Poll: CNN: Console Gaming is Dying

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Argh, conflicted. A lack of consoles would force the gaming industry to once again discover something other than low risk heavily marketed sludge, but it would also make people who are extremely adamant that it's 'CONSOLE OR NOTHING!' depressed. In the end, i may think they're narrow minded and losing out on so much with that mindset, but they're happy i guess

Lemme tell you a little bit about Sandy, the big fuck hurricane that fucked the eastern seaboard right in its ear. Well, for almost a week I had no power and got my kicks with books, a laptop, and an iPad. The iPad didn't last long because I'm not into sitting with a device in my lap with my neck bent at a 90 degree angle. I also can't deal with computer gaming because of the whole seated-like-a-jerkoff thing.

Unfortunately I have been forced into some PC gaming because of Deus Ex, Gothic 2&3, Nehrim, Vegastrike, etc, and I HATE THAT SHIT. It's just so frustrating sitting all hunched over like an assfuck putzing around with a mouse and keyboard that just sitting down to play becomes a chore. And investing in a special PC gaming station with a magic chair and desk that lifts the keyboard and mouse up to my sternum is just unreasonable.

I'm assuming when you say "console" you mean big, stylish box with a Sony or Microsoft label emblazoned across it, because couch (or Comfy Chair), TV, and thumbsticks ain't goin anywhere. It could be that Ouya will change the business model, or maybe TVs will come equipped with CPUs & GFX cards, or perhaps new contenders will enter the field, or maybe, and this shit sounds far fetched, but maybe games will be fully stored, processed, and rendered ELSEWHERE while you play it on whatever medium you choose, whenever and whereever you choose, via broadband, in which case COUCHTVTHUMBSTICKS will still be used most often. The bottom line is that "consoles" and PCs have existed side by side for about 30 years, mobile gaming entered the fray about 25 years ago, and that fucking couch has been the deciding factor in the dominant market.

Maybe I'm biased though, because my fucking couch is DOPE, SON...
WORD!

The argument should be about whether the current corporate structure of gaming is sustainable, and I don't think it is. The current market is a bloated behemoth in which creativity is a dying virtue and boardrooms control artistic direction.

And don't get me started on Mobile Gaming, that shit should be renamed Mobile-Distraction-that-you-use-while-use-on-line-at-Starbucks-because-the-barista-is-a-dude-today-so-there-are-no-tits-to-look-at.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the "console" isn't the argument. The argument is the current corporate structure of gaming

Don't take this the wrong way, but if sitting up straight to play a game is that uncomfortable for you, you need to work on your upper body strength. That's not healthy, man.

Besides, if you've got a laptop and a wireless mouse, you can lay down to play games. I do it all the time when I want to get some gaming in before bed. Or if I've just been surfing the web in bed all day and don't feel like moving over to an actual desk. I take a bit of a hit in performance doing it that way, but the only area of gaming I get into where I need /that/ much performance is when I play FPSs on tryhard servers (the ones that are just a step down from competitive PUGs in terms of how seriously everyone takes things.) For the most part, I don't really need that extra 3-5%.

Edit: If it's not clear, by "performance" I mean things like my reaction time being slowed down because my arm is dragging across a bed, instead of hovering over a table. I don't mean my framerate suffers or anything like that.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

If anything's killing consoles, it's the consoles' developers. Sony and Microsoft have made it clear that all the bandwagoning they did in the light of the Wii was just the tip of the iceberg, and that video games couldn't be less relevant to their interests in upcoming consoles.

Nintendo, for its part, has made it clear that while games are still their focal point, they don't believe a video game system without a shoehorned gimmick can compete with the millions of games that have done fine without it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Ignoring the fact that it's Catastrophic News Network...
It's difficult to say if consoles are "dying" quite yet.

The end of the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era showed a period of tremendous growth, rather than contraction.
So did the end of the PS1/N64 era.

This time...I see consolidation and decay.

It's a very over-simplified approach, but this is the first time I can recall since the late 80s where the console market stalled.

Looking at another field in gaming might help...
PC gaming stalled after its "Renaissance" in the late 90s, and now it's slowly recovering, though I don't think that's applicable.

I hate to admit it, but CNN might not be completely bonkers for once.

