SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.