I think the market for people who just want a simple and complete gaming system will live on for much longer. You could equip computers with gaming controllers and hook it up to the big screen, but it's just a whole lot of tech work for some people. It's like doing a lot of work to get a suboptimal console clone in your living room. Consoles are the real plug and play, and I don't see such a market going away anytime soon.

I never liked them that much though. FPS feels lame without a mouse, and RTS is only viable on computers imo.

OpticalShot

Canada6330 Posts

March 19 2012 13:27 GMT

#22

While I agree that console games have been losing gaming market share steadily in the last couple years, I don't agree that it's 1) dead now or 2) will be dead in the future. As mentioned in this thread already, there will always be a niche for console gaming.

I'm going to compare this with the concept of PC Cafes. With the advancements in internet / online match making, why do people still visit the PC Cafe? For me, and probably for many others, it's to play with friends sitting beside you. It's to yell at each other, give each other high-fives, rage together and at each other, and to have a good time together. Of course, you could argue that LAN parties achieve the same, but even at this age not everyone has a gaming laptop that they can lug along. Now to console gaming - many (and probably the majority of) console games feature local multiplayer (2-4 players, usually). Until the society no longer finds value in enjoying a fierce get-together gaming session with friends, console gaming will not die.

Alpino

Brazil4390 Posts

March 19 2012 13:41 GMT

#23

I just want good controls, crappy web browser and mobile games have shitty ass control. Mouse and Keyboard or joystick is the way good games are played. (specially ofc, mouse and keyboard)

darkscream

Canada2310 Posts

March 19 2012 15:33 GMT

#24

As long as the general public is too stupid to be 100% computer savvy, consoles will feed and breed upon their ignorance.

TG Manny

United States325 Posts

March 19 2012 15:56 GMT

#25

Consoles aren't dieing, but if you're playing FPS semi competitively as well as RTS (you're here on TL...I assume you play SC), you'll find that the most dedicated communities to playing a game competitively will be on the PC. Consoles are a way of making a gaming community with your group of real life friends, more often than not. If you walk into a highschool, pockets of friends will buy the same console and same games to play together and talk about. (Same goes for college or younger gaming adept workplace)

The reason why PC seems so much stronger is because of the recent perforance increase with titles like BF3 on the PC compared to a console as well as modtool releases for epics like Skyrim which, in essence, are good. At the same time it isn't "sustainable" since new consoles will be releasing and I am sure beth and other modtool benefitting companies will be finding ways to integrate them to console releases. The true advantage to PC gaming is things like steam who promote non-blockbuster devs to make awesome games (and sell them for cheap!) as well as discounting the top games like Civilization 5, Call of Duty titles, and other desireables. With this, we find incentive to play console ports on our PCs and get in-tune with different communities. Remember all the times you login to a game hoping your favorite friends are on? Well...PC communities are almost always active, whether in game or not. You can have players on vent/skype/teamspeak avtively talking but doing work, surfing the web, etc which is a lot more often than console players. You can find times to game together much easier for one thing.

Consoles will always have a place, because of aforementioned PC illiterates, but also because they allow for benchmarking hardware for the majority of developers to make to and explore what we want from games. Recently, it has been found we want to play games together easily, both online and split screening. Rockband, call of duty, Halo, almost all of the wii popular titles are good examples. In addition, it is always comfortable to get lost in an epic tale for hours and hours a dozen feet away from your TV with a controller in your hand. RPGs and epic tales like Zelda releases and Lost Oddysy are games I prefer to sit back and play with my controller, while my shooters I prefer to be leaning into my PC screen. Yes, you can play any PC title like a console with a little effort, but the setup of the room has to differ to gain the full experience.

docvoc

United States5491 Posts

March 19 2012 16:15 GMT

#26

I see it lasting MAYBE 15 years. The thing is that our consoles now, though still powerful, aren't nearly the same difference away from phones and personal computers that they were about 10 years ago. the Magnum opus of gaming i'd say occured with the Dreamcast, N64, etc. era where there was no way in hell you were going to get to play 64 bit graphics anywhere else. Its started to slowly die after the Gamecube (which was fucking fantastic btw) era where the Xbox really came of age and the Ps2 did also. However, as that era of gamers, who are slightly older than me (i'm 17 so i grew up on N64 and gameboys and had no clue about the original starcraft till SC2 came out) who grew up on the very original consoles probably understand better than most that the difference between then and now is huge. Basically the PS3 graphics and XBox graphics from a powerful computer, though the cost is different still, in the future it will continue to come down and i'd not give it 2 decades before they die.

itkovian

United States1763 Posts

March 19 2012 17:39 GMT

#27

I've been under the impression that the console game market is growing. Look at the success of the wii, and how big of new demographic it was able to attract for example. Or look at the success of all the xbox/playstation franchises like CoD that are able to essentially reskin an old game and still make bank from it.

Just watching TV you get a sense of how big the console game industry has become. In my mind, it seems like the amount of game advertisements I have seen on TV recently has been growing. And the production quality in the commercials is always pretty high, they're even able to bring in big-name celebrities to advertise their product for them. The amount of money game developers able to invest in the market is a good indicator of how far the console industry has come, and how profitable they still see the future to be.

Now, if I was going to be worried, I'd be most scared for the future of PC gaming. It seems like high-powered desktop computers are becoming less and less attractive to customers, especially with the arrival of Tablets.

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

March 20 2012 07:58 GMT

#28

Well, I think for a healthy console business there must be a win win win for 3 parties which are
1. console developer
2. game developer
3. consumer

if either one of that die, the whole system will die.
What worry me is that the industry shares a small market with 3 main console's brand (i.e. xbox, PS, Wii)
Game developer, then, will have smaller base customer because they have to develop a game for a specific console.
So I think the best way might be one integrate console OS so that game developer can have one big customer base while consumer could choose to buy a console of a brand they like. Consumer will not have to worry about unable to play exclusive game.

EngrishTeacher

Canada1109 Posts

March 20 2012 09:20 GMT

#29

On March 19 2012 21:38 Zorkmid wrote:
I don't necessarily think that the rise of web browser/mobile games will hurt console sales, I can see consoles being more widely used for web browsing in the future.

This, but not exactly.

In the eventual (probably near) future everything (browsing/video watching/gaming/etc.) will and could be done anywhere at any time. My smart TV already does this somewhat as it has built-in applications for streaming movies / clips and playing games, as well as a 3.5 inch hard drive bay plus numerous USB ports for video playback.

This is all done on a cheap TV CPU; I can't wait to see what happens a decade from now.

Prev 1 2 All

Please or register to reply.

Live Events Refresh