Is that what people really want? A Nintendo only future?

Sorry if someone has already commented on this:

We've had a Nintendo-only past once before.
Sure, the NES was great, but at the same time, Nintendo was engaging in nasty strong-arm practices because they had, essentially, a monopoly (until Sega, and later, Sony broke it up).

It's why we had $50 games in the 1980s.

 

[Wicky_42]

"...Gamers' tastes have evolved to include quick, bite-size gaming sessions -- something consoles have never been good at. (Gamers must go to the living room, wait for the console to power on, load the game from the main menu, wait for it to boot.) It's much slower than tapping an icon on the smartphone you already carry in your pocket."


I don't know about anyone else, but waiting for any of my consoles to power up is not going to make me want to give up and go play Angry Birds on my iPhone instead. Thanks, but I'm willing to wait for Uncharted or Halo to load.

That instantly made me think of all the old "PC vs Console" arguments - "but consoles just work" vs "maybe, but I'd rather have a deeper, more complex and customisable experience, thank you very much". How the wheel turns, eh?

The market may be evolving, but I agree that the news article knows almost nothing about that of which it speaks.

 

[MammothBlade]

...Gamers' tastes have evolved to include quick, bite-size gaming sessions -- something consoles have never been good at. (Gamers must go to the living room, wait for the console to power on, load the game from the main menu, wait for it to boot.) It's much slower than tapping an icon on the smartphone you already carry in your pocket."

ROFL OMG! No, not even close... So, wait, let me get this straight. The new kids (I use that ironically) on the block who entered this gen purely on the appeal of exercising with the toy their grandchildren bought them; they're getting bored of it? ...THIS is what spells the end for console gaming? CNN, I think you are forgetting something.. like, oh, I don't know, how about the people who have been buying video games since the days of the NES and even prior: the people who choose to sit down and spend 10 hours straight on the newest title from the franchise they enjoy? They do this not because it's quick and cheap, yeah, they do it because they love to willful and purposely spend their time this way. Do you know why these people will ensure consoles won't die? Because I do... and if you really want to know come close...

...closer

Spoiler

Angry birds isn't enough

People who really enjoy gaming aren't satisfied with the cheap, quick-bangs for little bucks phones provide. If phone games were the only games, gaming would lose most it's audience. There are people out there spending THOUSANDS on top-of-the-line entertainment centers just to expand the home-experience further. Gaming on consoles has been around long before the phone games, and it will be around long after, because it is fundamentally an entierly different experience. They are not competing, because if they were phones would have to be offering an equivalence of some kind to Gear/Halo/CoD/etc. They aren't... I haven't even seen a decent iSo Mario competitor for crying out loud, and it seems like that would be the first easy thing to emulate. Nintendo is pretty safe.

Perhaps CNN should actually investigate why wii's aren't selling instead of just looking at numbers and then making broad assumptions. Could it be that the core releases are far and few? Could it be the mountain of shovel-ware the wii is now famous for? That's what killed Atari, after all. It could also be that Nintendo stopped supporting the wii after Zelda, and some people could argue they weren't supporting it much right before then, either. or hell, most people who wanted one might *drumroll* actually have one already. There is only so many people interested in wiis, and now that everyone has one somewhere in their family, it seems pretty unrealistic to believe they would still be selling like they were when they were new. Anyone in the business will also tell you that hardware sales aren't quite as important as software, to which Nintendo is making none for the wii right now. The wii's decline makes absolute perfect sense, and in no way should be feared. Even Nintendo is fine with it, they have a new console coming out and a rejuvenated library and new exclusives on the way.

Exactly. I'm sick of articles which say console - and by implication, dedicated gaming is on the way out.

Games on the level of Angry Birds aren't enough for your discerning games enthusiast, of whom there are hundreds of millions who game not because they want a cheap timekiller, but because they want an immersive high-quality experience and are prepared to pay a premium price for it.

And good point with the Wii. Of course it's going to look like a gaming depression, since there was a massive boom with the mass market popularity of the Wii, and now its sales have plummeted. A lot of the social gamers who probably started with the Wii have moved onto mobile and facebook gaming instead. In the big picture, dedicated games will continue getting more and more popular, it has nothing to do with console gaming dying. The Wii's rise and fall has distorted game sales so it appears that the market is dying, when it's actually doing better than ever before.

