Consoles are dying slideshow

Interesting slide show from GDC.

http://kotaku.com/5892836/the-best-26+minute-argument-that-game-consoles-are-dying

26 minutes?

Games on consoles are slideshows.

26 minutes?

freedomfreak

Yup...very in-depth discussion.

Games on consoles are slideshows.

Jankarcop

Meh.

PRetty interesting stuff. I'd recommend more people watch it

Meh.

DeadMan1290

The guy has another really interesting slide show regarding Battlefield Heroes and the F2P model. What was really interesting was when he went into comparing player forum reaction vs real world statistics taken from his own game. Some of it hilarious...he shows a guy who wrote a REALLY nasty letter and saying he would never buy anything...then showed how that very same player actually became a very good customer. That's a different discussion, though :P

Games on consoles are slideshows.

Jankarcop

Bazinga.

Bookmarked this earlier. Considering the source, a grain of salt would be wise, but sounds interesting nonetheless.

I looked through it, and the creater doesn't seem to recognize that numbers starting going down in 2008 when the great worldwide recession occurred.

[QUOTE="DeadMan1290"]

Meh.

Jankarcop

What's the problem?

Interesting slide show from GDC.

http://kotaku.com/5892836/the-best-26+minute-argument-that-game-consoles-are-dying

Renevent42

An interesting arguement for sure. I'm not sure I completely buy it, although I do agree that console gaming is going to shrink dramatically once the "mainstream" appeal inevitably wears out. I have long argued that when Sony brought console gaming mainstream, and attracting that casual audience who only cared about graphics, shooters and Madden, they would eventually get bored and move on to something else because they are posers and never real gamers in the first place. So they will move on to, as the slideshow says, cheap or free impulse games like angry birds.

I personally see this as a great thing. I long for the "good ol' days" when console gaming was pretty much supported by people who actually CARED about playing games and having fun...not just worrying about graphics and showing off to your 13 year old friends. I think the jump to mainstream has led to decreased innovation in GAMES, as the big corporate guys started swallowing up smaller devs and either killing original ideas or milking them until they crashed into the ground.

The thing is it is incorrect to say consoles are "dying". I think console will be around for some time yet just like, as the slideshow shows, movies are still around because movies still offer a certain experience that appeals to people. And I don't think anybody in the movie business is complaining about the lack of money coming in. There is always room for both products, I think. I love console games for the graphics and story and open worlds,etc, but I also enjoy playing Angry Birds or Triple Town for a few minutes when I'm bored but don't have time (or access) to boot up a real game.

[QUOTE="Renevent42"]

Interesting slide show from GDC.

http://kotaku.com/5892836/the-best-26+minute-argument-that-game-consoles-are-dying

ZIMdoom

An interesting arguement for sure. I'm not sure I completely buy it, although I do agree that console gaming is going to shrink dramatically once the "mainstream" appeal inevitably wears out. I have long argued that when Sony brought console gaming mainstream, and attracting that casual audience who only cared about graphics, shooters and Madden, they would eventually get bored and move on to something else because they are posers and never real gamers in the first place. So they will move on to, as the slideshow says, cheap or free impulse games like angry birds.

I personally see this as a great thing. I long for the "good ol' days" when console gaming was pretty much supported by people who actually CARED about playing games and having fun...not just worrying about graphics and showing off to your 13 year old friends. I think the jump to mainstream has led to decreased innovation in GAMES, as the big corporate guys started swallowing up smaller devs and either killing original ideas or milking them until they crashed into the ground.

The thing is it is incorrect to say consoles are "dying". I think console will be around for some time yet just like, as the slideshow shows, movies are still around because movies still offer a certain experience that appeals to people. And I don't think anybody in the movie business is complaining about the lack of money coming in. There is always room for both products, I think. I love console games for the graphics and story and open worlds,etc, but I also enjoy playing Angry Birds or Triple Town for a few minutes when I'm bored but don't have time (or access) to boot up a real game.

Just to be clear, he actually goes over what he means by "dying"...he definitely doesn't mean that consoles will completely die and nobody will use them again. Anyways nice comments I think I can agree with some of what you said.Renevent42

Ah. Cool. I didn't have time to watch the full 26 minutes so I skimmed.

Tim Cook holds the future of gaming in his hands.... If the future of gaming rests in Apple's hands then console gaming really IS dead.

