Tablets and smartphones will eventually take over (uncomfortable truth)

[Fonejackerjon]

Yes I believe tablet and smartphone gaming will take over consoles soon, why? because the few things holding them back are very simply overcome,

No psychical control = bluetooth controller support will be more standard soon Andriod now and IOS 7 soon.

lack of big screen expeience = HDMI out support and very soon wireless tv streaming support.

lack of power = consoles have a 10 year cycle phones and tablet improve very, very quickly. Compare snake on nokia phones in 1997 to shadowgun or dead trigger now.

Can some please explain to me why gamers resist this so much? are you happy with how things are now? $60 for a cut and paste brown, grey experience? lack of innovation? Say what you like about tablets and smartphones but the games are cheap and some are suprisingly deep and engaging. Vice city is £2.99 on android and apple but twice that much on PSN for the same game.

Why are gamers so willing to put up with the overblown, overpriced AAA gaming market and take all the shit that comes along with it.

What makes me laugh even more is how gamers complain iphone and android games lack depth. Which basically means they lack fancy FMV cut scenes which gamers only a few years ago used to hate games that were oversaturated with FMV sequences and story. The utter blindness that gamers suffer from is almost laughable. You may call this trolling but I think if you really think about it and open your eyes to what is happening you will agree.

Destiny, Rise, Dead rising 3, COD ghosts look like slightly polished last gen games. Same brown grey ugliness and overblown budget. How the console market has survived this long is nothing short of a miricle. But if you think that in 5-7 years time we wont be playing better looking and more user friendly games on mobiles and tablets then you are sadly disillusioned

 

[doomed89]

No they aren't and for the record lack of power/big screen aren't even the issues here are the real issues.

1. None of the games are built for physical controls so even if you do get one that can clip on it's lazily mapped at best and not as tight as a handheld or console experience.

2. No physical media, or even universal expandable storage as prominent as digital is becoming it's not even close to ready for a complete take over especially not with games as large as 4 gigs for handhelds and 50 gigs for consoles , especially when you are capped at a certain limit it fills up too quick and each phone/tablet is different devs have to make games so much smaller when going to phones and what are you going to do basically throw away all your games when you run out of space? That's what people do now and are only okay with it because games are so cheap, which brings me to my next point.

3. Price and Budget, people are not willing to pay 60 dollars for a digital game on a tablet or phone, hell they aren't even willing to 20, 15 is considered high end. Assuming phones advanced to the point where they were more powerful the handhelds and someone made a retail quality game on a handheld that was a actually good and priced it at 40 dollars nobody would buy it, the market just isn't willing to pay that much which means developers have to charge less, which means they have to budget less which means they can't make as high quality of a game.

4. Too much crap, there is so much shovelware on the app store and such that nobody knows what's good or not, and it's not bad when paying a buck but when paying 40 for something that's 4 gigs... nobody would buy anything the good stuff would get buried in a day and not make a profit and everyone would hate the massive risk they have to take.

5. This is the same one as pcs actually, even if current gen phones make it to a point where they surpass handhelds not everyone is going to have that phone, so your install base is extremely small unless you program the game for weaker hardware, not to mention the OS bog down and having to program for multiple types of hardware. Phones/tablets won't overtake handhelds anymore then pcs have overtaken consoles.

6. No first party to advertise or make games for the phones either, so the install base is likely to be less then a console or handheld at least the install base of people interested in games.

As for your complaints about games, stop just looking at highly advertised big budget cater to the lowest common denominator games and you'll find something far better.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Dont see it because quite frankly they only provide throwaway experiences at the moment and rarely have what one would call indepth games sort of like reading a magazine instead of a book.

Basically there seems to be little quality control so while there are gems there there is also a huge pile of shit games to wade through sort of like the old says before the NES came along and tried to sort it out (to a varying degrees of success).

Then theres lack of stability consoles having a long lifecycle is a good thing in some ways because you know whatever game you buy will work on that console for its lifespan. Unlike getting a phone where its outdated in a short period of time oh and for pure gaming needs phones and tablets offer little for the expense.

Consoles will survive for the forseeable future now handheld gaming may be different but I have yet to find an Android game that rivals the best games I have played on the DS or PSP. Also because the quality is so random I am much less willing to part with money for an android game even if its 50p or some such amount. Every game I have downloaded on my android phone I have soon wiped off they just dont do it for me or even work in some cases and I am sure I am not alone.

Games on phones and tablets will continue to grow but at the moment they are no threat to consoles they just dont offer a comparable experience while for cheap indie games at home the PC would be the best platform.

