This is really a very interesting talk, and I am curious to hear what people here think about it. If the console market continues its current trend, will it's "death" (defined as a significantly decreased market share) be an inevitability?
I urge you to avoid knee-jerk reactions to the title and to watch it first, then weigh in on what you think
-if companies do put DRM into games that prevents them from being played on more than one console (destroying used game sales and game trading), it WILL kill physical game media and game consoles along with it. These actions are basically suicide by the companies that do them. Are they complete idiots who think they can make more money by killing used game sales, or are they really trying to phase out physical game media and think this is the best plan?
I do know that I am less and less interested in what the next gen or two has to offer, and this is one of the reasons why.
Just finished watching the presentation. Pretty well spoken. I especially liked the comparison to the Movie Theater industry. I had never thought about what that decline must have been like. One key difference between the home console market and the mobile market that he didn't mention was the release timeline. A new home console is released on average every, what, 5 years? A new iPhone or iPad comes out yearly. The iPad just now has (basically) the same specs as a PS3, which is 5 years old. When the "PS4" comes out, I would assume the specs would be crazy compared to the current iPad. Then over the next 5 years, the iPad will climb ever closer to those specs.
Personally, I really don't care if the home console market were to "die". What I really want is a dedicated portable device that can also attach to the TV. The iPad can do this. Even wirelessly using the Apple TV. I really wish the Vita had shipped with this functionality, but it may have cannibalized PS3 sales.
All in all, very interesting topic. I'm sure if the market does "die", all of us members of this site will retain our consoles which will be the new retro.
Consoles were more or less dead to me from the start of this generation. I just got tired of having to get three-ish new consoles all the time with what I saw as different enough libraries that it would pretty much cost me a pretty penny to get them not to mention an HDTV to enjoy them properly. I figured if I'm going to spend that much, might as well get a PC, and just continue to collect games on all the older systems that I own.
I actually gave up on consoles for a completely different reason than Cousins suggests. I've managed to get a 360 and a Wii via hand me downs from friends, but I'd never spend my own money on the things. I'm just tired of the console wars, and certainly hope we don't head into a mobile device war next. If anything I'd like to see convergence whereby we can play the games we enjoy on the platform we like best. Given how few exclusives we're seeing now on consoles compared to when this generation of systems started, it seems to me that this has already begun.
Jerkface Killah wrote:The iPad just now has (basically) the same specs as a PS3, which is 5 years old.
Its close in some aspects, but a Power PC cpu will smoke an Arm processor any day of the week. Also you must factor in that the Ipad3 has lower speed and a different type of ram (DDR2 instead of DDR3 on the GPU and Rambus XDR).
Breetai wrote:I haven't watched yet, but I can say this:
-if companies do put DRM into games that prevents them from being played on more than one console (destroying used game sales and game trading), it WILL kill physical game media and game consoles along with it. These actions are basically suicide by the companies that do them.
I don't understand this argument at all. For there to be a used game market there must be people who buy new games. Those are the only people who support the industry in the first place.
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Jerkface Killah wrote:The iPad just now has (basically) the same specs as a PS3, which is 5 years old.
Its close in some aspects, but a Power PC cpu will smoke an Arm processor any day of the week. Also you must factor in that the Ipad3 has lower speed and a different type of ram (DDR2 instead of DDR3 on the GPU and Rambus XDR).
Yeah, I guess "comparable" would be a better term.
Breetai wrote:I haven't watched yet, but I can say this:
-if companies do put DRM into games that prevents them from being played on more than one console (destroying used game sales and game trading), it WILL kill physical game media and game consoles along with it. These actions are basically suicide by the companies that do them.
I don't understand this argument at all. For there to be a used game market there must be people who buy new games. Those are the only people who support the industry in the first place.
So I don't support the industry because I buy some used and not all new? You speak as if its cut and dry, you either buy only new or only used. I hate to tell you but if I could not sell my games, my collection would be a lot smaller and I would be very picky on what I would buy in the future. I am not a risky person so I would wait till there are tons of reviews and the game has been out for a long time till I bought it if New/Download was the only option.
Unless you are a DIE-HARD exclusive console gamer, i think the best thing you can do as a gamer is invest in a high quality gaming PC every 3-4 years, with services like Steam growing, and Emulation becoming easier to and faster to run, it's sad though that Japan developers do not develop for the PC very often if at all, will we ever see a Final Fantasy release on the PC? (not counting 11 and 14, and they did do a FF7 and 8 release for the PC.), or a Tales Of game? wouldnt it be great if you could play every game ever released on your PC? all you would need is a USB connection of your favorite controller and your off!
