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regift_of_the_gods writes:
"The results from the 2013 holiday season through January are leaking in, and they look grim: not great for Sony, bad for Microsoft, terrible for Nintendo. The PS4 seems to be outselling the Xbox One but both are far behind their respective sales totals of 2006/2007, when they faced off with the previous generation of consoles. An anonymous developer quoted in the TechCrunch piece notes: 'There are 2+ year old GPUs that outperform these boxes, and even budget GPUs releasing now in the $150 range outclass these machines... This means whilst the casuals are moving to mobile/web, the high end enthusiasts are moving to PC where games are better looking. The traditional consoles are caught in a pincer movement.'
Sony has just completed a round of layoffs at its Santa Monica game studio. Meanwhile, the future of Xbox within Microsoft remains cloudy, with the departure of CEO Steve Ballmer and the ascension of Stephen Elop as head of the Devices and Services group, which includes the Nokia/Lumia handsets and the Surface tablet as well as Xbox. There are rumors that Microsoft is negotiating to sell the Xbox division to Amazon, which seems to be trying to enter the game platform industry. Elop wrote the (in)famous 'burning platform' memo when he was CEO at Nokia, as a prelude to abandoning the Symbian and MeeGo operating systems in favor of Windows Phone; he also stated last year that he would consider divesting Xbox and Bing if he was named CEO."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by prospectacle on Monday March 10 2014, @06:36AM
These days game consoles are just a general-purpose computer that's being configured and sold as a special purpose (i.e. less useful) machine. You can plug any computer into a tv (by any computer I mean a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop). You can plug game controllers into any of them. There are decent games and graphics processors for all of them.
I'll bet sales of mp3 players are down as well, not to mention cameras, pagers, and electric-typewriters.
Convergence for the win.
Hopefully it's not long until it's all one, sufficiently powerful device that fits in your pocket*, and anything else (bigger screen, game controller, keyboard, speakers) are just things you plug in as needed.
*Some might say it'll be on your wrist or on your head, but so far I've seen no interface better than two eyes and two hands. That's not to write it off forever, of course.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ObsessiveMathsFreak on Monday March 10 2014, @10:34AM
So that I can experience the best that gaming has to offer on a tiny screen, whose outcomes I determine by jamming my greasy thumbs over large percentages of playable screen area?
Consoles have always done a few things right, and I see little to no indication of any serious changes in these dynamics -- in spite of the proliferation of tablets and assorted cellular iDinks.
1) Consoles are cheaper than PCs.
Say what you will about cheap graphics cards and performance; Even a modest gaming PC will set you back almost $1000, and much, much more if you intend it to last for several years. Consoles don't have the same on paper performance, but traditionally the uniformity of hardware and the dedication of the machines to running the game software has meant consistent, higher quality performance on that hardware.
2) Controllers.
PC players love to deride the game controller as a serious interface, preferring the (unoptimized WASD) keyboard and mouse for input. A lot of this has to do with the types of games at which the PC excels: FPS games, strategy games, point and click MMOs, all of which are centered around the mouse and keyboard.
The issue here is that over the years consoles also moved towards this type of game, and away from their traditional strength, Platformers. The ultimate argument against Keyboard and Mouse Supremacy was always and remains to ask such a player to finish one game of Super Mario World. This argument extends as well to 3D platformers and other third person title, titles in which the modern dual analog controller has become the tool of choice for simultaneous character and camera control. I imagine it is still quite difficult to play a game like GTA on the PC using only a mouse and keyboard.
3) Simplicity and Reliability.
In the previous console generation, with the PS3 and Xbox 360, standards in this regard slipped somewhat; however, there appears to have been a change in thinking with the PS4 at least. Nonetheless, traditionally, consoles had the singular advantage in home consumer computing of being solidly reliable machines. No driver issues, no compatibility problems, no updates required, everything Just Worked(TM).