They arent bought for games they are just devices that have them and thats the only reason people play on them its not a primary reason for their existence, phones in particular do so much now that I actually see less people playing games on them than I did when the Nokia 3310 and its ilk were about, its about the apps now rather than the games on phone.

With Tablets I wouldnt be surprised if the bubble dosent burst and the market slows down considerably because they are quite frankly expensive for what they are.

 

[DishonoredElderSouls]

To add on to what has already been said, would you honestly expect developers like From Soft, Naughty Dog, Valve, Arkane, and Sucker Punch to just go ahead and say "Oh yeah, let's begin developing on tablets and smartphones, sounds like a great idea."

The idea of tablets becoming a major gaming source is very unlikely, plain and simple. The hardware will simply never match PCs, at any rate, which, in the case that consoles die, most developers would end up standing true by (especially the big boys like Valve and Bethesda). Not to mention that quite simply, most people would be afraid of change. Why move over to an Android-run platform with OUYA integration (seeing as OUYA is, according to most early reviews, an unfinished, glitchy console) and a constant stream of awful, amateur games when you could have your Halo, inFamous, and God of War? Even if the tablets were to end up receiving controllers, they would probably be very inaccurate and sluggish.

With companies like Zynga going under and the tablet gaming craze already going a little quiet, I don't see it happening.

 

[doomed89]

To add on to what has already been said, would you honestly expect developers like From Soft, Naughty Dog, Valve, Arkane, and Sucker Punch to just go ahead and say "Oh yeah, let's begin developing on tablets and smartphones, sounds like a great idea."

The idea of tablets becoming a major gaming source is very unlikely, plain and simple. The hardware will simply never match PCs, at any rate, which, in the case that consoles die, most developers would end up standing true by (especially the big boys like Valve and Bethesda). Not to mention that quite simply, most people would be afraid of change. Why move over to an Android-run platform with OUYA integration (seeing as OUYA is, according to most early reviews, an unfinished, glitchy console) and a constant stream of awful, amateur games when you could have your Halo, inFamous, and God of War? Even if the tablets were to end up receiving controllers, they would probably be very inaccurate and sluggish.

With companies like Zynga going under and the tablet gaming craze already going a little quiet, I don't see it happening.

Yeah at absolute best I can see phones/tablets being to handhelds what pc is to consoles but even that is a LONG way off if it ever happens.

 

[Bad Jim]

No physical control = bluetooth controller support will be more standard soon Andriod now and IOS 7 soon.

Sure the hardware might support it, but what about the software? How many devs will add decent controller support knowing that most of their customers won't use them? People carry the stuff they need. They need their phones, but a controller is very much an optional extra.

lack of big screen experience = HDMI out support and very soon wireless tv streaming support.

The target audience still uses 3" screens though, so most games will be designed for that and will look terrible on big screens.

lack of power = consoles have a 10 year cycle phones and tablet improve very, very quickly. Compare snake on nokia phones in 1997 to shadowgun or dead trigger now.

Well they've gone from being 20 years behind modern gaming to around 10 years behind. Very impressive. But they will always be behind, because lots of calculations require lots of energy, something that consoles and PCs have a plentiful supply of while smartphones do not.

 

[Doom972]

Regardless of the major disadvantages of touchscreen devices, which you neglected to mention and others have and will elaborate on, a vast amount gamers will keep gaming on PC and console out of habit alone. Also speculation != truth.

 

[thesilentman]

Right, tablets and smartphones will be able to edit massive spreadsheets and other documents. They'll also power our video game servers later on. That would sound great, wouldn't it? Having a server with PC intensive games in your pocket, right? Right??? IT'S GONNA BE AN EXCITING FUTURE!

/sarcasm

-_-

Yes I believe tablet and smartphone gaming will take over consoles soon, why? because the few things holding them back are very simply overcome,

One of those things happens to be nature itself. Come back when you can stop my phone/tablet from scalding my hand/lap alongside better performance.

No psychical control = bluetooth controller support will be more standard soon Andriod now and IOS 7 soon.

Like we all can throw money around. This is wayyyy too easily abused in the market.

lack of big screen expeience = HDMI out support and very soon wireless tv streaming support.

Legitimate point, but weighing a phone versus a computer will always lose as the computer is multi multi purpose. Creativity thrives on a computer, despite what people like to advertise. Indie games say hi.

lack of power = consoles have a 10 year cycle phones and tablet improve very, very quickly. Compare snake on nokia phones in 1997 to shadowgun or dead trigger now.

That's more than 10 years ago, try again. =_=

Can some please explain to me why gamers resist this so much? are you happy with how things are now? $60 for a cut and paste brown, grey experience? lack of innovation? Say what you like about tablets and smartphones but the games are cheap and some are suprisingly deep and engaging. Vice city is £2.99 on android and apple but twice that much on PSN for the same game.