 

[Playful Pony]

I actually think Jim Sterling covered most of the reason why Console gaming COULD die. Also, a new decent PC is getting cheaper and cheaper, and once the next generation of consoles show up and the benchmark for the next 10-or-so years are set, it won't be so hard to estimate what kind of hardware your PC will require to run most games for quite a while into the future! Of course, we PC users like to have just a little extra... Running those games on the highest settings, not to mention some PC-exclusive games that are highly demanding and visually stunning!

We'll see... I think the CNN are being silly though. So is much of Norwegian media concerning games.

 

[Riley Holt]

Well... I'll not get into any specifics on why this is WRONG, I will create a new slogan for CNN:

"CNN: At least we're not Fox News."

Because everything they say requires one to be in an altered state of mind to understand. And it's still wrong, just more amusing.

 

[Epona]

Which is why 60$ games exist.

...???

Adjusting for inflation, video games have only ever gotten cheaper. Even without it...Super Mario 64, Starfox 64, Majora's Mask, and most other AAA N64 games were all $70~ on release and I distinctly remember Turok being $80~. Even as far back as the SNES, Chrono Trigger sent me back a pretty $60.

That's the reason you have ridiculous situations like where Dead Space 3 would have to sell more copies than the other two games in the series combined just to break even. Part of it is that they're putting too much money into graphics and voice actors, but the rest of it is that games are outstandingly cheap, considering it's probably the only form of media that has gotten cheaper while production values went up as time went on.

I have no idea why people are suddenly complaining about the price of games so much. A brand new AAA title will cost me about as much as a tank of gas. It's practically nothing.

You should have been shopping at Wal Mart, I never paid more than $50 for a video game until this gen. I wouldn't have paid $80 for an N64 game just like I wouldn't pay $80 for a game now.

On topic, yes, console gaming is dying and the first post nailed it. It's dying because it's getting too expensive for everyone involved (consumers, developers/publishers, console makers). It can't keep going this way. Nintendo, recognizing this chooses not to take a big leap in tech but then choose to cripple their product with yet another controller gimmick.

Also, Nintendo is now raising their game prices to $60. You would think that by now we would be used to that price point but we are not and I don't believe we ever will be.

Another reason console gaming is dying is that as consoles become more like PC's, they end up competing directly with them. It's a fight consoles can't win due to their proprietary nature. Consoles were meant to be plug and play and they should still be.

Now on to the CNN quotes (wonder when we are going to get an advanced post editor on this site):

"...Gamers' tastes have evolved to include quick, bite-size gaming sessions -- something consoles have never been good at. (Gamers must go to the living room, wait for the console to power on, load the game from the main menu, wait for it to boot.) It's much slower than tapping an icon on the smartphone you already carry in your pocket."

Consoles have been fine at bite size gaming until we moved to CD's. It used to be that you could power on a console with a cartridge and be playing in only a few seconds. That changed with the Playstation where logos were used to hide loading. It just got worse from there. Guess where the fast loading exists now? On the handhelds. Most people that I know, though, still want to play full games on their handhelds but they do want to put it in standby at any time. So yes, people want bite-size gaming sessions but not necessarily bite-size games.

"You would think that XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade), PSN (PlayStation Network), and the rise of 'free to play' would have opened a door to smaller games that can take more risks creatively, but right now they're just cut-down versions of box-product games, or retreads of games I played on the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System)".

It's true that many XBLA/PSN/Steam Indie games are boring retreads of what was done better in the past and that is why they aren't as successful as you would think they should be. For myself I can say that another platformer with an 8 bit graphic gimmick is of no interest to me.

"This partly explains why Nintendo, after five years of phenomenal Wii growth, is slumping. Industry experts say they're not in a position to meet the demands of most new social gamers."

Yes well, social gaming exists best in a browser. For weeks my girlfriend has spent every free moment in some Sim City game on Facebook. Before that it was another game and so on dating back to Farmville. Unless Nintendo wants to release sim games with a social element and they want to give away the hardware and the games, I don't see why any social gamer would care about the WiiU. Social gamers are hardcore too, they may even spend MORE hours gaming that we do, they just don't pay as much as we do. In all the years my GF has been playing social games, she has spent $0 on them. I know some people do but do the micro-transactions really add up to as much we spend?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Which is why 60$ games exist.

