Wired: The Game Console Is Dead

[Damm64]

Free games has been around for years and have never been a thread for the console or PC gaming, people like a versatile machine but not a machine that can do EVERYTHING(maybe sounds cool but is dangerous). I like to play games on a TV with a CONTROLLER (you know that thing that allows amazing control over your character and engage the expirience even more) and i don't like angry birds sure is kinda fun for like... 5 minutes. This thing of "gaming is dead" thing is starting to bothering me.

Why this obsession with doom?

Modern cartoons are horrible and you should feel ashamed about watching them

Now this sounds a better topic than "the gaming is dead" thing.

[Gamerforlife]

I don't think consoles will ever die because they are so ingrained into our culture. When people think video games, they think consoles. Aside from World of Warcraft, most people I know can't name a PC game to save their life, but they can think of at least one console game(Mario, Grand Theft Auto, Halo), or even an arcade game (Pacman, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pong) and they know who the players are in the console industry (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) and they know each console by name.

I grew up playing games on consoles like the Atari 2600, Colecovision, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and on arcade machines at local theaters, malls, and bowling alleys. For me, consoles/arcades = gaming. This is why I don't have more of an interest in PC gaming, though I do indulge in it every once in a blue moon. I love computers. They let me do all kinds of cool things. I can check my email, browse the internet, I can talk on forums. I can watch youtube videos, go on facebook, etc. Computers are also an integral part of my job and thus, keep me employed. When it comes time to play games though, I just want to sit down with a console. I look at my PC and have little desire to play games on it. For me, a PC just isn't a gaming device. The fact that you have to upgrade the things and adjust and tweak various things to play games on them is just a reminder to me that PCs don't exist to play games. If they did, they'd do it right out of the box...like consoles. No matter how many multi media features they have, consoles still exist for one primary function, to play games. That's why I love them. No upgrades, no tweaking, no anything. Just pop a disc in and play

[J T]

No upgrades, no tweaking, no anything. Just pop a disc in and play

I hate to break it to you, but consoles aren't going to be like that for much longer, and they're not quite like that now. They will be better optimized for livingroom play than PCs, but consoles are going for increased functionality and flexibility, so they are bound to look even more like PCs than they already do, just with a higher visibility GUI and more of an emphasis on entertainment and social networking uses. Touchpad controls like the Wii-U has will probably be used less for games and more as a portal to various web resources.

[Gamerforlife]

No upgrades, no tweaking, no anything. Just pop a disc in and play

I hate to break it to you, but consoles aren't going to be like that for much longer, and they're not quite like that now. They will be better optimized for livingroom play than PCs, but consoles are going for increased functionality and flexibility, so they are bound to look even more like PCs than they already do, just with a higher visibility GUI and more of an emphasis on entertainment and social networking uses. Touchpad controls like the Wii-U has will probably be used less for games and more as a portal to various web resources.

I see what you're saying, but I don't think the focus on keeping things simple will go away. I still think when all is said and done, they'll still be machines where you can easily start up a game and play, even if they have all sorts of other uses

If I'm wrong though, I guess I'll either adapt or just go full on retro

A console is a console though. It's always going to be my preferred method of gaming I think, even if they become more and more like PCs

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I play PC games, but I'll always love my consoles more. It's such a singular experience. I like the proprietary design - it sucks that I can't use a DVD drive with a higher read speed in my PS2, but I will also never have to go hunting for DLL files. I know that my controller is perfectly suited to the game. I know exactly what my hardware can do and that I'm not missing out on anything. Every accessory works with every console. It's a good deal! Even though there's more fluff now, the things that make console gaming great are still here. There are a lot of people who feel the same way.

[Menegrothx]

The fact that you have to upgrade the things and adjust and tweak various things to play games on them is just a reminder to me that PCs don't exist to play games. If they did, they'd do it right out of the box...like consoles.

I dont see how inserting the disc in and pressing the install button (next, next, next, ok) and after a while the play button is any more messy than playing a game on a modern console, since they dont automatically start the game as you have to navigate through a menu first.
The tweaks are mainly there to give you freedom of choiche (better and higher resolution graphics or standard graphics and much higher frame rate?, reset keybinds to suit your playstyle better if you dont like using button X for function Y and so on) and are most of the time optional. Many console games have "options" function too and you might have to set up the darkness setting to your liking when starting a new game and so on.

People use the internet and computers for every day tasks and working so much these days that chances are that you are forced to upgrade your computer anyways. Even modern consoles and handhelds have automatical system updates these days!


Modern PCs dont do that, but some 1980s computers have cartridge slots and 2 controller ports (most old computers have ports for Atari/Sega type of controllers). Atari computers and Amigas (and some Japanese home computer models) were very much aimed towards gaming

[ice445]

People who can't appreciate Tetris make me sad.

Why does one need to appreciate Tetris? It was the first "casual" game, whee. To me, it's one of the most boring games ever made. You just drop blocks. Whoopee.

[AppleQueso]

People who can't appreciate Tetris make me sad.

Why does one need to appreciate Tetris? It was the first "casual" game, whee. To me, it's one of the most boring games ever made. You just drop blocks. Whoopee.

Context made it the first 'casual' game, in terms of content it's got the laser focused design that makes so many of the great golden age arcade games so good. It's simply masterfully crafted. (at least until you get to those later games that tried to 'upgrade' it in various ways and make it boring.)

Reducing Tetris to "all you do is drop blocks" is like saying that Pac-Man is boring becuase "all you do is eat dots."

[bj79]

The thing I hate about how consoles are evolving is that they are getting more pc like. I don't want that. I just want a box that will play a game.

[Menegrothx]

Many retro gamers and Sega fans like to praise how innovative and "ahead of it's time" Dreamcast was and it was the first "PC-like" console (*). Built in modem, online play (even against PC players in Q3 I think), keyboard and mouse support, map packs for multiplayer, emulator support....

*Although I guess NEC PC-FX, Amiga CD32 and Magnavox Odyssey 2 had PC-like features before the Dreamcast, but they were commercial failures. You could also turn Colecovision into an ADAM computer if I recall correctly. Now that I think about it, Famicom was very PC-like too

I'd say that the original Xbox is actually more "PC-like" than Xbox 360. Very customisable. But yet it felt much more like a "dedicated gaming machine" than the 360 does.

As people have said before, depending on how you look at it, consoles -- as game machines exclusively -- have already died.

The question then is: Why is this a problem? What is inherently bad about a multipurpose machine?

Like I said in the other thread, a gaming platform with a much smaller but way more dedicated install base will more likely get "hardcore games". If a huge number of people buy the console with not gaming first in mind, it's more likely that publishers will want to start catering to that crowd so they would buy their games since that's such a huge "potentially profitable" group of people.