No, we aren't resisting innovation. We're resisting the publisher's tendency to pull all sorts of bullshit, whether it be for mobile or for a stationary experience.

Oh, and that copy of Vice City? Notice how the publishers set the prices? Now what did I just say?

Why are gamers so willing to put up with the overblown, overpriced AAA gaming market and take all the shit that comes along with it.

I don't think you've been here long enough. We practically complain about this all the time. The Xbox One should ring a massive bell.

What makes me laugh even more is how gamers complain iphone and android games lack depth. Which basically means they lack fancy FMV cut scenes which gamers only a few years ago used to hate games that were oversaturated with FMV sequences and story. The utter blindness that gamers suffer from is almost laughable. You may call this trolling but I think if you really think about it and open your eyes to what is happening you will agree.

Stop generalizing. There are people like me who do look for proper gameplay in their games. Stop being sensationalist, calm down, and take a look at what's the state of gaming and what we're saying before jumping to conclusions. That would be bad.

Destiny, Rise, Dead rising 3, COD ghosts look like slightly polished last gen games. Same brown grey ugliness and overblown budget. How the console market has survived this long is nothing short of a miricle. But if you think that in 5-7 years time we wont be playing better looking and more user friendly games on mobiles and tablets then you are sadly disillusioned

All subjective. I personally agree with you on the next gen games, but I cannot agree when it comes to better games and user friendliness.

What I look for in a "better" game is better AI, better progression, and better characterization in the characters. Not better looking games or user friendly interfaces.

No thank you, I'll stuck with Touhou, Cave Story, Dota 2, Civ 5 and my other games rather than stick to seeing better graphics. I'm perfectly happy with the gameplay, and I won't give a damn about anything else.

 

[Tom_green_day]

cut and paste brown, grey experience? lack of innovation? brown grey ugliness and overblown budget. How the console market has survived this long is nothing short of a miricle.

So this boils down to someone else hating modern games. Well, that must put you alongside the likes of... Oh, every other person on the internet ever?
OT: I use my phone for phoning. I using my gaming console for... gaming! The only time I would hypothetically play a tablet game is when I'm sitting alone in my room and could just as easily play a console game which I feel has more depth. To me, tablet games are just glorified arcade games. Temple Run, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, that kind of game. How can these compare to things like Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands etc in terms of immersion or fun? Especially with stupid controls due to a touch screen, a tiny screen that you have to squint to see, and the general fact that playing on your device in public makes you seem pretty stupid (not my opinion but hey, the common one)

 

[klaynexas3]

I can barely run Terrenigma without problems on my IPhone, how the hell will it run anything worth a damn? Besides, saying tablets will take over the gaming market is like saying lipstick will take over the jock strap market. It's too completely different markets and consumers anyway, with a few overlapping people, who will just buy both.

 

[klaynexas3]

Destiny, Rise, Dead rising 3, COD ghosts look like slightly polished last gen games. Same brown grey ugliness and overblown budget. How the console market has survived this long is nothing short of a miricle. But if you think that in 5-7 years time we wont be playing better looking and more user friendly games on mobiles and tablets then you are sadly disillusioned

Of course, because all the money and all the technology is dedicated strictly to the look of the games, not how they run/play and what all is going on in the game. There couldn't possibly be things happening in these new games that require much greater technology beyond that of how they look. And we all know this because we've all played and gotten into the major coding of all these games. Right?

I'm sad that I even put up my initial reply, as now that I actually looked at this part, I realize you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Ebonrul]

I think that mobile devices are the eventual replacement for game consoles and PCs. Granted, all this really means is that both PCs and consoles will go back to being the niche utilities they originally were (giving nerd angst meaning as their beloved hobbies slide back into relative obscurity) while mobile devices go on to replace the television set and movie night as top tier entertainment.

But is this a bad thing? When EA turns it attention from the millions of console and PC gaming enthusiasts to the billions of mobile device users (and they will), all that means is a clear line of demarcation between mediocrity and a project that someone put effort into. When both PCs and consoles become the living-room centerpieces of the elite on either side of the coin, that will divert game choices that aren't actually choices to people who have no choice.

One glorious day, buying full retail for a roster update will be the sort of thing that only Zynga will be able to get away with, while we all have a good laugh at the fools willing to spend money for permission to pay a game they already own. Getting away with that is easier with a smartphone or tablet where

A: You already paid upwards of $300 for the device and...

B: You already pay a monthly fee to keep using it.