...???

Adjusting for inflation, video games have only ever gotten cheaper. Even without it...Super Mario 64, Starfox 64, Majora's Mask, and most other AAA N64 games were all $70~ on release and I distinctly remember Turok being $80~. Even as far back as the SNES, Chrono Trigger sent me back a pretty $60.

That's the reason you have ridiculous situations like where Dead Space 3 would have to sell more copies than the other two games in the series combined just to break even. Part of it is that they're putting too much money into graphics and voice actors, but the rest of it is that games are outstandingly cheap, considering it's probably the only form of media that has gotten cheaper while production values went up as time went on.

I have no idea why people are suddenly complaining about the price of games so much. A brand new AAA title will cost me about as much as a tank of gas. It's practically nothing.

You should have been shopping at Wal Mart, I never paid more than $50 for a video game until this gen. I wouldn't have paid $80 for an N64 game just like I wouldn't pay $80 for a game now.

On topic, yes, console gaming is dying and the first post nailed it. It's dying because it's getting too expensive for everyone involved (consumers, developers/publishers, console makers). It can't keep going this way. Nintendo, recognizing this chooses not to take a big leap in tech but then choose to cripple their product with yet another controller gimmick.

Also, Nintendo is now raising their game prices to $60. You would think that by now we would be used to that price point but we are not and I don't believe we ever will be.

Another reason console gaming is dying is that as consoles become more like PC's, they end up competing directly with them. It's a fight consoles can't win due to their proprietary nature. Consoles were meant to be plug and play and they should still be.

That's another thing about the ridiculous prices people quote -- you can find MSRP, but it's hard to find the actual street price. I distinctly remember Wal-Mart being cheaper than what you see in those two fliers (one for Sears, one for Babbages) that are floating around the internet. It's like with smart phones today: even without a contract, you never actually pay the MSRP. At least the no-contract models tend to go on "sale" a few months after release and then never go off of it. Phones bought directly from contract based providers tend to cost a fortune to get just the phone without the contract, but that has more to do with encouraging people to sign up for two year contracts than the actual street price of the phone.

As for the rest, I saw this on another forum earlier today, sums it up pretty well:

I recall an example Milton Friedman produced:

A local business owner is going at a loss. He therefore increases the price of his product to make up for his losses. After a while he goes at an even bigger loss, and therefore raises his prices again. After a while from that time he goes at an even bigger loss, and so raises his prices for a third time. Yet he continues to go at a loss. Frustrated, he defends his actions by saying: "Only a fool would lower his prices when going at a loss!"

If you don't get the joke... please bone up on basic economics[footnote]That's a general you, not you specifically, Crono.[/footnote].

 

[Supertegwyn]

Its dying because its getting expensive. Microsoft, and Sony pass the costs of production down on developers and THEN consumers. Couple that with higher complexity tech and you get a perfect storm.

Which is why 60$ games and high dev costs exist. Consoles have become big business and far too big to be successful.

Adjusting when inflation, video games have only ever gotten cheaper.

On the PC, 60$ only happens on large AAA games.

Um. Kopikatsu was referring to your comment about Sony and Microsoft allowing costs to trickle down to the consumer, which, in your opinion, is why games are "expensive" at $60. Not sure why your response involves the PC since that is unrelated... unless you are blaming consoles for PC game prices (which is bull shit).

Kopikatsu is correct. Games are cheaper then they ever have been.
I used to pay $99 in Canada for the newest installments of Final Fantasy on the SNES. Most games hovered between $70 and $100. Hell, N64 games were as high as $120!

With games being a stable $60 in Canada for many years, adjusting for inflation, games are cheaper now than they have ever been. Not sure what you're on about.

If PC game prices have risen, maybe it's due to the fact that they were too low (to make a profit) to begin with? But that's another thread...

OP:
Yes, casual games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja will TOTALLY replace full blown console games... I mean, that TOTALLY makes complete sense. My attention span is only about 3 seconds, so I can't wait for a game to load. Heck I can't wait for this sentence to end... too late. I'm bored already.

