In short: console games cost too damn much to make [http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2012/07/02/the-rise-of-costs-the-fall-of-gaming/].
In less short: console gaming is caught in a vicious circle. The major developers are stuck in this trend where they have to make games more like movies, with better and better graphics, and that means progressively higher costs for increasingly mediocre products.
According to that blog post I found, triple-A games and movies now have this much in common: they're about as expensive to produce. Hell, a lot of games cost upwards of $100 million at this point. It's becoming correspondingly harder for games to turn a profit; they have to at least break even within three to four weeks of release at the full $60 price, and more often than not, they don't. That's why, for example, Dead Space 3 needs to sell five million copies to keep the franchise alive [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-15-ea-aiming-for-5-million-sold-with-dead-space-3] (spoiler alert: Dead Space 1 and 2 didn't sell that many copies combined).
Games cost more and more, which means they need to sell better and better, and to do that, they need to have a "broad audience" [http://www.destructoid.com/ea-wants-dead-space-3-to-appeal-to-a-broad-audience-229567.phtml]. Translation: "We're not taking any chances. We're not going to try anything that's too 'innovative' or 'out there.' We can't fucking afford to. That might scare off the masses."
So, unless the industry crashes again, that's what we have to look forward to: a future filled with ludicrously expensive triple-A console games that all play the same, where nobody who doesn't have a budget in the hundreds of millions can get a foot in the door.
I bet a console that anybody can afford to develop for [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console] would come in handy right about now.
In less short: console gaming is caught in a vicious circle. The major developers are stuck in this trend where they have to make games more like movies, with better and better graphics, and that means progressively higher costs for increasingly mediocre products.
According to that blog post I found, triple-A games and movies now have this much in common: they're about as expensive to produce. Hell, a lot of games cost upwards of $100 million at this point. It's becoming correspondingly harder for games to turn a profit; they have to at least break even within three to four weeks of release at the full $60 price, and more often than not, they don't. That's why, for example, Dead Space 3 needs to sell five million copies to keep the franchise alive [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-15-ea-aiming-for-5-million-sold-with-dead-space-3] (spoiler alert: Dead Space 1 and 2 didn't sell that many copies combined).
Games cost more and more, which means they need to sell better and better, and to do that, they need to have a "broad audience" [http://www.destructoid.com/ea-wants-dead-space-3-to-appeal-to-a-broad-audience-229567.phtml]. Translation: "We're not taking any chances. We're not going to try anything that's too 'innovative' or 'out there.' We can't fucking afford to. That might scare off the masses."
So, unless the industry crashes again, that's what we have to look forward to: a future filled with ludicrously expensive triple-A console games that all play the same, where nobody who doesn't have a budget in the hundreds of millions can get a foot in the door.
I bet a console that anybody can afford to develop for [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console] would come in handy right about now.