So yes, the inevitable future where Microsoft is right about how we enjoy our hobby is coming. However, they'll have a better shot applying it to a tablet or a phone than the new XBOX.

Yeah, the "Let's show them how to bend over so they're ready for it in the future" marketing strategy was still a bonehead move. Doesn't help to be right if you're right at the wrong time.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Right lets talk truth then, "phone" games at the moment are some of the worst shit you can find out there, only rivaled by the likes of Facebook gaming and the business practices so distasteful they would make EA blush.
I used to think the average free Flash game site is as bad as it gets but that is actually still miles ahead of iOS and Android gaming... real shock people might want to hang onto their current gaming level.

But sadly lazy trumps common sense and at some point it might become true that people will ditch dedicated devices for something barely capable just for that extra slouch factor, and then console gaming will be the neglected stepchild much like PC gaming is.

I really wouldn't mind a tablet that can do all the things I need, but you can't proclaim someone an Olympic gold medalist when they barely start to walk.

 

[tilmoph]

Not a chance. You do understand that people play console/pc games and tablet/phone games for very different reasons right? Console gaming is usually done for a dedicated period of gaming, where the ability to sit down, relax, and get absorbed into another world doing fantastical things is different than trying to kill time at the hospital while waiting for the doctor to come back with blood work results. They aren't competing with each other because they don't do the same things.

Also, how in the blue blazing hell are you going to do something like CKII on a tablet? How about RTS wargames? Rhythm games? How about something like Skyrim or Fallout; how immersive would the Mojave wasteland be on a phone's display?

Look, modern action shooters are, with rare exception, generic and boring, with cut and paste mechanics (with maybe one or two novelty super attacks tossed in), with bog standard action movie characters. They are not, by any means, the totality of modern gaming. And even amongst the modern, cutscene stop-and-go section, there are some decent gems, with brilliant stories and wonderful worlds that invite exploration in between the a to b sections.

I can see OP's point about $60 a pop being too much in most cases, but I really don't think it's going to break console or PC gaming in favor of phones and tablets, for the above reasons.

Disclaimer: the author of this post is a semi-luddite who has never owned a smartphone, and still fails to understand what in the hell the point of a tablet is. Also, he really hates touchscreen interfaces on smartphones that he has tried to use in the wild. So he may have some biases. He still stands by his observations.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The day mobile gaming takes over is the day I quit gaming.... Looks like I won't be quitting anytime soon. But seriously mobile gaming is a fucking joke. It consists of 10 million crappy copies of a few good games and microtransaction ridden filth designed solely to rip off kids who don't know better.

 

[doomed89]

10 inch screen/device defeating a screen that is between 3 and 10 times its size? I think not!

What is ACTUALLY going to happen is cloud gaming (or some derivative) will replace regular gaming. It's already happening with the PS4/Vita combo. You come home and play games on your big screen, you leave and play games on some mobile device.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony's "Playstation 5" wasn't a console at all, but instead was an exclusive service attached to a tv (or line of tv's) that either held internal processors or used cloud computing. It's most likely going to be a combination of both like (again) the Playstation 4, where a central device does the heavy lifting and sends game signals to a remote receiver (Playstaion to Vita).

People have been harping on the death of consoles for about 10 years or so, but they will not die, they will evolve.

The PC isn't dying either - it will also evolve.

My prediction? You're going to have a central "entertainment center/device" much like a console that will carry your common computer apps (microsoft office products, tax products, etc.), games, social media, etc. and will be accessible by your tv, mobile devices, etc.

In such a situation, consoles and the companies with experience in running them actually stand to GAIN not LOSE.

Wow you need to stop buying into PR crap. Consoles are here to stay in their current format until wifi is in every country Sony sells consoles in. Cloud computing is a concept that will never work on mass over the internet and cloud gaming is limited and costly.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

People buy consoles so that they can play those expensive, $60 games for a long period of time, with a controller and everything else. People buy games on phones so they have something to do while they poop and ride the bus to work. They are two very different markets, catering to two very different kinds of customers. Saying mobile games will take over AAA games is like saying Olive Garden will take over McDonalds. They are only barely competing in the same market.

Not to mention the multi-billion dollar corporations--both game an console makers alike--that are dedicated to keeping the console experience around. Console makers support game makers by offering exclusive deals and giving their games lots of free PR, and game makers support console makers by agreeing to exclusive deals and getting people to flock to their console.

 

[MammothBlade]

You're wrong, it's not tablets and smart-phones which will take over, it's this:

Okay, imagine that as an all-in-one home hub which can connect to all the peripherals in one house, performing the roles of home cinema, personal computer, stereo, games console, and security system via wireless networking. That is the future, tablets will be relegated to the role of a remote interface.