Not That Hardcore Franchises Will Be Remotely Important
Look, here’s the truth, and it’s something Nintendo has known for a long time: simple games rake in cash by the bucket. The more complex your game, the smaller your audience. EA has probably made more off of Plants Vs. Zombies than it will ever see off of the entire Mass Effect franchise. Part of the reason EA and Ubisoft are so gung-ho about free-to-play and freemium is that their mobile divisions are propping up their stock price while consoles stagger.
In Japan it’s even worse. There is a distinct possibility, for example, that Capcom’s investors will force the company out of the console business entirely simply because their mobile games make money and their console games don’t.
Ever wonder why Resident Evil 6 is enormous? Because it’ll either save Capcom’s console division… or be the last RE game we ever see.
It Will Be The Last
It’s pretty clear that disc-based gaming is on the way out, even among the people making the devices that play disc-based games. Sony and Microsoft aren’t feuding over console exclusives: they’re looking for streaming video exclusives. The next Xbox and next Playstation will actually be two models of device: a lower-end one for the streaming and casual market, and a higher end one for the hardcore market.
The one after that will resemble a Roku box and likely gaming will be a fun accessory to other functions.
In some ways, the market will have come full circle. And this doesn’t mean gaming is dead or that gaming won’t keep advancing. Far from it. In fact there’s a lot of potential for gaming to explode in ways that it would never have.
But part of that means ditching consoles. Consoles are expensive single use devices with a built-in time to be junked. The future consumer is just not going to accept that, not in a world where Google ports your apps to your new Android phone and everything that streams Netflix will also stream OnLive.
This is a good thing in the sense that consoles are technologically outmoded and clinging to a business model that really is detrimental to creativity and creates other problems.
But it’s also kinda sad to see that piece of our childhood that we grew up with go. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m going to kinda miss the Console Wars. Who’d have thought they wouldn’t end with a victor, but with somebody else entirely wiping them all out?
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Thank you for not using that picture of the PS3 controller with a hundred buttons shopped onto it; that one always makes me sick, like it’s got tumors.
Gives money to ouya…complains about crap consoles and casual gaming…
You see, the Ouya to me has some genuine promise in the sense that it will be largely supported by indies, people who have to listen to minorities in their audience.
Well, great. I’m really not looking forward to a lot of what’s going to be on offer. My gaming has already suffered over the past year or two because I’m starting to hate the way the industry operates.
Hail Steam!
I think the next gen of consoles is going be an epic fail. I’m certainly not going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a machine that won’t let me play used games or any games if my internet is out. I strongly suspect there are a lot of people who feel that way.
The amount of crap in this article that is completely made-up is staggering.
I think you have the right idea but the wrong arguments. Consoles are well behind where they should be right now, people buy consoles as a cheaper alternative to gaming pc’s, for mobility, and the fact they play games! But currently our consoles are archaic in every fashion. Companies like EA and Microsoft gobble up the little guys and ruin their passion with corporate bureaucracy and milestones to make holiday season 20XX with sequel 12 of title ‘So over it 6 years ago’, we’re forced to buy games that rate 7/10 for $60 because we’re out of options of games to play, just the rehash stuff. Mobile games are getting bigger because the console manufacturers refuse to invest in their platforms, this is why we play on consoles 7 years old! At the current rate, the next generation of consoles will have to compete with the iPad 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8! From current rumors the ‘hardcore’ consoles coming up Xbox 720 and PS4 are going to pull a Nintendo maneuver and sorely underpower them compared to current pc standards already. (First time consoles have been released with less power then the leading PC graphics card) I have a bunch of faith in the Ouya, it could really bring something cool to the table, and even though it might not be equiped to contend graphically with the next generation 1 on 1, we have to remember, this is just a launch point. Who knows what the next one will be capable of. But open platform gaming is going to be a nice refresher for once, as a decent alternative to the ocean of 7/10 bullshit being crammed down our throats at crap prices. That’s why the console industry is in trouble.
If you believe the next gen of console are going to be non-disc based, you’re outta ya mind….
There is too much money in discs, plus how are you going to play if the internet goes down? See every complaint there has been about Diablo 3 on this site…
Lol, I’ve waited for days for someone to pick the disc thing up. But fuck it. OK SO! Contrary to what the game publishers would have you believe like blind little lemmings, gaming thrived long before the compact disk, indeed we use to use such contraptions as cartridges! Yup and they cost more then plastic disks ever will, and the gaming industry brought in so much profit we could elevate champions such as Nintendo, Sega, Atari, EA and Activion! So, with technology we’ve only figured out cheaper ways of making disks, indeed, the disk is basically the very last thing physical thing standing between the stock holders and your wallet. It would be simple to believe that “My Lord! If they had to make us a disk how would they stay in business??”.. the only thing I can say is AOL. Remember all those 100 hrs free disks you used to always get in the mail? lol. Let’s get real here, The only thing the discs do is remove your rights as a consumer to a product you should have the ability to resale.
No discs = no used games= more sales. Get real. If that was the case then how would the music industry ever have survived, why do we still buy blurays? How could a DVD possibly cost more then a VHS?? LOL. ALL BULLSHIT. I can’t believe people fall for that EVERY. TIME!
Stream, stream all you want, you still need something to stream it TO and play it ON. Your article is supposed to be about the end of Consoles, but it’s really about the end of discs? I don’t think the powerbrokers at GameStop will like that very much… hard to trade in and resell a download file… although I did see they’ve started selling download content in the store… that’s right – for all the people that are smart enough to figure out online marketplaces enough to go and download a game, but not quite smart enough to figure out how to enter payment. Or is that for people that don’t have credit cards? Then how do they pay in the store? Nobody takes checks. Nobody carries cash.
Anyone who thinks streaming gaming is the (near term) future of the industry has never played a streaming game.
Shooters are the cash cows of the industry and even the tiniest lag makes it impossible to play. CoD has one of the best systems going, save for dedicated servers, which I know many people don’t want to hear because we’ve all been shot 20 times a day by a guy who wasn’t even on our screen when we died only to see him magically dance around the corner in the kill came replay. But that’s exactly my point. Even with one of the better systems out there, it cannot be made lag free, and often over extends itself just to reach a passable quality at best.
The other issue is definition. NO ONE is going to accept low def gaming. You simply cannot stream HD gaming without massive lag. We need an infrastructure overhaul and we, as a nation (US) are just about ready to default, so it wont be done by the federal government, and we have a history of private industrial captains giggling as they give themselves bonuses even while their companies file for bankruptcy (see the big three national banks that we had to bail out in 08 or Hostess today). The tech exists, but is not in place and NO ONE in industry or commerce is happy to hear the words “infrastructure overhaul”.
“Cloud gaming” is not coming any time soon in a fashion that you, as dedicated hobbyists will welcome.