Okay. I'm going to play some Angry Birds then post about all the cool shit in the game on the gaming forums. No, that'd be too time consuming. Ooh, something shiny! [/sarcasm]

Note: I don't even own a fucking cell phone, tablet/ Ipad or whatever the fuck the kids are using to play these shitty little bite sized time wasters. I myself would rather use my PS3, Wii, PS2, PS1, SNES, PSP, DS, PC and Gameboy Advanced to play much larger, meatier, tastier, more satisfying time wasters.

PC gamers pay more because developers use the PC as padding to ensure maximum market penetration. Since console gamers will pay 60$, whats stopping PC gamers from doing the same? Ever notice its always the BIG AAA games that ask for 60-80$? Never middle games which make profit even as low as 25 bucks?

If you can't make profit on steam, no one can help you.

Also its worth noting that even with inflation, pay hasn't grown all that much in America. In fact, all the jobs that are being added since the recession is low paying jobs.

"games are cheaper" means nothing if payroll is not growing with inflation.

To a market where very good games cost 10-50$, in a post-steam world, 60$ is practically extortion. Especially since those 60$ games are mere 13 hour campaigns at best.

To PC gamers, the differences are jarring.

$60! Considering that the average game in Australia costs about $120, $60 is nothing.

Stop your whining.

 

[TrevHead]

(Imo) When sites like CNN proclaim something as dead they only really mean corporate and big money.

I think many AAAs besides activision are feeling the squeeze, their bloated corporate structures (many games ending credits has more names from the publishing side than the devs)requires them to have safe cash cows that sell millions.

However many of the tried and true methods they use aren't working as much as they did in the past. Most MP genres have their own version of WoW that everybody plays because that's what all their friends play with clones struggling to keep up. SP AAAs like Skyrim and Borderlands are getting ever larger and more content rich with tons of DLC that ppl can play for months.

The new battles been fought between the AAAs isn't so much for our money, it's for our time that's becoming ever limited due to all these big popular time sinks.

The only other way publishers can go is to make smaller bite sized games and compete with the little guys on digital download, but AAAs have too much running costs to make them viable outside of a few popular social games.

Another problem with digital download is that consoles can't compete well with steam and smartphones. Outside of the odd hit like that new Trials game most XBLA games aren't selling all that great with PC sales usually much larger. Imo its as much to do with how lame XBLA is, low visability of products, crappy pricing models and sales and the high costs of getting them onto the platform and patching them, make PC the better option for many gamers and devs.

 

[Epona]

Its dying because its getting expensive. Microsoft, and Sony pass the costs of production down on developers and THEN consumers. Couple that with higher complexity tech and you get a perfect storm.

Which is why 60$ games and high dev costs exist. Consoles have become big business and far too big to be successful.

Adjusting when inflation, video games have only ever gotten cheaper.

On the PC, 60$ only happens on large AAA games.

Um. Kopikatsu was referring to your comment about Sony and Microsoft allowing costs to trickle down to the consumer, which, in your opinion, is why games are "expensive" at $60. Not sure why your response involves the PC since that is unrelated... unless you are blaming consoles for PC game prices (which is bull shit).

Kopikatsu is correct. Games are cheaper then they ever have been.
I used to pay $99 in Canada for the newest installments of Final Fantasy on the SNES. Most games hovered between $70 and $100. Hell, N64 games were as high as $120!

With games being a stable $60 in Canada for many years, adjusting for inflation, games are cheaper now than they have ever been. Not sure what you're on about.

If PC game prices have risen, maybe it's due to the fact that they were too low (to make a profit) to begin with? But that's another thread...

OP:
Yes, casual games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja will TOTALLY replace full blown console games... I mean, that TOTALLY makes complete sense. My attention span is only about 3 seconds, so I can't wait for a game to load. Heck I can't wait for this sentence to end... too late. I'm bored already.