So where are all the gamers going?pc won't happen nor will tablets.

Ben has 3 Cousins.

at 6:09 he mentions Pachter and loses all credibility in my eyes. I'll continue to listen but that's my first major commentary on this.

at 6:09 he mentions Pachter and loses all credibility in my eyes. I'll continue to listen but that's my first major commentary on this.

vtoshkatur

..

full of crap.

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

vtoshkatur

It seems like every day, another facet of gaming is dying.

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

vtoshkatur

[QUOTE="vtoshkatur"]

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

Renevent42

It makes a huge difference, you're an idiot if you think otherwise. For example my Skyrim mod has a total of over 5000 downloads (Sounds pretty impressive especially for someones first mod) but it only has 900 "unique downloads". Someone re downloading angry birds 10 times shouldn't be counted as 10 "sales" or "downloads"

[QUOTE="Jankarcop"]

Games on consoles are slideshows.

freedomfreak

same here :P

[QUOTE="Renevent42"][QUOTE="vtoshkatur"]

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

vtoshkatur

It makes a huge difference, you're an idiot if you think otherwise. For example my Skyrim mod has a total of over 5000 downloads (Sounds pretty impressive especially for someones first mod) but it only has 900 "unique downloads". Someone re downloading angry birds 10 times shouldn't be counted as 10 "sales" or "downloads"

Seems you're the silly willy (edited for politeness) considering my response said as much...so no idea what you are even getting at. Even at 10 downloads per person on average (it probably is not that high) that's still 50 million unique downloads. It doesn't really affect his point all that much...which of course is my point.

Just pointing out there's question if it's unique vs total download in this case really isn't a point. The Angry Bird franchise has clearly explosive growth and distrobution...it even goes into the retail segment with related merchandise. If the number of unique downloads is only 100 million, or 50 million really doesn't matter in the point he is making.

[QUOTE="vtoshkatur"]

[QUOTE="Renevent42"] Does it make *that* much of a difference either way? If the average re-download rate is 5 per person that would still be 100 million. Even at 50 times per person (totally unlikely) that's 10 million which is not a small number no matter how you look at it.Renevent42

It makes a huge difference, you're an idiot if you think otherwise. For example my Skyrim mod has a total of over 5000 downloads (Sounds pretty impressive especially for someones first mod) but it only has 900 "unique downloads". Someone re downloading angry birds 10 times shouldn't be counted as 10 "sales" or "downloads"

Seems you're the silly willy (edited for politeness) considering my response said as much...so no idea what you are even getting at. Even at 10 downloads per person on average (it probably is not that high) that's still 50 million unique downloads. It doesn't really affect his point all that much...which of course is my point.

Just pointing out there's question if it's unique vs total download in this case really isn't a point. The Angry Bird franchise has clearly explosive growth and distrobution...it even goes into the retail segment with related merchandise. If the number of unique downloads is only 100 million, or 50 million really doesn't matter in the point he is making.

LOL you sound mad. I was only inferring that you were an idiot not directly calling you one. Second Zinga,Facebook, and smart phone games are not why consoles are in decline. If you remember Myspace in the mid 2000's you should remember that Zinga games were huge then too. Everyone was playing mafia wars and the consoles were still going on strong. Whats killing the console market is the fact that this gen has been dragged out for so long, People are moving to PC gaming. I'm sure I can find a graph that shows the same trend that consoles saw vs arcades in the late 90's only now its consoles that are on the short end of the stick when it comes to PC's.

Oh boy here we go with the "you mad" stuff lol...I'll take that as a concession of my previous point. And no, I'm not mad...quite the opposite actually :)

What's even funnier is you talking about the arcade/console graph...did you *really* watch the slide show or did you just skim?

Face it it's PC that's killing the console market. Look at Steam, their record concurrent users tends to go up by 1.5 million users every 8 months or so. By this time next year don't be shocked if the record concurrent users for steam is up to 7 to 8.5 million users.

Oh boy here we go with the "you mad" stuff lol...I'll take that as a concession of my previous point. And no, I'm not mad...quite the opposite actually :)

What's even funnier is you talking about the arcade/console graph...did you *really* watch the slide show or did you just skim?