Consoles were the original Plug and Play devices, with only the Apple mac coming anywhere near the same kind of reliability. This reliability was essential to the growth and mass adoption of the game industry(whether or not you believe that is a good thing). Let's not forget that gaming goes back to at least the early 1980's, with homebrew games on computers like the Spectrum and Amiga, and IBM PCs.
But such gaming was a very specialized hobby. PC games took -- and often still take -- many hours to install and debug to get them into a working state. Driver issues, crashes, and significant glitches are common to this day. Not everyone has the patience, time, or experience to hunt down bugs the way PC gamers are often still forced to do. This is something which traditionally never happened with console games, and which seems to be something manufacturers are by now keen to avoid developing.
But the final point is the most important
4) There is a place for (console) gaming: Sitting on the couch, in front of the TV.
Relaxing, sitting back, using an optimised controller to play an optimised game. Not having to sit at a desk, pretending WASD are arrow keys, or dealing with driver issues, or indeed, being distracted by the nearby distraction of webbrowsers, etc. Console gaming is at its best a highly focused, well crafted form of entertainment, preferably polished to a mirror sheen. Hours, days, can be happily spent in total immersion, enjoying the game as a complete, uninterrupted, and above all fun experience. I have never found PC games to be able to deliver quite the same experience.
But to each his own.
(Score: 3, Informative) by prospectacle on Monday March 10 2014, @11:41AM
Your point 3 has merit. Knowing that a game written for platform X will work on platform X because it's standardised, is useful. However, it's a double edged-sword. When a new version of that platform comes out, a lot of new games start being written for it, and you have to replace your whole system to use them.
As you point out, there is also the benefit of reliability with standard drivers, plug and play hardware, etc. I won't pretend there is no gap between PCs and consoles in this case, but it's nothing like it used to be. The gap has closed from both ends.
Your other points are not as strong, for the following reasons:
1 - Consoles may be cheaper than a gaming PC, but most people have a computer already, so the question is often whether a console is cheaper than some more ram or a graphics card upgrade. Often that's not even necessary, depending on what games you want to play.
2 - Any controller you can get for a console you can get for a computer, but the reverse is not the case.
4 - Lots of people use their PCs from the couch, plugged into their TVs, with something other than a keyboard. This hasn't been a benefit of consoles for years.
To address your opening question, I mentioned in the very sentence you were replying to, that you would plug in different screens and controllers as needed. So I don't see how small and smudgy screens are relevant.
The only real benefit of consoles these days is predictability. You buy a game with the same icon as the box your console came in, and one will work with the other. That's nice but not enough to keep consoles alive for much longer, I expect.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday March 11 2014, @04:18AM
" Consoles may be cheaper than a gaming PC, but most people have a computer already, so the question is often whether a console is cheaper than some more ram or a graphics card upgrade. Often that's not even necessary, depending on what games you want to play."
IMHO, this is why the entire computer industry is in a slump. Nearly everyone I know has a decent computer capable of playing most games on a minimal setting at least. Nearly everyone I know has an Xbox, PS2 or a Wii. Many have multiples. Throw in tablets and smartphones and the problem becomes:
Market Saturation.
Like has been said, Computer upgrades are cheap and easy enough that only marginal copentency with tools is required to change Video cards and memory. As I recall gaming rigs and parts are the only growing segments of the industry.
Most peoples computers are far more powerful than they will ever need, unless it dies, there is no incentive to replace. And little demand for more as nearly every member of a household frequently has their own device, especially phone, tablet and pc.
Consoles are frequently shared in a family while The last gen consoles still work and have a huge repository of games.
And of course, the recession.
When there is no clear benifit to spending that kind of money. The majority will just wait until they actually NEED something to replace it.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday March 11 2014, @04:21AM
Preview, preview, spell-check, when will I ever learn....
competency not copentency.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by hatta on Monday March 10 2014, @02:51PM
1) Turning your office PC which you already own into a gaming PC costs less than buying a console.
2) Console controller adaptors, or console style USB gamepads, are easily available.
3) Steam.
4) TVout. It's on EVERY graphics card these days.