the end it may come down to innovative or even disruptive marketing.

By the way, I'm just some dude who thinks a lot about video games, I can't back any of this up with links to Gamasutra or anything. I enjoyed reading your thoughts, maybe you'll enjoy reading mine.

[Menegrothx]

If PC gaming is looking mighty strong right now it's because the internet naturally favors the (initial) European model of relatively open, relatively cheap, and ultimately maybe not as flashy.

PC? Looking mighty strong? Because there are whopping 2 major PC gaming companies left in the US; Valve and Blizzard. Which was the last major PC exclusive big budget single player game? Crysis from 2007?

I think the only reason it feels so "status quo" right now is because the current generation has been really prolonged.

No, it feels "status quo" also because of the impenetrable Microsoft-Sony-Nintendo trio in the console hardware.

[Jmustang1968]

If PC gaming is looking mighty strong right now it's because the internet naturally favors the (initial) European model of relatively open, relatively cheap, and ultimately maybe not as flashy.

PC? Looking mighty strong? Because there are whopping 2 major PC gaming companies left in the US; Valve and Blizzard. Which was the last major PC exclusive big budget single player game? Crysis from 2007?

I think the only reason it feels so "status quo" right now is because the current generation has been really prolonged.

No, it feels "status quo" also because of the impenetrable Microsoft-Sony-Nintendo trio in the console hardware.

PC is strong right now. You put too much value into platform exclusives. And why the arbitrary single player game mention as if that has any relation to strength of pc as a gaming platform.

[SirPsycho]

If PC gaming is looking mighty strong right now it's because the internet naturally favors the (initial) European model of relatively open, relatively cheap, and ultimately maybe not as flashy.

PC? Looking mighty strong? Because there are whopping 2 major PC gaming companies left in the US; Valve and Blizzard. Which was the last major PC exclusive big budget single player game? Crysis from 2007?

I think the only reason it feels so "status quo" right now is because the current generation has been really prolonged.

No, it feels "status quo" also because of the impenetrable Microsoft-Sony-Nintendo trio in the console hardware.

PC is strong right now. You put too much valur into platform exclusives. And why the arbitrary single player game mention as if that has any relation to strength of pc as a gaming platform.

PC is an absolute BEAST right now for indie games. Say what you will about Steam but Valve has really helped the little guys out and even though there are only a couple real major players from the indie PC scene they are able to easily get their games noticed by a lot of people very quickly with Kickstarter, Steam, and basic SEO.

Today's game market is about much more than just the AAA games, and if that's all that somebody focuses on then they're really narrowing their view.

I also agree with Menegrothx's status quo sentiment, I went into some detail about it above these really recent posts.

I'm reading all of these and I'm happy to see all this discussion! Makes me feel successful as a writer.

[Menegrothx]

I thought about mentioning indy games in my post at first. Yes, the indie scene is booming. There's also competitive gaming (mostly the big name RTS games), MMORPGs and the niche market (grand strategy, simulation etc). But PC isn't a viable platform for mid/big budget singleplayer games anymore. Mighty developers&publishers, Sierra, Origin systems, Westwood studios, Microprose and Looking Glass to name a few, have fallen. John Romero and Richard Garriot are working on Facebook games nowadays. Those companies were the Capcom, Square, Atlus, Rare (etc) of the PC world. They made succesful games with (at the time) good production values for PC exclusively. Some games did get ported to consoles later on, but the important part is that they weren't designed to be multiplatform games: graphics were as good as the latest cutting edge computers could handle, not as good as the 3-4 year old console hardware would allow. And far, far more importantly games were designed for keyboard and mouse rather than gamepads of the time, which allowed more complex games and different playstyles (point&click adventure, RTS, fast paced shooters etc).

These days many multiplatform games are available for PC, 360 and PS3. The PC version might look better and be a bit cheaper (although there are a lot of really bad PC ports these days), but it's essentially the same game as the 360/PS3 version. These games don't utilize the strengths of the PC platform. During the 1990s the PC gaming world and console gaming world were two quite different spheres of gaming. Sure there was a lot of overlap with popular games and genres, but the market was more diverse as there were both console exclusives and PC exclusives that were very different from each other. And consoles themselves seemed to have more unique libraries with more exclusives than today when most games are available both on 360 and PS3 (and Wii or PC if possible, same thing with PS2 and Xbox/Gamecube).

[ApolloBoy]

Oh I hope for the market to crash, I'm sick and tired of this generation and frankly the video game market deserves a good kick in the pants.

[flojocabron]

FEAR BUMP!

Looking at you nintendo!




scary!