Consoles Aren't Going Anywhere, Says GameStop

[orangeapples]

not everyone has a decent computer that can run the latest games. Some people just don't have that luxury. There are a lot of people who are still buying GBASPs and PS2s because those are affordable. As long as there are people who aren't willing to drop money on high speed internet, a decent gaming rig/the latest console, new games, there will be a market for physical copies and home consoles. When you are on Steam, you have NO option of buying a game used. Don't quote me on this one, but I don't think you're allowed to even use used PC games... There just isn't enough of a market to actually warrant a trade-in system.

 

[bastardman25]

I'm one of the "glorious PC gaming master race" but I still have a hard time believing consoles are gonna die out anytime soon, they have been around since the early 80s (pls correct my wrongness).
surely if the 360 or the Ps3 stopped making money M$ and sony will just +=1 out new versions filled with more shiny new silicon?
They?re the hollywood of the gaming industry, there?s too much money to be made for it to die out just like that.
Something will have to change, maybe the next gen will have access to something like steam, maybe development for consoles will have to become cheaper and more open like it is on PC.

I'm certainly not against the idea everyone just buy a USB game controller and use their PC for gaming aswell as its boring work type duties, always made sense to me.

 

[Aprilgold]

Funny, the people that are responsible for the console's waning health is claiming its not bled dry yet. Of course they would say this, its their main line of income.

Next up: Mcdonalds says their food isn't unhealthy.

And LATER: Judge Judy isn't a crazy *****.

Of course they would say this, this is their only way of money.

Ok, Pluses for the PC side:
Technology is happening SO FAST that Consoles may be too expensive to produce or to buy.
-You can break disks, controllers, whatever you need to play on a console, might as well just play on steam and cut out the breaking disks.
-For a console, and a game its about 342.45$ when a computer you should already own, maybe a bit of upgrading, so thats about 70$ not AS expensive.
-Don't have to pay for online for a separate thing when you already have internet.

Pluses for Consoles:
-You can play all forms of media, straight from the box.
....
I can't think of much else really. I guess simpler controls?

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Cloud gaming isn't going to surpass anything. Compete, but not enough to throw over.

First off, Cloud gaming is weak. It can't stream at high fidelity, it has to be weaker from a technical standpoint to work. It doesn't bode well with people who have un-reliable internet connection at best - the vast majority of college students, army personelle, and people who live in shitty areas.

Not to mention that it only appeals to people with weak PC's. Why buy a powerful gaming machine if you aren't going to capitalize on its superior power? Other than cost, streaming a game has no real benefit. And even the cost in some cases is counter-balanced by people who run fiber optics internet, because the more internet you use, the higher a spike in energy cosumption - energy isn't cheap.

There will always be people who prefer hard copies of a game - I'm not going to stream a game if I have the hardware to run it properly because it will be a far superior product. Doesn't matter if its my PC or my consoles. The only thing streaming will do is offer competition to the major distributors, and probably result in game prices falling by $5-$10. Thats it.

If I pay for a game, I expect the right to play it whenever the hell I please. That includes months where I can't quite get the internet payed off because I like eating and paying my mortgage. That includes days where internet is knocked out because a hurricane blew a tree on one of the lines. This includes time that Im traveling, times Im not at my house and the internet connection sucks, etc, etc. And so do alot of other people.

I like the cut of your jib. It pretty much boils down to understanding the stance and perspective of the other people on the planet, which the cloud fans don't seem to get.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Funny, the people that are responsible for the console's waning health is claiming its not bled dry yet. Of course they would say this, its their main line of income.

Next up: Mcdonalds says their food isn't unhealthy.

And LATER: Judge Judy isn't a crazy *****.

Of course they would say this, this is their only way of money.