Okay. I'm going to play some Angry Birds then post about all the cool shit in the game on the gaming forums. No, that'd be too time consuming. Ooh, something shiny! [/sarcasm]

Note: I don't even own a fucking cell phone, tablet/ Ipad or whatever the fuck the kids are using to play these shitty little bite sized time wasters. I myself would rather use my PS3, Wii, PS2, PS1, SNES, PSP, DS, PC and Gameboy Advanced to play much larger, meatier, tastier, more satisfying time wasters.

PC gamers pay more because developers use the PC as padding to ensure maximum market penetration. Since console gamers will pay 60$, whats stopping PC gamers from doing the same? Ever notice its always the BIG AAA games that ask for 60-80$? Never middle games which make profit even as low as 25 bucks?

If you can't make profit on steam, no one can help you.

Also its worth noting that even with inflation, pay hasn't grown all that much in America. In fact, all the jobs that are being added since the recession is low paying jobs.

"games are cheaper" means nothing if payroll is not growing with inflation.

To a market where very good games cost 10-50$, in a post-steam world, 60$ is practically extortion. Especially since those 60$ games are mere 13 hour campaigns at best.

To PC gamers, the differences are jarring.

$60! Considering that the average game in Australia costs about $120, $60 is nothing.

Stop your whining.

I would say Australians whine more and need to stop. The min wage in Australia is more than twice what it is in the states and it's pretty dishonest to not mention that when you are whining about game prices.

Stop YOUR whining.

 

[Souplex]

Which is why 60$ games exist.

...???

Adjusting when inflation, video games have only ever gotten cheaper. Even without it...Super Mario 64, Starfox 64, Majora's Mask, and most other AAA N64 games were all $70~ on release and I distinctly remember Turok being $80~. Even as far back as the SNES, Chrono Trigger sent me back a pretty $60.

That's the reason you have ridiculous situations like where Dead Space 3 would have to sell more copies than the other two games in the series combined just to break even. Part of it is that they're putting too much money into graphics and voice actors, but the rest of it is that games are outstandingly cheap, considering it's probably the only form of media that has gotten cheaper while production values went up as time went on.

I have no idea why people are suddenly complaining about the price of games so much. A brand new AAA title will cost me about as much as a tank of gas.

On the PC, 60$ only happens on large AAA games. PC games were always cheaper yet they suddenly popped up into 60$ mark when the developers complained about not having enough money to break even.

People tend to see that quite easily.

Because the PC is a significantly smaller market, so the only way to sell at all, is to bend over backwards to be cheap.

CNN shouldn't stop reporting, they should get people who know what they're talking about.

 

[Sylveria]

To a market where very good games cost 10-50$, in a post-steam world, 60$ is practically extortion. Especially since those 60$ games are mere 13 hour campaigns at best.

To PC gamers, the differences are jarring.

I just finished two $50 Console titles that lasted me 80hrs each...

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Consoles aren't dying, but the need to keep tech evolving and the economical need for the principle of planned obsolescence mean they have to keep pushing. The only reason Microsoft wanted you to buy a 360 for some games was so they could expect you to buy a 720 to keep up with your franchise of choice. Same thing with the PS3.

Nintendo's strategy doesn't so much rely on planned obsolescence as it does on brand appeal. They figured they'd make Nintendo a household name with casuals and non-gamers - THE reference that springs to mind when you think about safe and easily shared experiences. They've cornered that market, so all they have to do is scale that usability factor to hypothetically turn yesterday's Nintendo casuals into tomorrow's hardcore Nintendo fans.

Considering that? Yes. Ninty is very likely to survive a market crash, along with most mobile devs. "Hardcore" gaming could survive, if only the remaining two of the Big Three understood that pushing polygons and shaders faster and better than the competition isn't what matters.

If Microsoft and Sony gave us brand appeal, they'd stand a ghost of a chance. Master Chief and Nathan Drake don't count as brand appeal, as Microsoft's identity hasn't come to encompass the Xbox. Microsoft still hasn't made the Xbox out to be the one console people think about when they think safe, affordable digital entertainment. Sony certainly hasn't, either.

In short, Mario knows how to talk to my mom and grandma and knows which pressure points to pinch to get them to ooze mnoney. Microsoft and Sony are both ignoring the very lucrative casual market in favour of milking the early adoption wave and the dude-bro-graphics-are-everything crowd. They're going to regret it if this keeps going.