Actually, the industry as we know it will cease to exist in this form in my Opinion. I hope that we'll get to enjoy triple a massive titles which are as big as "Skyrim" in the future and i think the chances are good that we will.
But it's getting very hard for smaller companies to compete. You make one game that sells badly and you're out. You make a mediocre game that pays your bills, you're good. Until your audience finally gets fed up with the FPS flood and replays older games. You can choose from a huge library of games on a similar graphical and gameplay level, so why would you buy yet another "Call of duty"? Will the next one bring something new to the table that is worth 60$?
At least you know you'll get a "call of duty". If you love the style of that game, you'll get at least something out of the new release.
Would you buy the next "Call of duty" knock off by a smaller company? I doubt it and i doubt the copy and paste approach is going to work for much longer. At least for this genre, which is the largest we have in the full price segment.
So smaller companies without a huge brandname will have to try something new eventually. Most of them will fail and cease to exist.
The Industry is going through some hard times; lets hope this wont result in more harassment of the customer and only the customer.
Maybe the current graphical level (we wont get anymore graphical "wow!" effects) will have the companies build consoles which are sturdy enough to last a few years. I'd like sturdy constructions and i would like to have a console that will last as long as my Master system (had that since 1986, still works).
The current "crisis" in the industry will hopefully result in less drm for PC and in consoles that aren't as laughably flimsy. Seriously, i have never seen a built-quality this low on any console.
On the other side we have the PC, which has games that are very poorly ported and long past the point where the drm will prevent you from playing your legal copy.
With some games, you pretty much have to pirate them in order to play them.
If "gaming" is dying, i hope that companies which haven't screwed us quite as hard will survive long enough to show people that things can be done differently.
Companies that make people worry if this game might fry their console and companies that invest millions into more intrusive drm and then whine about evil pirates (and do a quick 180 when they find out that piracy has earned their product some recognition and actually increased sales in certain areas) at the loss of money can die out and i wont shed a tear for them.
Companies like Ubisoft, EA, Activision or Rockstar damage the whole business. The Land of Videogames would be a better Place if those Companies where to disappear.