Ok, Pluses for the PC side:
Technology is happening SO FAST that Consoles may be too expensive to produce or to buy.
-You can break disks, controllers, whatever you need to play on a console, might as well just play on steam and cut out the breaking disks.
-For a console, and a game its about 342.45$ when a computer you should already own, maybe a bit of upgrading, so thats about 70$ not AS expensive.
-Don't have to pay for online for a separate thing when you already have internet.

Pluses for Consoles:
-You can play all forms of media, straight from the box.
....
I can't think of much else really. I guess simpler controls?

Internet shortages, not being fond of PC gaming, not having the money to pay for internet and food in the same month, shitty connection due to location, constant worry about specs for games, not being able to afford to get an up to date rig.

Let alone the fact that consoles have the capacity to download whole games to the hard drive, have just as much chat capacity, and you always know the specs of your game vs the system playing it. Consoles are easier to program for because you always know what specs to shoot for.

Just point out some pros and cons from each side that you missed.

 

[Aprilgold]

Funny, the people that are responsible for the console's waning health is claiming its not bled dry yet. Of course they would say this, its their main line of income.

Next up: Mcdonalds says their food isn't unhealthy.

And LATER: Judge Judy isn't a crazy *****.

Of course they would say this, this is their only way of money.

Ok, Pluses for the PC side:
Technology is happening SO FAST that Consoles may be too expensive to produce or to buy.
-You can break disks, controllers, whatever you need to play on a console, might as well just play on steam and cut out the breaking disks.
-For a console, and a game its about 342.45$ when a computer you should already own, maybe a bit of upgrading, so thats about 70$ not AS expensive.
-Don't have to pay for online for a separate thing when you already have internet.

Pluses for Consoles:
-You can play all forms of media, straight from the box.
....
I can't think of much else really. I guess simpler controls?

Internet shortages, not being fond of PC gaming, not having the money to pay for internet and food in the same month, shitty connection due to location, constant worry about specs for games, not being able to afford to get an up to date rig.

Let alone the fact that consoles have the capacity to download whole games to the hard drive, have just as much chat capacity, and you always know the specs of your game vs the system playing it. Consoles are easier to program for because you always know what specs to shoot for.

Just point out some pros and cons from each side that you missed.

Thanks, my Xbox died a couple months back, so I am just going from memory, thank you for the cons / pros.

 

[Vhite]

Why should anyone go anywhere? When I say that France won't exist in next few years will French people get offended? I think they would just think I am retarded. And it is same for consoles, PC and whatever that is popular and is said to disappear soon.

 

[Epona]

Funny, the people that are responsible for the console's waning health is claiming its not bled dry yet. Of course they would say this, its their main line of income.

Next up: Mcdonalds says their food isn't unhealthy.

Gamestop, and used game sales in general are part of the reason so many console games are sold. Being able to recover some money on a bad new game is why some people even risk buying new at all. PC's don't have that advantage and it's why people wait for those Steam sales.

 

[Epona]

Good, because the problem that I have with cloud gaming is that you do not own the game and when the company decides to take it off the list and it isn't installed on your computer then it is gone and they have your money for something you can not play anymore. At least with a physical disk you can play it until the disk doesn't work anymore.

Unless you try to reinstall it and need to activate it online or if you need to check in every 30 days.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Of course consoles aren't going anywhere. Do have any idea how long it takes for people to stop using old technology or to change to more modern standards? There are people using IE5 with dial up right now! Not to mention the QWERTY keyboard. Console aren't going to suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. Course that doesn't necessarily mean that they will continue to be profitable or that Gamestop won't vanish in a puff of smoke either.

 

[Kae]

I hope cloud gaming doesn't become the main part of the industry anytime soon, because the fastest Internet connection available in my city is 8mbps and I'm not sure that's enough to run games as well as I would with either a download or a disc.
Also those 8mbps are too expensive for me.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

I have to agree with the whole "Consoles aren't go anywhere", and GameStop does bring up a point. No matter how good the downloaded content is, it's usually not as good as the physical copies.

