As simple as what the title says. I feel somewhat at a loss as to where to start with this topic though so bear with me if this feels kinda meandering.
What I notice a lot lately is games being released that are multiplatform, I read an article yesterday that listed off about ten titles that were going to come out this month and of those only two were console exclusives and many of the multiplatform titles were also coming to the PC. This isn't where I got my belief by the way, it's just an example.
It used to be a bit of a risk for people that weren't knowledgeable about software and hardware to play games on a PC since you often needed a certain operating system or some kind of update to your computer and back before the internet really exploded this meant no easy online downloads and no quick help for figuring out what was wrong if something didn't work. Now its much easier to patch something on a computer and pcs and pc games have come a long way from the days when you needed 5 CD's to play Riven and needed to switch them for every individual island.
While people have liked to talk about how X-box and Playstation and Nintendo are doing in terms of competing with each other, they very rarely bring up the elephant in the room which is PC's. In terms of performance and power all three home console makers lost the race a long time ago and they can't compete with how a PC can be upgraded without needing to replace the whole thing.
Steam is a big part of this too, I have a ton of games on my Steam account that I still haven't been able to get to. Steam's library is gigantic and a lot of games on the home and portable consoles are on Steam too. This is great for game developers but it's bad for the system makers. Its made it so aside from IP's that the system makers hold to them contractually, there's no reason for a game maker to ever want to just make a game for a home console, especially since all of these small time game developers are going to most of the time not release a physical game and instead distribute it purely through download.
Many people, myself included, no longer have the time, money, or capability to play all the games that come out. With so many different games, many of them multiplatform, there's no reason to spend money on an expensive home console when you're likely never going to be able to play most of the games that come out on that system. Additionally, you don't need a lot of those IP's that that home console makers create because you're likely to find a game on PC that is similar enough to that IP that you can get your fix there.
Home consoles cannot continue to exist as low grade computers. Honestly, for all the shit that we give Nintendo, they seem to be the first company to realize that this is happening since they've scaled back their system designs for reduced cost and play up their control gimmicks which aren't supported very heavily by other console makers. Their new console is also portable and the portable console market still has an advantage over PC's and phone/tablet gaming so that market will survive longer. And the other thing is that the audience Nintendo markets to is the younger audience that has more time, uses its money more for recreation and is the age group that parents would likely want to be playing a gaming console over messing with their computer. Microsoft and Sony on the other hands market more towards older people which are the people that are going to find it harder and harder to justify buying and expensive home console and who have less time to play those game too. These people are going to switch to computers once all those things add up to make home consoles not worthwhile
I can see Mircosoft pulling out of home consoles gracefully, after all, they make computers so the home console market becoming defunct doesn't hurt them that much since they could decide to compete with Steam instead and make an online store like them.
I'm not sure what Sony would do though.
Anyway, that's my viewpoint on this, I don't think home consoles will continue to exist after the next generation. The climate of games with how many are made, how they're distributed and the ease of use of computers has changed things to where the way things have been done for the past 20 some years can't continue like this anymore.
What I notice a lot lately is games being released that are multiplatform, I read an article yesterday that listed off about ten titles that were going to come out this month and of those only two were console exclusives and many of the multiplatform titles were also coming to the PC. This isn't where I got my belief by the way, it's just an example.
It used to be a bit of a risk for people that weren't knowledgeable about software and hardware to play games on a PC since you often needed a certain operating system or some kind of update to your computer and back before the internet really exploded this meant no easy online downloads and no quick help for figuring out what was wrong if something didn't work. Now its much easier to patch something on a computer and pcs and pc games have come a long way from the days when you needed 5 CD's to play Riven and needed to switch them for every individual island.
While people have liked to talk about how X-box and Playstation and Nintendo are doing in terms of competing with each other, they very rarely bring up the elephant in the room which is PC's. In terms of performance and power all three home console makers lost the race a long time ago and they can't compete with how a PC can be upgraded without needing to replace the whole thing.
Steam is a big part of this too, I have a ton of games on my Steam account that I still haven't been able to get to. Steam's library is gigantic and a lot of games on the home and portable consoles are on Steam too. This is great for game developers but it's bad for the system makers. Its made it so aside from IP's that the system makers hold to them contractually, there's no reason for a game maker to ever want to just make a game for a home console, especially since all of these small time game developers are going to most of the time not release a physical game and instead distribute it purely through download.
Many people, myself included, no longer have the time, money, or capability to play all the games that come out. With so many different games, many of them multiplatform, there's no reason to spend money on an expensive home console when you're likely never going to be able to play most of the games that come out on that system. Additionally, you don't need a lot of those IP's that that home console makers create because you're likely to find a game on PC that is similar enough to that IP that you can get your fix there.
Home consoles cannot continue to exist as low grade computers. Honestly, for all the shit that we give Nintendo, they seem to be the first company to realize that this is happening since they've scaled back their system designs for reduced cost and play up their control gimmicks which aren't supported very heavily by other console makers. Their new console is also portable and the portable console market still has an advantage over PC's and phone/tablet gaming so that market will survive longer. And the other thing is that the audience Nintendo markets to is the younger audience that has more time, uses its money more for recreation and is the age group that parents would likely want to be playing a gaming console over messing with their computer. Microsoft and Sony on the other hands market more towards older people which are the people that are going to find it harder and harder to justify buying and expensive home console and who have less time to play those game too. These people are going to switch to computers once all those things add up to make home consoles not worthwhile
I can see Mircosoft pulling out of home consoles gracefully, after all, they make computers so the home console market becoming defunct doesn't hurt them that much since they could decide to compete with Steam instead and make an online store like them.
I'm not sure what Sony would do though.
Anyway, that's my viewpoint on this, I don't think home consoles will continue to exist after the next generation. The climate of games with how many are made, how they're distributed and the ease of use of computers has changed things to where the way things have been done for the past 20 some years can't continue like this anymore.