Renevent42

Face it it's PC that's killing the console market. Look at Steam, their record concurrent users tends to go up by 1.5 million users ever 8 months or so. By this time next year don't be shocked if the record concurrent users for steam is up to 7 to 8.5 million users.

vtoshkatur

PC isn't killing console gaming and vice versa.

Face it it's PC that's killing the console market. Look at Steam, their record concurrent users tends to go up by 1.5 million users ever 8 months or so. By this time next year don't be shocked if the record concurrent users for steam is up to 7 to 8.5 million users.

vtoshkatur

It seems like every day, another facet of gaming is dying.

turtlethetaffer

Cue the DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED threads!

[QUOTE="turtlethetaffer"]

It seems like every day, another facet of gaming is dying.

santoron

Cue the DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED threads!

God... those get so obnoxious.

Games on consoles are slideshows.

Jankarcop

[QUOTE="Jankarcop"]

Games on consoles are slideshows.

IoosingENDS

My games on consoles run fine.

No more core games for PCs since consoles are dead

Facebook social games are the future

Games on consoles are slideshows.

Jankarcop

This guy.

[QUOTE="Jankarcop"]

Games on consoles are slideshows.

IoosingENDS

tbh I didn't sit through all of that (although it was kind of interesting), but it appears he basically meant "Why traditional systems are dying", including the PC, so hermits, not much ownage to be had here.DarthBilf

[QUOTE="Renevent42"][QUOTE="vtoshkatur"]

Ok second commentary. He mentions that Angry Birds has been downloaded 500 million times, But are these total downloads or unique downloads?

vtoshkatur

It makes a huge difference, you're an idiot if you think otherwise. For example my Skyrim mod has a total of over 5000 downloads (Sounds pretty impressive especially for someones first mod) but it only has 900 "unique downloads". Someone re downloading angry birds 10 times shouldn't be counted as 10 "sales" or "downloads"

I also think it is a bit disingenuous to compare the success of angry birds, a game that costs 99 cents, if not completely free, to a big budget console title that sells for $50 - $60. I don't think that any developer is willing to make a game like Modern Warfare 3 (if such a game can even be made on tablets or smartphones) and sell it for 99 cents or make it free. It just isn't sustainable.

So the question becomes whether or not the future of gaming is these cheap, impulse games people play for a couple minutes during commercial breaks. I think they are very popular and fun for what they are, but is that going to replace the experience offered by a full fledged big budget game? Or, are people who game on smartphones/tablets willing to sacrifice the experience provided by a big screen HDTV (or even 3D) for a tiny smartphone screen?

I have no doubts that the people who only cared about gaming so long as it was "cool" or "trendy" will leave for the free/cheap games offered by handheld. THey don't care about games anyway, just distraction. I also think that many developers will use the smartphone/tablet market to make smaller, cheaper and more innovative games that wouldn't get as much support on consoles...which is great.

But there will always be a market for home consoles. At leat until the day comes that tablets are powerful enough to offer a comparable gaming experience to consoles. And I think that is still a long ways off.

I watched the whole thing.

The author seems to be saying that all forms of gaming other than casual/AngryBirds/Zynga gaming is unprofitable and dying.

What's really happening is that people get BORED of a particular platform or genre and like to have different toys WHEN the opportunity arises.

2006 the Xbox360 came out, it was a great product, had great games, so it was an opportune time for people to get away from PC gaming for a while and play on something else.

Any time a new device or mode of gaming comes out, and it's priced cheaply, fun, easy, people will give it a shot.

There is no "forever platform" this evolves over time.

Even tho I have access to Netflix and home movie systems, I still would like the opportunity to go to the drive-in, go out to see movies, etc.

I can cook at home but I still like to eat out, pizza, chinese, mexican, thai, etc.

I can game on a PC but I still like to play Gears, UC, 3DS, Vita, Android gaming etc.

Otherwise you get bored.

I spent the better part of a year playing nothing but Mafia Wars.

After that I spent a year playing MAG on PS3.

After that I spent a year playing Xbox games.

Now I'm gonna spend a year playing Skyrim (on 360 because I found it for cheap), and next year work on some PC games like Civilization, Flight Sim, Starcraft, etc.

One platform all the time gets too boring. Yes I may even try tablet gaming, but it's far from a sure thing.

[QUOTE="IoosingENDS"][QUOTE="Jankarcop"]

Games on consoles are slideshows.

DarthBilf

He's your problem now, hermits.

Suckers..