Cloud gaming is convenient, but I see downloaded titles for that and stuff like apps for things like 'popcorn' games, stuff that is reminiscent of old Atari or Nintendo games, or even stuff in arcades. Basically, easily-playable timesinks. You play them because they're there, they're easy to understand, and they don't take that much effort to play.

However, the Playstation and Nintendo 64, and even some old SNES titles have brought forward games that require great time and effort, as well as dedication to play through. Stuff like Silent Hill and Final Fantasy VI, or competitive games such as Halo and CoD can't be easily transferred to a digital media, as their quality would suffer as a result. Plus, you have to consider the vast amount of people that are very speculative about digital media, namely the issue that the access to the game is totally reliant upon the connection and operation of said service being active. If, say, Steam were to be unplugged, all of the games available for it would become inactive. At least, with a physical copy of TF2, you can still play it.

Though I do agree about how these things can coexist. Physical copies for high-budget games that people can invest a lot of money in won't be going away for a long time, as games such as Battlefield and Mass Effect have proven, although smaller games like Fruit Ninja are picking up a lot of steam and popularity, and their appeal, blatant as it is, obviously isn't taking away from the audience that players the aforementioned two games.

 

[Enslave_All_Elves]

right and before pc was dead. now consoles are dead. and browser shams were an exciting new market oh boy (farmville? really? I'd rather get a labotomy)!

buzz word over analyzed bullshit of the minute.

PC and Console are going nowhere. Mobile games DO NOT currently compare at all. I don't think they ever will in a way. "Well you know technology is increasingly smaller and more powerful!"

Right true. Which is why more of it will be packed in a big system or pc that kicks ass and used to it's potential. Most people want to play games after work or school. Sit and chill and not be a subservient workbot for a minute. Most people don't want to take their game on the go with a touch screen to be a highly active vegetable sitting in their friend's car. Mobile gaming a diversion, like Tetris on my phone while I poop at work or wait in a doctor's office.

 

[Radelaide]

I would use my xbox more if there were decent AAA games coming out more often. Currently I have two games on pre-order and nothing else really looks worth it. I'm sick of generic FPS' coming out every 3 days (I'm looking at you, CoD) and not enough games with variety.

Bring on October, I'ma be drugged up and playing Batman for a week!

 

[Vault101]

call me backwards but I like having physical objects

part of the reason I got a console the feeling of being free of DRM and reliance on the inernet was AWSOME

 

[CBanana]

It isn't all good news for GameStop as I'd say consoles are going to move increasingly towards digital distribution. The publishers simply get to keep a lot more money since they won't have to deal with giving a piece of the pie to the retailers. They also simultaneously get to nearly obliterate second hand sales.

For the consumer, this could mean lower prices for games. It would definitely mean higher accessibility. There's no doubt in my mind that if the Wii had sufficiently better support for digital distribution, Xenoblade would have been brought to North America long ago.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

I miss the days I could go down to the local game store and pick up a used game for 5-20$ a pop...

I mean, I prefer to have a hard copy of my game... In front of me. so that you know, I don't have to worry about being held to some silly ToU about how I use it.

And before someone yells at me about used games... Please tell me another form of media who throws such a huge fit about wanting to resell their media piece they've already sold.

Eh, gamestop can suck it though.

There's a question: If selling used games suddenly became illegal, than would the Escapist ban people for supporting used game sales?

 

[Kakashi on crack]

For the consumer, this should mean lower prices for games. It would definitely mean higher accessibility.

Fix'd.

Sorry if I seem pessimistic, but... More money for developer + same demand (or even slightly less demand) = more profit coming in... So, from a business perspective... If I can sell a digital copy for the same price as a hard disk copy, and sell the same number of said copy. Also note that I'd be paying a small fee for the broadband usage for download compared to the amount needed for all those hazardous chemicals used to manufacture CDs, and wouldn't have to go through a middleman like gamestop or gamecrazy...

Why would I lower prices?